special Events Mark 



Field Museum's 



Diamond Anniversary Year 



This month's cover is a preliminary sketch of the new 

 Stanley Field Hall, drawn by Harry Weese and Associates, 

 Architects. Any Anniversary celebrates both past and 

 future, and, in the months to come. Field Museum will 

 consider its aims and hopes as well as its achievements. 



Dramatic changes in the appearance of exhibits in Stan- 

 ley Field Hall and an active calendar of spmcial events are 

 planned as Field Museum begins the celebration of its 

 Diamond Anniversary this fall. 



An American Indian Festival will be the of)ening event 

 of the 75th Anniversary Year. Opening ceremonies on 

 September 23 will launch three weeks of live demonstra- 

 tions of Indian arts and crafts, Indian dancing, sf>ecial 

 films and illustrated lectures. A pow-wow, arranged by 

 the Indians, will close the Festival on October 13. A 

 special Member's Night on September 27 will enable Mem- 

 bers to get an unhurried close-up of the activities connected 

 with the Festival. Sf)ecial exhibits will focus on "New Di- 

 rections in Indian Art," "Contemporary Traditional Amer- 

 ican Indian Art," and "Indians of Chicago, 1968." 



The re -designing of Stanley Field is already underway. 

 "Stanley Field Hall is the structural heart of Field Mu- 

 seum," said E. Leland Webber, Museum Director. "Stan- 

 ley Field was the real heart of the Museum for more than 

 50 years. It seemed appropriate, therefore, that this major 

 reinstallation during our 75th year be done in his memory 

 in the hall that bears his name." 



When completed, the hall will feature fountains, fXMjls, 

 live trees and plants and a rearrangement of the tradi- 

 tional exhibits, the African elephants and the dinosaurs. 



The firm of Harry Weese and Associates, Architects, 

 joined Lothar Witteborg, Field Museum's Chief of Ex- 

 hibition, in working out the design for the hall's new look. 



Among the problems facing the Museum's exhibition 

 and engineering staffs were the repositioning of the .\frican 

 elephants and the rampant dinosaur. Assistance in the 

 former case came from Leon L. Pray, a retired Museum 

 preparator, who had worked with Carl Akeley in preparing 

 the elephants for display nearly 60 years ago. No one on 

 the present staff knew how the elephants were affixed to 

 their base or what steps might be involved in attempting 

 to move them. Mr. Pray was contacted and his answer 

 not only allowed the Museum staff to breathe a sigh of 

 relief but offered a tribute to the foresight of Carl Akeley. 



"Answering your letter, re: Akeley's African elephants 

 in Stanley Field Hall: They are on separate frame bases, with 

 casters, ready to move. Simply tear off the plaster and 

 fiber surface of the overall ground-cover and there you 

 are! Mr. Akeley figured that someone would want to 

 shift them some day and that is the way he made them," 

 Mr. Pray wrote. The elephants will be slighdy north and 

 east of their present location in the hall and will stand on a 

 new, higher platform. 



The other large display, featuring two dinosaurs, pre- 

 sents a more difficult problem. The standing sf)ecimen will 

 have to be partially disarticulated and reassembled at its 

 new frosition, slighdy north and west of where it presently 

 stands. It, too, will have a new base. 



The 20-foot New Guinea ceremonial masks, brought 

 from the South Pacific by the Joseph N. Field Expedition 

 of 1910, will be removed from the present glass cases and 



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