U.S. Department of the Interior Museum

12/01/2022

Choctaw artist J. Dylan Cavin’s portraiture often features friends and family. In this untitled example of contemporary ledger art, Cavin has rendered a man in ink and wash on antique paper: a page repurposed from a 1901–1902 "Order of Court from the City of Tahlequah, Indian Territory."

Ledger art first appeared in the mid 19th century. With the scarcity of bison and the increased access to bound journals from merchants, missionaries, and government officials, Plains artists began transitioning narrative paintings from hides to paper. Ledger art is enjoying a resurgence more than a century later as Native artists are reconnecting with this tradition and interpreting both historical and contemporary themes. (OSAC 07373)

11/30/2022

Award-winning Tlingit artist James Johnson is the creative force behind "Continuous Knowledge," a contemporary Northwest Coast Alaska Native formline design characterized by ovoid and U-shaped elements to convey space and visual harmony. Born and raised in Juneau, Alaska, Johnson honors his ancestors by perpetuating Tlingit art forms in mixed media, on canvas, in sculpture, and as carved masks. His work is also in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Sioux Indian Museum. (OSAC 07373)

11/29/2022

For the remainder of , we're sharing pieces from our collection by contemporary Native artists. Here is "Sunrise Red Lodge" (2021) by renowned Montana-based artist Allen KnowsHisGun, whose works often reflect aspects of his Crow heritage. His carefully-researched scenes of Plains Indian life—both historical and present-day—are further informed by his undergraduate degree in American Indian Studies from Haskell Indian Nations University and a Master’s degree in Indigenous Studies from the University of Kansas. Past exhibitions of his art have appeared at the Gilcrease Museum, the Museum of the Plains Indian, the Montana State University Gallery, and Haskell Indian Nations University.

(OSAC 07372)

11/28/2022

📌Due to special events in the Stewart Lee Udall Building, there will be no public access to the Interior Museum on Wednesday, November 30, 2022. The museum will resume normal public hours on Thursday, December 1, 2022, at 9 AM.📌

11/24/2022

We're thankful for all of you! Wishing you and yours a happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving! We're thankful for America's beautiful public lands and waters, our collaborative partnerships with Tribal Nations as we work to honor our responsibilities, and the role we are taking to deliver on ambitious climate and clean energy goals. Most of all we're thankful for the passionate employees who make it all possible.

Photo by Scott Malagold

11/14/2022

Time to ! This annual celebration promotes cultural pride for American Indians and Alaska Natives, showcases individual tribal identity, and honors ancestors. We’re pleased to share this touchable pair displayed in our "People, Land, and Water" exhibition. By integrating traditional beadwork designs onto classic sneakers, artist Steve Zimmerman (Cheyenne River Sioux) inspires a creative take on moccasins, introducing them to new audiences.

11/12/2022

Veterans Day 2022

Thanking our veterans on this day and every day...

11/11/2022

In the week leading up to this , the
U.S. Department of the Interior Museum placed ribbons alongside the portraits in our headquarters building of U.S. Department of the Interior secretaries who are veterans of U.S. armed forces. Pictured is 35th secretary Douglas McKay's portrait receiving its ribbon. McKay was a veteran of World War I and World War II.

11/06/2022

🦬 We leave you with one last bison on this , courtesy of artist Bob Hines (1912-1994). This a detail from a larger painted panel he created circa 1957 for the entryway of what was once the Bureau of Sport Fisheries & Wildlife.

📷 Painted detail showing an adult bison standing in 3/4 left profile in tall grass, with its head turned to face the viewer. U.S. Department of the Interior Museum collection, INTR 02451.

11/05/2022

For this , we wanted to share these bison "roaming" the halls of the U.S. Department of the Interior! This detail is from a 13-foot bas-relief made from Missouri marble entitled, "American Bison" sculpted by Boris Gilbertson (1907-1982) and installed on the first floor of our headquarters building in 1940. Weighing in at a hefty 3.75 tons, these bison were modeled after ones Gilbertson observed at zoos and national parks.

Fun fact: if you visit the Interior Museum in person, you'll see this bas relief in the corridor just before entering the museum!

📷Detail close-up of a marble bas-relief. There are portions of two juvenile bison shown in right profile and a larger adult bison shown in left profile.

