STR/581
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 10
Strategic Plan: Implementation Plan, Strategic Controls, and Contingency Plan Analysis
National Museum of the American Indian
Regina Snedecor
STR/581 STRATEGIC PLANNING & IMPLEMENTATION
May 29, 2017
ALEJANDRO MEDINA
National Museum of the American Indian
America has built several museums that are related to particular races in America. The National Museum of the American Indian is one of the institutions that are spread across America that are built to represent the culture and the people of the Indian origin. Indian is one of the minority groups of people who are believed to be the natives of the United States. The museum is one of the Smithsonian Institutions in America that are constructed purposely to language, literature, history and the art of the Native Americans who are believed to have occupied the western Hampshire (Thornton, 2016). The museum has three branches that include the George Gustav Heye Center, the National Museum of American Indian and the National Mall in Washington D.C. the permanent located in New York and the cultural resource center that is also a research facility in Suitland in Maryland (West, 2015). All the above facilities and services were housed under one roof in the national museum of Native American before they were relocated in different places to allow for the expansion of the premises all over America. This paper will look at the insight composition and historical background of the national museum of Native American and its benefits to the Indians and the American society as a whole.
Background of the National Museum of the American Indian
The United States Senator Daniel Inouye formed the National Museum of the American Indians following the motion in 1989, which resulted in the passage of the national museu7m of the American Indian Act. The Act was in response to the discovery of the native America that the Smithsonian institutions in America held over 18000 (Thornton, 2016). The Act resulted in the establishment of the National Museum of the American Indians, which was to act as the living memory of the tradition of the Native American in America. The Act among other things demanded the return of the illegally acquired objects and traditional regalia to returned to the community, and it demanded the repatriation of the tribes’ human remains, funerary, object regarded as culture patrimony among other to the tribe. Following the passage of the Act, Smithsonian has been able to surrender more than 5000 humans remains to the community, which is about one-third of the human remains in its custody. During the inaugural of the National Museum of the American Indian, the senator who introduced the motion addressed more than 20000 Native American, which is the largest gathering of the citizens in American history.
The law resulted in the merger of the Smithsonian Institution and the George Gustav Heye Center in the city of New York (Thornton, 2016). The Heye collection, which formerly displayed in the Audubon Terrace, was looking for its location until in the year 1990 when it became part of the Smithsonian institutions in America. The National Museum of the American Indian has several options to think of on where to be relocated ranging from the Ross Perot offered to be a house in the new museum house in Dallas, merging with the museum of national history or even transfer to the United States custom house. However, the Heye trust was another obstacle to the relocation of the facility, as the trust required that the movement of the collection should restrict to New York City and therefore the politicians from New York City opposed its relocation. The issue has delayed the relocation of the Heye collection to the National Museum of the American Indian (West, 2015). A compromised situation allows for consensus between those who want the groups to remain in New York City and those who want the collection to move to the rightful place in the National Museum of the Native American in Washington D.C. The museum was located in the Alexander Hamilton Customs House in the lower Manhattan before it opened its building in Washington D.C in 2005. The next move will be watched with many interests among the politicians and the Native Americans.
Locations of the National Museum of the American Indian
As earlier stated or rather noted in this article, the National Museum of the Native American located in their major places in America (Shannon, 2014). The national mall in Washington, D.C, George Gustav Heye Center that located in New York City and the Cultural Resource Center located in the heart of the Indians in Maryland.
National Mall
The national mall located in Washington D.C, and it opened in September of 2004. The museum remains to be the only national museum that dedicated to the Native Americans in the United States (Green, 2016). The building housed in the 250000-square-foot curvilinear house that painted in golden color. The museum located on 4.25 acres that are rounded by a wetland. Like the Heyes in the lower Manhattan; the mall furnished with several exhibitions, film, and video screening, living culture presentations among other activities that relate to the culture and the tradition of the Native American (Shannon, 2014).
