American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History. Eskimo Hall.; Eskimo; Eskimo Collections; Eskimo Collection; Eskimo Hall; Eskimo Corridor; Eskimos; Hall of Eskimos; Hall of the Eskimo
birth: 1896
death: 1999
Permanent exhibition. Opened 1896 and closed 1999. Located on Floor 1, Section NC as the north corridor of the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians from 1896-1916 and on Floor 1, Section 7a from 1916 to 1999 (1, 1998; 1, 1999). The Eskimo Hall at the American Museum of Natural History highlighted traditional Eskimo (Inuit) cultures in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland and their ability to survive and thrive in the harshest environments (2, 1972, p. 137; 3, 1984, p. 42). When the Eskimo Hall was exhibited at the rear of the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, it featured murals by Frank Wilbert Stokes which were financially supported by Arthur Curtiss James (4, 1906, p. 19). Material for the hall was contributed by the Stefansson-Anderson and Crocker Land Expeditions (4, 1919, p. 99). Expedition members of the Crocker Land Expedition included Robert Peary, George Comer, and Donald MacMillan (5, 1919 p. 15). As part of the Museum's ten-year exhibition expansion program, the hall was redeveloped by curator Stanley Freed and reopened on March 5, 1965 (2, 1964-1965, p. 28-29).
The original iteration of the hall featured cases of ethnological exhibits on the Eastern Eskimo, Southampton Island Eskimo, Hudson Bay Eskimo, and Mackenzie River Eskimo with objects such as ceremonial masks, whalebone toboggins, stone-tipped arrows, harpoons, and coiled and woven baskets. This section also included exhibits on tribes of the Amur River in Siberia and the Ainu of Japan (5, 1904, p. 50).
The hall featured mannequin groups in cases, including one of an Eskimo woman cooking and another of an Eskimo woman fishing through ice. Outside the hall at the entrance to the Auditorium, were two related groups, including that of an igloo home scene of a woman cooking blubber over a sea oil lamp located under the Stokes mural Land of the Midnight Sun (5, 1911, p. 16-18). The material for the Eskimo Hall was exhibited within the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians until 1916, when it was relocated to the adjoining corridor (4, 1916, p. 87). The hall featured ivory objects collected by Peary, Comer, and MacMillan (5, 1919, p. 15). Before its renovation in the early 1960's, The hall also exhibited miniature models, including one of an Eskimo winter house in Cumberland Sound (5, 1953, p. 174-175).
When the hall reopened in 1965, it featured exhibits of tools, weapons, dependence on sea mammals, use of dogsleds, skin-covered boats, shamans, snow houses, blubber-burning lamps, caribou-skin clothing, bone and ivory implements, and children's games. It also included miniatures such as a Cooper Eskimo snow house (5, 1964, p. 18; 6, 1967; 2, 1972, p. 137-139). The hall closed between 1999 and 2000 and the LeFrak Theater (IMAX) Corridor opened in the same space in 2002 (7).