Cultural Exchange in Times of Crisis: A Historical Perspective from Mexico of the 1930s and ‘40s

Summary

During the depths of the Great Depression and prior to and after World War II, Mexico’s Museo Nacional de Antropología undertook exchanges, or canjes, of archaeological pieces with a variety of museums, disseminating small portions of its collection across the nation and the world. Actual trades of archaeological works were completed in the early 1930s with museums in Yucatán, Mexico; Lima, Peru; and New York and Chicago in the United States. There were more limited exchanges of casts with museums in Berlin and Brussels. In 1948, a particularly large swap was completed with the Brooklyn Museum. Other interchanges were contemplated, but apparently not completed, with museums in Colombia, Madrid and Philadelphia. Many of these trades were linked by the involvement of Alfonso Caso, the most famous Mexican archaeologist of his generation, and an important figure in archaeological bureaucracy of Mexico of the 1930s and ‘40s.

What were the kinds of objects that Mexico’s National Museum offered to and received from these other museums? What were the motivations for and circumstances of such exchanges? The incentives behind such exchanges seem to have transcended the needs of the Museo’s collection, and were related closely to cultural diplomacy at the time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22671