Woman leaning over a display of Native American life at the Pacific Southwest Museum, [s.d.]
1 media/Woman_leaning_over_a_display_of_Native_American_life_at_the_Pacific_Southwest_Museum_sd.jpg 2020-11-11T17:14:35-08:00 Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e 38151 2 Photograph of a woman leaning over a display of Native American life at the Pacific Southwest Museum, [s.d.]. The woman can be seen at right wearing a blouse. She is behind a display of Native Americans working around a fire in front of a hut at left. A person is depicted at right running with an animal in his hand. plain 2020-12-03T08:31:44-08:00 USC Digital Library 1 photograph : photonegative, b&w ; 10 x 13 cm. Curtis Fletcher 3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673eThis page is referenced by:
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media/Woman_leaning_over_a_display_of_Native_American_life_at_the_Pacific_Southwest_Museum_sd.jpg
2020-11-13T09:20:24-08:00
“Woman leaning over a display of Native American life at the Pacific Southwest Museum,” 20th century
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This image shows a well-dressed woman looking at a display about Native American life at the Pacific Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.
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2020-11-24T19:25:02-08:00
This image shows a well-dressed woman looking at a display about Native American life at the Pacific Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. This display shows models of Native Americans working around a fire in front of their hut, and one man is coming back home with animals in his hands. This woman has good fashion taste which can be shown by her trendy hairstyle and trench coat. Her outfit also indicates her middle/upper-class status quo. On the surface, this image presents a well-established archive of the museum set-up and it reflects the leisurely life of the American woman. However, this image also reveals the colonial past of America and American museums. Native Americans’ lifestyle was seen as “primitive,” and this kind of anthropological study or display presents them as “uncivilized,” perpetuating stereotypes of primitivity surrounding minority ethnic groups. The fact that one person can go to a museum to study some other people’s lifestyle is very absurd because the nature of such a venture into this museum exhibit is similar to going to a zoo and seeing how animals live. In an era when the value of humanity is deemed important, such a historical display shows that human value is not equally engaged across ethnic groups, especially those of minority status. This image reminds the public that American history is a colonial history and that decolonizing the American museum is still one of the pressing issues today in the field of historical archiving.
