Autry National Center
Griffith Park
May 9, 2015
We took Margaret to see a new exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West: Empire and Liberty, the Civil War and the West. It runs through January 3, 2016. It is not narrowly focused on the war alone. Rather it gives a broad context both before and after the war, about westward expansion and racial tensions. The exhibition includes over 200 artifacts and tells the story not only of African-Americans in the west, but also that of Chinese immigrants, and of Native Americans relocated to the Indian Territories.
Margaret enjoyed the small video displays scattered throughout the exhibit, which narrated various individual stories. She also was very impressed with the wedding dress on display, made in the mid 19th century by a woman who immigrated from Scotland to Utah. Meredith found it particularly chilling to read old bills of sale for slaves, listing them matter-of-factly by name, age, and gender. Near those bills of sale was displayed a labor contract between a California merchant and a Chinese laborer, binding the Chinese immigrant to work for the merchant for three years, at a rate of $12 per month. The laborer had to first pay back the cost of his passage ($30) before earning any cash for himself. Bob speculated that even after that point the poor man might have been obligated to buy food and goods from the “company store.” Margaret told us that labor contract reminded her of her great-grandfather’s apprenticeship contract as a carpenter, a document Margaret’s parents had when she was a girl.
After leaving the Empire and Liberty exhibition, we strolled through the Imagination gallery, which has many artifacts from western movies and other western shows, and we lingered over the singing cowboy section. Gene Autry is prominently featured, of course. When we had coffee after our museum visit, Margaret reminisced about seeing Gene Autry perform with a rodeo, which came to the Boston Garden when she was a girl.
We also strolled through the Western art gallery. It includes artifacts as well as paintings and sculptures, and we enjoyed seeing again a piece that we have seen there before, a beautifully restored classic Indian motorcycle.
We did not tour the permanent collection of Western artifacts downstairs on this visit. We had encountered a lot of traffic coming up from San Diego and arrived a little later than we had planned. We had lingered in the three galleries on the top floor so found them sufficient for this visit.
We had lunch in the museum café, which offers sandwiches, salads, and burgers and a few other items. Service was excellent. Customers order at the counter, and then food is brought to the table. Margaret was pleased that their standard cola is Pepsi; she much prefers it to Coke, but most restaurants do not stock it. The food was excellent, and we all enjoyed our sandwiches. Over lunch Margaret shared with us a postcard she had received recently from our youngest daughter, and she reminisced about the first postcard she had ever sent, over 70 years ago, to her parents when she was away at scout camp at about age six. It was a penny postcard, and she worried that she had not addressed it properly or put the right postage on it, but she had done all that correctly, of course, and the card did reach its destination. Margaret spoke softly but was very alert, and she did not struggle with any aphasia. It was a very pleasant outing for all of us.
Adult admission is $10. Wheelchair access is excellent, and parking is free. The museum is closed on most Mondays and some holidays.