Digitization as Repatriation?: The National Museum of the American Indian's Fourth Museum Project

Abstract

IntroductionOn February 2, 2009, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) announced the launch of its searchable online collection, part of an ongoing effort to digitize all of its artifacts and photographs. This event marked a milestone in the institution's "Fourth Museum" project-a reference to the "museum without walls" that serves the public outside of its three facilities in New York, Maryland, and D.C. (NMAI, 2009). With a particular focus on the digitization of the museum's photographic archives, this essay situates the Fourth Museum in its historical context, and then explores the possibilities and problematic issues of making these materials available on the Internet.NMAI and NAGPRAThe creation of the Fourth Museum is only the latest in a series of dramatic changes that NMAI has undergone in its ninety-three years of existence. NMAI began as the pet project of wealthy industrialist George G. Heye. The museum, arranged on the model of other established anthropology and natural history museums, displayed his personal collection of over 800,000 Native American artifacts purchased or collected on archaeological expeditions he financed. Many of the photographs were taken on these expeditions. The level of documentation of the acquisition of these objects varied, often depending on whether Heye purchased a large preexisting collection (in which case any prior documentation was often lost) or whether his field researchers collected the objects individually (in which case he required the inclusion of field notes) (Jacknis, 2008, p. 10).Initially displayed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, Heye moved his collection to New York and formally founded the Museum of the American Indian as an independent entity in 1916. During the Great Depression and the Second World War, the museum fell into a period of stagnation and financial troubles that lasted until Heye's death in 1956. These problems plagued successive directors over the next three decades. Frederick J. Dockstader, who served as director from 1960 to 1975, was accused of unethically deaccessioning and selling portions of the collection in order to fund new acquisitions (NMAI, n.d.).Over the second half of the twentieth century, the fields of history and anthropology underwent radical changes; new historians presented the experiences and stories of underrepresented groups-told in their own words-as a challenge to the focus on the "Great Man" in history. Ethnographic observations of "exotic" cultures recorded by Westerners came into question. Political activism was often tied into ethnic identity and representation; the Red Power movement, for example, sought greater respect and equal treatment for Native Americans. This shift towards multiculturalism affected the traditional conception of the museum as well. Many essays on the topic reflect a postmodern self-consciousness in the museum world, a desire to draw attention to the "constructedness" of the exhibit and give a voice to "members of the community represented in exhibitions," in addition to the traditional voice of the curator (Lavine, 1991, p. 151).In 1989, the Smithsonian Institution acquired the MAI, at which point "National" was appended to its title. The reopening of the museum reflected a fundamentally different attitude towards its collection - with W. Richard West Jr. (Southern Cheyenne) as director, the mission shifted towards collaborating with indigenous groups and documenting their contemporary lives as well as their history. This necessitated a change in almost all collection and exhibition policies. After shuttering the original location, the Smithsonian opened the George G. Heye Center in New York City in 1994 and the Cultural Resource Center in Suitland, Maryland in 1999. It has been the addition of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington D.C., opened to the public in 2004, that has attracted the most attention, however, and generally mentions of the NMAI refer primarily to the exhibitions and facilities of this building. …