SECRETARY'S REPORT 31 



John E. Anglim, exliibits specialist, visited the Chicago Natural 

 History Museum for the purpose of studying the exhibition techniques 

 employed in the newly completed bird, invertebrate paleontology, gem, 

 mineral, and mammal halls. Discussions were held with the exhibits 

 preparators and the respective curators. Several trips were also made 

 to the Museum of Science and Industry at Chicago, between June 19 

 and June 27, 1955. 



EXHIBITION 



The program for modernization of exhibits initiated during the 

 preceding year was continued in 1955 by a Congressional allotment of 

 $360,000. Contracts were awarded and work commenced on the com- 

 pletion of the North American Mammal and Bird Halls and on the 

 construction of the Cultural History Hall (Colonial tradition in 

 America) and the Power Machinery Hall. 



After many months of planning by Associate Curator C. Malcolm 

 Watkins, with the cooperation of John E. Anglim, chief exliibits 

 preparator, and the Public Buildings Service, construction was begun 

 in Hall 26 on exhibits depicting colonial life in North America. 

 Household furnishings and useful and decorative arts illustrating do- 

 mestic customs from the earliest settlements along the Atlantic coast 

 to about 1830 will be displayed in 50 cases and 6 period rooms. Two 

 of the latter will be ground-floor rooms of a complete 2-story seven- 

 teenth-century house from Everett, Mass., the gift of Dr. and Mrs. 

 Arthur M. Greenwood, of Marlboro, Mass. 



An instructive exhibit of "Folk Pottery of Early New England" 

 was installed in an alcove of the groimd-floor foyer of the Natural 

 History Building by Mr. Watkins and the exhibits preparators. The 

 redware and stoneware displayed in this special exhibit were selected 

 from the gift collection of Mrs. Lura Woodside Watkins. 



On the evening of Juno 2, 1955, the President of the American Asso- 

 ciation of Museums, Dr. William M. JViilliken, and the Secretary of the 

 Smitlisonian Institution, Dr. Leonard Carmichael, formally opened to 

 the public the newly modernized American Indian Hall. This cere- 

 mony was scheduled as part of the program of the 60th anniversary 

 meeting of the American Association of Museums. The ethnographic 

 exhibits in the hall range geographically from Tierra del Fuego at the 

 southern tip of South America, through Latin America, to the south- 

 western United States and California, and display various aspects of 

 the ways of life of these historic Indian cultures. The life-size groups, 

 a legacy from the past, were designed by the talented artist and former 

 head curator of anthropology Dr. William H. Holmes. Five minia- 

 ture dioramas supplement the life-size family groups and portray the 

 Indians who met Coliunbus, life in a Yosemite Indian village in 

 autumn when acorns are being collected in the valley below the tower- 



