Unearthing the Mysteries of the Frank Palmer Archaeology Collections

Summary

The Frank Palmer collections were the founding collections of the first museum in Los Angeles, the Southwest Museum, opened in 1914, and also for the Southwest Society’s exhibit in the Pacific Electric Building in downtown Los Angeles of 1907. Their profound importance to the individual founders of the museum, the Southwest Society and to the general populace of Los Angeles is well documented in meeting minutes, newspaper clippings and articles in magazines. The artifacts assembled by Frank Palmer came from all over southern California from sites such as Redondo Beach and the southern Channel Islands. However, the origins of the collections are murky as are many of their current locations. Additionally, very little research has been conducted on the collections and so they are poorly understood. Collections such as the Frank Palmer collections represent an important resource for research into early collecting practices and the aims of early museums and archaeologists. I plan on discussing my research on the Frank Palmer collections that I have conducted at the Autry National Center of the American West on the Southwest Museum Collection.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Crisis and Opportunity: Legacy Collections and Archaeological Research in the 21st Century

Keywords

Spatial Coverage