The Canadian Douglas Cardinal designed the museum. Other companies developed the project, but during the construction of the building, Cardinal was ex-communicated by the original design remained his. In fact, believed that the building could be completed because of his input even after his excommunication from the project. The Native Americans run the building, and the design of the museum was done to be different from the European and the Euro-American culture. The landscape of the building is intended to meet the culture norms of the Native American (Shannon, 2014). According to the museum managing director, the museum was designed to be the trees, the water and the rock of the American society. The museum was intended to simplify the Native Americans. The Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe divided into Native regional sections such as the Northern Woodlands, South America, the Northwest Coast, Meso-America, and the Great Plains; the museum has published a Mitisam Cafe Cookbook.
The George Gustav Heye Center
George Gustav Heye was an American Indian native who traveled all over the country collecting natural objects and received them to a single center. His objects were assembled in America for over 50 years beginning in the year 1903. He was the man behind the museum of the American native that started under his foundation known as the Heye Foundation. The organization opened the Museum of the American Indian to the public in 1922 at the Audubon Terrace and later closed in 1944 (Green, 2016). Part of the collections that were in the museum become part of the collections housed under the Gustav Heyes Center that occupy the two floors of the Alexander Hamilton Custom House. The house was designed by architect Cass Gilbert and completed in 1907. It intended to represent the landmark building that represents the Native Americans (Rushing III, 2013). The museum located on 1.3 acres that are rounded by a wetland. Just like the Heyes in the lower Manhattan, the mall is furnished with several exhibitions, film and video screening, living culture presentations among other activities that relate to the culture and the tradition of the Native American.
Culture Resources Center
The cultural resource center located in Maryland in the United States of America. The resource center is managed and operated by the National Museum of the American Indian. The collection housed in an enormous house, which is nautilus-shaped (Rushing III, 2013). The building houses many collections, a library and has the largest photo archive for the Native American tribes in America. The center opened in the year 2003 by the National Museum of the Native American board. These are the three national museums of the Native American managed by a single board of directors that are made up of the Native Americans.
Collections
Most of the collections that were collected by George Gustav Heyes and that were under the foundation's Museum of the Native American were taken and are now housed in the National Museum of the American Indian (Rushing III, 2013). The museum is believed to have a collection of more than 800000 objects and more than 125000 photographic images of the past people and events of the Native Americans. The groups divided into several categories that include the Amazon, California great basin, Arctic and subarctic and The Andes. The collections also include objects or rather collections that have been done recently groped under the contemporary collections that include Mesoamericans and the Northwest Coast.
Most of the groups, which later became part of the Smithsonian, were collected through the efforts of one high man known George Gustav in early 1990 who traveled through America to collect the objects and the native paraphernalia housed in the National Museum of the Native American (Green, 2016). The collections in the museums are not subjected or rather protected by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act but protected under the National Museum of the American Indian Act that provided the model under which the museums created. Apart from the Act, the museum management talks with the native tribes over the need to safeguard some of their heritage and cultural items that are of value to the native tribes (Rushing III, 2013). The collections are preserved under the custody of the several workers of the museum through several ways that are used to protect traditional objects among the Native Americans such as smudging and smoking.
Conclusion
The United States Senator Daniel Inouye formed the National Museum of the American Indians following the motion in 1989, which resulted in the passage of the National Museum of the American Indian Act. The National Museum of the American Indian located in their major places in America. The national mall in Washington, D.C, George Gustav Heye Center that found in New York City and the Cultural Resource Center that located in the heart of the Indians in Maryland. The collections in the museums are not subjected or rather protected by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act but protected under the National Museum of the American Indian Act that provided the model under which the museums created. Apart from the Act, the museum management talks with the native tribes over the need to safeguard some of their heritage and cultural items that are of value to the native tribes.
Reference
Green, R. (2016). Infinity of Nations: art and history in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian. Whispering Wind, 44(3), 28-30.
Rushing III, W. J. (2013). Native American Art in the Twentieth Century: Makers, meanings, histories. Routledge.
Shannon, J. A. (2014). Our lives: collaboration, native voice, and the making of the National Museum of the American Indian. SAR Press.
Thornton, R. (2016). Who owns our past? The repatriation of Native American human remains and cultural objects. Native American Voices, 311.
West, W. R. (2015). The changing presentation of the American Indian: Museums and Native Cultures. University of Washington Press.
