The Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, formerly the Lowie Museum of Anthropology, was founded in 1901 as the first anthropology museum west of the Mississippi. Its major patron, Phoebe Hearst, supported systematic collecting efforts by both archaeologists and ethnologists to provide the University of California with the materials for a museum to support a major department of anthropology. The museum’s collections have grown from an initial nucleus of approximately 230,000 objects gathered under the Hearst’s patronage to an estimated 3.8 million items.
Archaeologists Max Uhle and George Reisner are two important early figures in the museum. Their archaeological expeditions in Peru and Egypt resulted in major collections, which the museum continues to hold. The museum also holds important collections from Alaska and British Columbia, as well as from cultures around the world. The most extensive collection is of California Native material, which is the world’s largest and most comprehensive. It was begun by Philip M. Jones and expanded by Alfred M. Kroeber and others in the early twentieth century. The museum may be best remembered by the public from when it was physically housed in San Francisco (1903–1931), during which time a key attraction was Ishi, the last member of the Native California Yahi group. He lived at the museum from 1911 until his death in 1916 and worked with anthropologists to document the ways of his people.
Since 1931, the museum has been housed in small quarters on the university campus with only a tiny part of its collection on public display. It grants access to its materials in storage for the purpose of research and study conforming to appropriate standards of scholarly discipline, and to individual scholars and members of groups whose traditional culture is represented by collections held by the museum.