11/05/2022

Happy National Bison Day!🦬 Did you know that the bison is not only the national mammal but also on the official U.S. Department of the Interior seal?

On National Bison Day, we celebrate this majestic symbol of strength and resilience.

This magnificent animal joins the ranks of the bald eagle as the official symbol of our country — and much like the eagle, they’re a symbol of our American identity and one of the greatest conservation success stories of all time. Since the late 19th century, Interior -- in collaboration with Tribes, states and conservationists -- has been the primary national conservation steward of the bison and manages:

🦬 17 bison herds
🦬 10,000 bison
🦬 on 4.6 million acres of public lands
🦬 in 12 states

Learn more about our national mammal: https://www.doi.gov/blog/15-facts-about-our-national-mammal-american-bison

Photo by Yueru Hao

10/28/2022

Several of our staff headed to Temecula, CA, this week for . Thanks for the hands-on workshops, sessions, and thoughtful conversations that engaged, enriched, and inspired!

📷 Spiral-bound conference program with artwork and "Intertwined Cultures: Stronger Together"; close-up of a person handling a basket in a workshop on conservation techniques; conference attendees in a room for a workshop on the care and cleaning of ceramics; a conference attendee trying out a handheld scanner in a digitization workshop.

10/25/2022

⏳Only one week remains to submit your NCPE internship application by the November 1 deadline! For more info on the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum's 640-hour, paid internship, visit https://preservenet.org/job/national-park-service-ncpe-internship-program-washington-d-c-dc-internship-ncpe-internship-museum-collections-intern-640-hours/.

For the listing of *all* 30 NCPE opportunities, visit https://preservenet.org/ncpe-internships/

📷 Collage of 12 photos of interns working with Interior Museum collections in a variety of settings.

10/25/2022

🦇🦇🦇 Bat Week is upon us! 🦇🦇🦇

It's ! This week we celebrate the role of bats in nature and all of the things these fantastic creatures do for us.

Bats are amazing creatures that are vital to the health of our natural world and economy. Although we may not always see them, bats are hard at work all around the world each night - eating tons of insects, pollinating flowers, and spreading seeds that grow new plants and trees. Over 300 species of fruit depend on bats for pollination.

Learn more: https://batweek.org/.

Check out more bat facts: https://www.doi.gov/blog/13-facts-about-bats. 🦇

Bat Week Bat Conservation International

10/16/2022

For Hispanic Heritage Month, we're sharing these two pieces from our collection entitled, "El Planeta Provee (Earth Provides)" and "Siembra (Sowing)" by artist, educator, and conservationist, José González. He had presented these to former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in his role as the founder of Latino Outdoors, an organization dedicated to amplifying the Latino experience by creating a community of leaders in conservation and outdoor education. These works of art are part of González's "Culturaleza" portfolio which he describes as "the mestizaje of art, culture, and the environment/nature."

📷 OSAC 07215 and OSAC 07217

10/13/2022

In honor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wildlife Refuge Week, we're highlighting just a few of the works of art in our collection featuring refuges from coast to coast. Clockwise from top left is Darby Hayes' 2011 photograph of the spring elk migration at the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming (OSAC 07231); Lydia Thompson's 2000 watercolor of the birds of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia (OSAC 07358); Florian Shulz's circa 2015 photograph of the Central Arctic Caribou Herd at Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (OSAC 07175); and Ron Louque's print of snow geese flying over Virginia's Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, featured on the 2003-2004 Federal Duck Stamp (OSAC 07103).

10/12/2022

fun fact: fossils are literally part of our U.S. Department of the Interior headquarters building! The outer walls are limestone quarried in Bedford, Indiana, the "Limestone Capital of the World." 👀 Lean in for a closer look and see all the Mississippian period shell fragments!

📷 Close-up image of Indiana limestone comprising the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC, superimposed by a photo of the building itself.

10/12/2022

Happy ! While there are only a few fossils in our U.S. Department of the Interior Museum collection, the ones we do have speak to the incredibly diverse paleontological resources recovered from public lands and found more extensively within other U.S. Department of the Interior bureaus.

📷 2022 National Fossil Day graphic at left with an accompanying collage (clockwise from left): Petrified wood (INTR 01740); an Allosaurus skull cast (INTR 04289); and fossilized freshwater clams from the Upper Cretaceous Fruitland Formation (INTR 03082).

