The Museum Of Anthropology And The Smithsonian Museum

Museums serve as a way to connect with the public on a large scale, and the knowledge held within exhibits can be a fruitful experience for those who choose to visit these institutions. Experiencing all that a museum has to offer, no matter how well intentioned, can at times be confusing and overwhelming to the individuals visiting the site. The Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian dedicates itself to Native Americans in North and South America, and worked tirelessly with varying tribes to create a new standard. Some visitors and scholars found their work to be successful in design and approach while others found it to be lacking in execution. This institution does not approach Native American history in a familiar fashion; however it does cover an expansive period of time, and produces a great amount of detail while generating powerful emotions.

Museums collect information to show to the public for educational advancement and personal enjoyment. Museum curators have a very imperative job, when it comes to the success of a museum. Museum curators take the time and dedication to find artifacts that not only fit the theme of the museum but they also have to consider price, authenticity, and origin. The artifacts chosen mush hold a “Wow” factor registering remembrance and relevance into the minds of its visitors. The artifacts should be chosen based upon significance not the monetary value.

Museums have long served a purpose as cultural staples. For every museum, big and small, careful consideration is used in selecting its contents. When securing new items for a museum, it is most important to consider public appeal, educational value, and cost-effectiveness.

Positioned alongside Central Park in the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museum, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a certain set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within the museum. Brent Plate in Religion, Art, and Visual Culture argues that “objects obtain different meanings in different locations and historical settings.”An object placed on display behind a glass case inside a museum would hold a vastly different meaning if it was put on sale by a street vendor, like the ones who set up their tables in close proximity to the Met. The different meanings that objects are able to obtain is attributed to the relationships that are established between the object itself and the environment that surrounds it. These relationships often involve the kind of audience that a museum attracts, where the work is exhibited, and how the exhibits within a museum is planned out. Museums subsequently have the ability to control how these relationships are established which influences the way a viewer is able to construct meaning. When a visitor observes an object on display at the Met, they instinctively construct a certain set of

Cooper states that “museums came to understand that their unique educational ability was that of object-based learning...the possession of objects made museums different” (65). I tend to agree with that statement with some caveats. Firstly, object-based learning can happen without collections. Secondly, is the additional unique opportunity potential for lifelong learning. The museum is a place that can assist, contrast, or provide learning at every stage of a person’s life. For instance, the Mission museums in California are a resource for public elementary school curriculum (Dartt-Newton 97). As people of all ages from the public look to museums as an educational authority, the material presented needs to be as scrutinized as any other

The interpretation and appropriation of culture within museums came under attack starting in the 1960’s. Native American groups raised questions about the biases and agendas of curators and museums and demanded that their voices be heard in the political arena. Many Native American organizations argued that if Whites are the ones interpreting and appropriating other cultures, then it is actually their culture on exhibition.(King 1998: 96, Stocking Jr. 1985: 88, Patterson 2014: 52). Deidre Sklar, a researcher of Native American artifacts, stated that: “Time and space in a museum, are defined in terms of the confines of the collection, not of the context from which [the collection is] drawn. Visiting hours from ten to five and the glass exhibit case define EuroAmerican, not Native American time and space” (Weil 2004:3). In response to this outcry, the Museums of the American Indian Act was created and signed on November 28, 1989, enabling the creation of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). The NMAI is arguably the most famous native-run institution and acts as a living memorial to Native Americans and their traditions (King 1998: 106).

This article provides information concerning: memories that society wants to acknowledge and pass on to future generations; the manner in which those memories are represented; the responsibility that society has to fully represent aspects of history while also brining into questions the unwillingness to recognise and respect different conceptions of history and how this can diminish the potential that museums have to advance cross-cultural understanding.

The authors state that the museum is part of the US right wing religious (and political) mainstream and is used as a weapon in the so-called culture war. Righting America tries to answer the following questions: What exactly is the message of the museum and how is it conveyed? How are the museum-goers constituted as Christians – and as Americans? And what are the implications for American politics and religions? To answer those questions thoroughly, the authors visited the museum on multiple occasions and gathered plenty of material. Their approach was to look at it as a museum-like institution, at its treatment of the Bible and its representation of science. It is generally understood that when a site refers to itself as a ‘museum’, several criteria must be met. The authors identify several aspects, among others, that it should be a place of education and thus gain a protective status. They also provide the reader with a brief insight into the history and exhibition methods of museums in general and in doing so reveal the clever techniques employed by Ken Ham and AiG who established a site that seems to be built on knowledge and facts but in truth is a subjective outlet of Evangelical beliefs. The founders of the Creation Museum use the implicit knowledge behind the term ‘museum’ (a place of insight and knowledge) for

The adventure to University of British Columbia, Museum of Anthropology was a memorable trip in my life since I immigrated to Canada five years ago. Since my arrival I had never known that they were aboriginal people residing in Canada. The aboriginal will feel a sense of identity when their land and artifacts are recognized since the time of colonization

Washington, D. C. is not only one of the most popular tourists destinations in the United States, but because it is the capital of the United States, there is an enormous amount of history associated with the city. In fact, you could never see all of the great sites in one visit, but if you only visit this city once, there are three sites that you must see on your trip. The following is a brief description of these sites.

In March of 2010, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History marked its 100th anniversary with the opening of the Hall of Human Origins exhibit. The Hall of Human Origins is comprised of information that takes museum-goers back in time to witness human development over the course of thousands of years and its impact on the world. For many, this exhibit serves as an environment that fosters learning, increases knowledge, and sparks interest in anthropic history. Yet for others, this exhibit sticks out like a sore thumb, due to the fact that an exhibit based on the premise of evolution goes entirely against what a large majority of Americans still hold to be true- creationism. The support for creationism and backlash against evolution has remained ever present despite years of knowledge accumulation within the scientific community. This plethora of discovery is laid out on the table as the sections of the exhibit delve into a variety of topics ranging from the origins of language, social structure, and our impact on the earth throughout the years. Despite the sections being seemingly geared towards pro-evolution museum goers, it is evident, through observation, that the museum developers had the goal of appealing to creationists as well. They did this through finding common ground on both the side of evolutionists and creationists, common ground which is rooted in anthropocentrism. The language and rhetoric used within the Hall of Human Origins emphasizes the anthropocentric

The Smithsonian Institution is an Independent Executive Agency under the United States government, but was not always that. In the beginning, the primary building was the estate of a British scientist by the name of James Smithson. In 1829, James Smithson passed away, and lest an unusual request in his will. According to the Smithsonian's web page, this request was that his whole estate would be given to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” James had always been a man fond of the sciences and he was a part of the Royal Society of London since age 22, and had published several scientific papers. "In 1802, he overturned

The Smithsonian Institute provides us with 19 Amazing historical museums, but they can not be funded relying on solely government funds. All of the Museums are located relatively close to one another and most are on the National Mall. Each of them provides us with a different type of history, whether it's a culture, telling of history, or art. Also, they are a great place to learn numerous things. The Smithsonian Institute is a series of educational museums that if you donate historical items or some monthly donations it can help them fund their exhibitions and research that gives us knowledge about our past, different cultures and teach us about the present time and new technologies.

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The museum has an excellent Indian collection and it has an equally excellent natural history collection. After we have spent several hours visiting both …I turned to my father and asked, “why do they show Indians with all the mammoths and dinosaurs? My father replied, in a comment that came as close to sardonicism as his usually gentle nature permitted, “I believe they must think we, too, are dead.” “Museum Different”would not look anything like a natural history museum or a museum of anthropology.