LOS ANGELES, CA.-The Autry National Center rededicated two galleries at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian—the museum’s first remodeling in 20 years. People of the Southwest: Changing Traditions and People of California trace the history of Indian cultures through the diverse objects they have created. Throughout, Native voices describe the adaptation and continuance of traditions in the Southwest and in California, home of the largest urban American Indian population in the nation.

Founded in 1907—and the oldest museum in Los Angeles, the Southwest Museum is a nonprofit educational and research center dedicated to preserving, protecting, and presenting the history and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with particular emphasis on the peoples of North America. The museum is located in the Highland Park/Mt. Washington area of northeast Los Angeles, between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. The Southwest Museum’s facilities include the historic 1914 Mission-Revival museum, the Braun Research Library, and the Casa de Adobe.

The Southwest Museum houses and displays one of the finest holdings of native North, Central, and South American material culture in existence. Its 250,000 items include archaeological and ethnographic objects from the American Southwest, the Great Plains/Prairie/Plateau/Columbia River, California, the Northwest Coast, and Mexico. This world-renowned collection contains over 13,400 baskets and 11,000 ceramics, including 2,200 historic Pueblo and 2,000 prehistoric Southwest ceramics, as well as 2,000 textiles, 700 kachinas, 800 pieces of Southwest Indian jewelry, 25,000 ethnographic objects, 125,000 archaeological items, and a collection of 6,000 Spanish Colonial artifacts.

The museum’s collection is enhanced by the Braun Research Library, with its holdings of 50,000 bound volumes and serial publications on the Native and Hispanic peoples of the Americas and the history and exploration of the American West. Also included in the library collections are 145,000 photographic images as well as 750 manuscript collections encompassing the works of the museum’s founder, Charles Fletcher Lummis, and Frederick Webb Hodge, Frank Hamilton Cushing, and George Bird Grinnell, among others. It can be said that the Southwest Museum material culture and archival collections document the beginnings of American anthropology.

Exhibitions and educational programs are the heart of the museum’s service to the community. The museum’s 10,000 square feet of permanent installations are divided into the California, Southwest, Northwest Coast, and Plains/Prairie/Plateau halls, with an additional 3,000 square feet of temporary exhibition space. The exhibits allow visitors to develop an understanding and appreciation of Native American cultures. Other museum public offerings feature student programs (including tours and the “Dig-it” archaeological program), lectures, workshops, dance and music performances, artist demonstrations, film festivals, book sales and signings, marketplaces, ethnobotanical garden walks, educator training conferences, facility uses, and cultural meetings. The dedicated docent and volunteer corps works tirelessly with museum staff to provide educational tours and assist in the presentation of museum exhibitions and programs.

The Southwest Museum Store is dedicated to the principles of authenticity and educational value in the sale of artwork, books, and other items related to Native American and Meso-American cultures.