10/11/2022

Looking for a paid museum ? Find 30 opportunities nationwide through the NCPE program, including ours (position #3665)! Applications for this cycle are due 11/1/2022. For more info ➡️ https://preservenet.org/ncpe-internships/

📷 Intern installing a reader rail in a museum exhibition

10/11/2022

On this , we invite you to pause for some self-care. Watch our "Mindfulness with Moran" guided meditation that combines imagery from our 1872 Thomas Moran "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" painting with scenes from Yellowstone National Park➡️https://youtu.be/nS9ziRKYob4



📷A man's hand holds two postcards. One shows Thomas Moran's famous paintings. The other contains information on the "Mindfulness" program. The backdrop is the same Yellowstone canyon as in the painting.

10/10/2022

On Indigenous Peoples' Day, we celebrate the rich traditions, diverse cultures and the resilience of Indigenous communities across the nation.

It’s part of our mission to honor our trust responsibilities and special commitments to Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and affiliated Island communities.

10/02/2022

Couldn't let the day get away without wishing our colleagues at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management a very happy 11th birthday!

Eleven years ago today, Interior created Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, two independent agencies to ensure responsible offshore energy development and environmentally safe energy exploration and production.

Thank you for 11 years of excellence!

10/01/2022

🎨 Update:

150 years ago this month, artist Thomas Moran learns that Ferdinand Hayden’s 1872 survey party—which had returned to the Yellowstone region again that summer—has named a peak in western Wyoming’s Teton Range in Moran’s honor! Mount Moran’s elevation is 12,610 feet, towering above Jackson Lake, so named for survey photographer William Henry Jackson.

📷: "Mt. Moran, Teton National Park," by Ansel Adams (1902-1984), 1942. Image courtesy the National Archives and Records Administration, 79-AAG-5.

09/21/2022

🗓️ Mark your calendars for this Saturday's (September 24), when admission will be free within the USFWS National Wildlife Refuge System, at USFWS Fisheries, at National Park Service sites, and on Bureau of Land Management lands! Where will your weekend take you?

Weekend plans? We’ve got you covered! On Saturday, September 24, admission is free across America’s public lands in honor of National Public Lands Day!

✅ With more than 560 USFWS National Wildlife Refuge System and over 70 USFWS Fisheries across America, there are plenty of scenic trails to traverse and nearby nature to view or photograph with family and friends.

✅ With 400+ National Park Service sites to choose from, there are plenty of opportunities to take in the incredible scenery, learn about our nation’s rich history and enjoy the benefits of being outdoors.

✅ The Bureau of Land Management stewards nearly 250 million acres of some of our country’s most stunning landscapes to explore, play and connect with nature. Have you checked them out?

Want to support public lands? Consider volunteering: www.volunteer.gov

Over the last decade, National Public Lands Day has inspired more than one million volunteers to contribute about 5 million hours of volunteer time to benefit public lands.

See you there! 😎

Photo at Cibola National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona by John Magera / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

09/20/2022

About - www.culturaltourism.org

Cultural Tourism DC's is underway, and we're looking forward to giving two of the free tours this week! For more information on *all* things (i.e., more than 50 different programs!), visit the link below!

WalkingTown DC is DC's best public tour program, featuring more than 50 guided walking tours in neighborhoods throughout the District.  This popular annual event takes place annually in September and introduces residents and visitors to the art, culture, and history of Washington, DC through a seri...

09/08/2022

WalkingTown DC is Cultural Tourism DC's longest-running program, and we're delighted to be taking part by offering two free tours on Wednesday, September 21, and Friday, September, 23! For more information and to register, visit https://www.culturaltourismdc.org/portal/walkingtown-dc

It's that time of year again--WalkingTown DC starts in two weeks. Have you reserved space on one of our free tours? https://www.culturaltourismdc.org/portal/walkingtown-dc

09/04/2022

It's 🧔, and we have a line-up of styles for you as seen in the official portraits of our 14th through 17th secretaries of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

💈 Sporting long mutton chops was Secretary Samuel Kirkwood (1881-82). Secretary Henry Teller (1882-85) went a little further with the "chin curtain." Secretary Lucius Lamar (1887-88) had a long beard, and Secretary William Vilas (1888-89) took it to the max with a full beard.

