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Hearst
Museum Timeline
Phoebe A. Hearst (1842-1919) seated on camel (center) at Giza,
Egypt, c. 1905 |
| Phoebe
Hearst Era (1901-20) |
The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology was established
by the UC Regents in 1901. Its major patron, Phoebe Hearst,
supported systematic collecting efforts by archaeologists and
ethnologists who acquired the nucleus of the museum's collections
early in the 20th century. The core collection came from expeditions
that Hearst sponsored within California, to Egypt and Peru,
to the Mediterranean for classical antiquities, and to highland
Guatemala for Mayan textiles. |
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Alaskan,
Eskimo mask |
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| Transition
(1920-45) |
Storage chest.
Haida, Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C. |
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After
the early years of tremendous activity marked by the death of
Hearst in 1919 came a retrenchment that resulted from the Depression
and war. Collecting declined overall, but some areas, especially
archaeology of California and Nevada, saw an expansion.
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| Revival
(1945-60) |
After the war and the retirement of Alfred Kroeber in 1947,
collecting at the museum revived. Hired to succeed Kroeber,
archaeologist Robert F. Heizer substantially increased the collections
in California and Nevada archaeology during the 1950s. With
the expansion of American anthropology beyond Native America,
the museum's collections grew in new areas, such as Latin America.
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Two-part clay
mold, and unfinished pot by Wencelao Pena, 1959. Tzintzuntzan,
Michoacan, Mexico |
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Culmination (1960-80) |
Headpiece
for dance costume. Ibibio, Nigeria
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Under
the directorship of William R. Bascom (1957-79), an Africanist,
the museum entered its second great period of collecting, and
holdings from the continent greatly increased. During this period
anthropology faculty and graduate enrollment at UC Berkeley
and across the nation grew substantially. Graduate students
working in Japan, India, Indonesia and Oceania returned to Berkeley
with many significant collections. |
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Recent Years (1980-2001) |
Though the museum still acquires accessions, its focus has shifted
from collecting to preservation, conservation, and record-keeping
and use of the collections for research, exhibition, outreach,
and education.
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Soapstone
carving of a walrus by Iyola Kinguatsiak. Inuit, Canada
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