NY -- NYC -- Natl Museum of the American Indian (Alexander Hamilton US Customs House):
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- NMAI_160914_02.JPG: You can see the torrential rain storm that soaked us all
- NMAI_161004_020.JPG: Places of Exchange
Completed in 1907, the US Custom House was built when the United States was becoming an economic world power -- and the Port of New York one of its most prosperous trade centers. Duties exacted by the United States Customs Service yielded the greatest single source of revenue for the government before the imposition of the income tax in 1916. Speaking hundreds of languages, merchants came here daily, exchanging millions of dollars worth of currency. Just as Manhattan had once been a place of trade and cultural exchange for Native Americans, it now became a rendezvous for people from all over the world.
The architecture of the US Custom House was planned to reflect the role of commerce in American life, an America in which Indians had little place. In 1899 the United States Department of the Treasury sponsored a design competition for the building. Cass Gilbert won for his Beaux-Arts design depicting a grand monument to trade. On top of each exterior column rests the head of Mercury, Roman god of commerce. Statues on the sixty-story cornice represent the world's most successful commercial city-states in history. In Daniel Chester French's sculpture of North America (on the left side of the staircase), the Native American is symbolically left behind, peering over the shoulder of "America," who sits with ears of corn in her lap.
- NMAI_161004_027.JPG: Sharing the Circle
The approximately one million objects in the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) collection were amassed by George Gustav Heye (1874-1957). The collection spans the Western Indian people from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuega and from California to the Caribbean. In 1989, through an act of Congress, NMAI became part of the Smithsonian Institution, the largest museum complex in the world.
NMAI's George Gustav Heye Center, at the Alexander Hamilton US Custom House, is only one of the three sites comprising the museum. Plans are underway for a museum building near the Capitol in Washington DC which will be the public cornerstone of NMAI. Because of its immensity, however, much of the collection will reside in Suitland, Maryland, where objects will be housed, viewed, and used by native peoples for many purposes, including ceremonial rites and artistic reference.
Dedicated to educating the public about the diversity and vitality of native cultures throughout the Western Hemisphere, the museum actively supports the involvement of native communities in the management of their own cultural resources. A "Fourth Museum" exists in the form of outreach and training within native communities. Like a tree that draws its strength from many roots, the shape of the Fourth Museum is as varied and flexible as the needs and wishes of native communities, tribal cultural centers, schools, libraries, and individuals.
- NMAI_161004_032.JPG: This tablet dedicated to the memory of the men of the
American Merchant Marine
who gave their lives in the World War that liberty should perpetually endure.
"These men rendered one of the greatest services that could have been done for our nation and civilization's cause. Hundreds of precious lives were lost – a loss that can never be made up by their country."
-- Warren G. Harding
Presented to the Nation by the
William H. McClelland Post
No. 1 U.A.W.V. (U.S. Shipping Board Division)
on May 30, 1921.
Donated by William H. Todd
- NMAI_161004_064.JPG: The site of Fort Amsterdam built in 1626 within the fortifications was erected the first substantial church edifice on the island of Manhattan. In 1787 the form was demolished and the government house built upon this site. This table is placed here by the Holland Society of New York, September 1890.
- Wikipedia Description: National Museum of the American Indian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Museum of the American Indian is part of the Smithsonian Institution and is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the Native Americans of the Western Hemisphere. It has three facilities: the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which opened on September 21, 2004, on Fourth Street and Independence Avenue, Southwest; the George Gustav Heye Center, a permanent museum in New York City; and the Cultural Resources Center, a research and collections facility in Suitland, Maryland. The foundations for the present collections were first assembled in the former Museum of the American Indian in New York City, which was established in 1916, and which became part of the Smithsonian in 1990.
History
Following controversy over the discovery by Native American leaders that the Smithsonian Institution held more than 12,000–18,000 Indian remains, mostly in storage, United States Senator Daniel Inouye introduced in 1989 the National Museum of the American Indian Act. Passed as Public Law 101-185, it established the National Museum of the American Indian as "a living memorial to Native Americans and their traditions". The Act also required that human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony be considered for repatriation to tribal communities, as well as objects acquired illegally. Since 1989 the Smithsonian has repatriated over 5,000 individual remains – about 1/3 of the total estimated human remains in its collection.
On September 21, 2004, for the inauguration of the Museum, Senator Inouye addressed an audience of around 20,000 American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, which was the largest gathering in Washington D.C. of indigenous people to its time.
The creation of the museum brought together the collections of the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City, founded in 1922, and the Smithsonian Institution.
The Heye collection became part of the Smithsonian in June 1990, and represents approximately 85% of the holdings of the NMAI. The Heye Collection was formerly displayed in the Audubon Terrace location, but had long been seeking a new building.
The Museum of the American Indian considered options of merging with the Museum of Natural History, accepting a large donation from Ross Perot to be housed in a new museum building to be built in Dallas, or moving to the U.S. Customs House. The Heye Trust included a restriction requiring the collection to be displayed in New York City, and moving the collection to a Museum outside of New York aroused substantial opposition from New York politicians. The current arrangement represented a political compromise between those who wished to keep the Heye Collection in New York, and those who wanted it to be part of the new NMAI in Washington, DC. The NMAI was initially housed in lower Manhattan at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which was refurbished for this purpose and remains an exhibition site; its building on the Mall in Washington, DC opened in 2005.
Locations
The museum of American Indian has three branches: National Museum of the American Indian in the National Mall (Washington, D.C.), George Gustav Heye Center in New York City, and the Cultural Resources Center in Maryland.
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George Gustav Heye Center (New York City)
The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, site of the George Gustav Heye Center
George Gustav Heye (1874–1957) traveled throughout North and South America collecting native objects. His collection was assembled over 54 years, beginning in 1903. He started the Museum of the American Indian and his Heye Foundation in 1916. The Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian opened to the public on Audubon Terrace in New York City in 1922.
The museum at Audubon Terrace closed in 1994 and part of the collection is now housed at The Museum’s George Gustav Heye Center, that occupies two floors of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Lower Manhattan. The Beaux Arts-style building, designed by architect Cass Gilbert, was completed in 1907. It is a designated National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark. The center’s exhibition and public access areas total about 20,000 square feet (2,000 m2). The Heye Center offers a range of exhibitions, film and video screenings, school group programs and living culture presentations throughout the year.
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