📷 From the Interior Museum's collection: Kirkwood portrait (INTR 01618); Teller portrait (INTR 01619); Lamar portrait (INTR 01620); and Vilas portrait (INTR 01621).

09/03/2022

Timeline photos

Happy anniversary to the Wilderness Act! 👏🎉⛺🌓🌲🦎

On September 3, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law. This created the National Wilderness Preservation System & recognized wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

Story ➡️ http://ow.ly/p72O50Kz0Vx.

More about BLM wilderness ➡️ http://ow.ly/aK5T50Kz0Vv.

📸 Kingston Range Wilderness in California; Bob Wick.



Bureau of Land Management - California
U.S. Department of the Interior

08/29/2022

🎨 Update:

150 years ago this month, Thomas Moran’s “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone” painting returns from its mini tour of Boston and New York City to hang in the U.S. Capitol, purchased from the artist for $10,000. And 1872, Ferdinand Hayden—having returned to the Montana Territory for another survey expedition season—pens a letter to Thomas Moran back East informing him, “We elected you Honorary Member of the U.S. Geological Survey….”

08/26/2022

🐾 Sharing a fun fact on this ! that there are four New Deal-era murals in the U.S. Department of the Interior headquarters building featuring ?

🐕 See if you can spot them in James Michael Newell's 1939 "Alaska"; Gifford Beal's 1941"North Country"; John Steuart Curry's 1939 "Rush for the Oklahoma Land" and "The Homesteading and the Building of Barbed Wire Fences."

08/25/2022

🎉We're wishing a very happy 106th to the National Park Service, founded in 1916! To help celebrate, here's a National Park brainteaser for you.

Q: Where can you "visit" two iconic national parks and stay in one spot? (See video hint and scroll for answer)
⬇️
⬇️
⬇️
A: At our U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, where you can view artist Thomas Moran's two 1870s paintings of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon! The canvases are so detailed and so large (7 feet by 12 feet apiece) that you almost feel like you're there.



🎞 Video description: 11-second clip (no audio) of a pan of the "Thomas Moran & the 'Big Picture'" exhibition at the Interior Museum.

08/25/2022

We have something "concrete" to share on this : it's a concrete core from the making of Washington's Grand Coulee Dam! (See what we did there? 😀)

Completed in 1942, the dam is operated by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation and remains one of the largest concrete structures in the world. It contains nearly 12 million cubic yards of concrete—enough to construct a highway from Seattle to Miami!

📷 A cylindrical cross-section of polished concrete measuring nearly 2 feet in diameter and weighing 190 pounds (INTR 02555).

08/24/2022

Celebrating . . . with art! These vintage hand-tinted photographs from our museum collection feature Bureau of Reclamation :
💧 Wyoming's Buffalo Bill Dam, circa 1935 (OSAC 02709)
💧 Arizona/Nevada's Hoover Dam, circa 1936 (OSAC 02737)
💧 Washington's Grand Coulee Dam, circa 1950 (OSAC 00085)
💧 Montana's Canyon Ferry Dam, circa 1954 (OSAC 02708)

08/14/2022

On this day honoring the Navajo Code Talkers in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, we're sharing these materials from our collection: a WWII radio transmitter & receiver and field telephone of the type used by the code talkers, plus an autographed program from a 1986 reunion of Navajo Code Talkers Association members.

08/05/2022

With more than 130 works by Charley Harper (1922-2007) in our U.S. Department of the Interior Museum collection, we just couldn't let today go by without acknowledging what would have been his 100th birthday! 🎉

The Cincinnati-based artist was renowned for distilling his observations of the natural world into bold, highly stylized designs that have remained timeless in their appeal. An American Modernist, he created works for several nature-based organizations--as well as for the Department of the Interior's National Park Service--and illustrated numerous books and magazines. He would often title or caption his works with conservationist messages riddled with puns and wordplay. Happy 100th, Charley Harper!

📷 Image description: graphic with "Celebrating Charley Harper (1922-2007) | 100" with the number comprised of three Harper serigraphs in the museum's collection: "Raccrobat," 1978 (OSAC 00165); "Skipping School," 1977 (OSAC 00059); "Redbirds & Redbuds," 1980 (OSAC 00154).