Main Interior Building History
The Interior Department headquarters was the first building in the Nation's Capital authorized, designed, and built by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration. The building reflects the dedication and commitment to government service of people such as President Roosevelt and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, who believed that a "new day" had arrived in which the government would provide for its citizens.
 |
| Department of the Interior headquarters building from the south, completed December 17, 1936. Photograph dates from the late 1930s. |
The Interior building combines elements of both modern and classical architecture, and illustrates the principles of utility and economy characteristic of the "New Deal" style. The stripped classicism motif rejected the lavish design, ornate decoration, and exorbitant construction costs of earlier federal buildings. The Interior building has many decorative details such as bronze grilles and the custom-designed door hardware shown here.
The Interior building has seven stories and a basement. The design consists of six wings running east-west with a connecting central corridor running north-south. Most of the structure's exterior features smooth Indiana limestone, with accents of pink granite. The building has more than three miles of corridors, with the main corridor on each floor a full two blocks long. There are 2,200 rooms in the building and specially designed spaces such as an auditorium, museum, gymnasium, and library. Murals commissioned by the Federal government are set in strategic positions at the end of each corridor, near the elevator banks, and in key public places. Also of interest is a late 19th-century totem pole located in the C Street lobby and a highly decorated Indian Craft Shop that sells contemporary Native American jewelry, handicrafts, and artwork.
Today, the excellent condition of the Interior building, as well as its adaptability to changing needs, testifies to the foresight of its designers and builders. Visitors can learn more about the art and architecture of the Interior building in an exhibit housed in alcove display cases near the first floor central stairs.
Interior Museum History
The U.S. Department of the Interior Museum was created by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes to help the American taxpayer understand the work of his Department. In 1935, Ickes appointed Carl Russell from the National Park Service museum division to head the museum committee charged with developing and designing the exhibits. Russell immediately gathered a staff of curators, model makers, artists, sculptors, and others to begin work on the museum.
The construction of a new Interior building provided an opportunity for the newly founded museum. The building architect set aside one entire wing on the first floor near the main entrance to the building. The space was not originally intended to be a museum gallery, a challenge for the museum committee, which had to work around a long narrow wing with low ceilings and several load bearing columns. The museum space was divided into galleries and alcoves using walls and cove lighting was added above the exhibit cases to make the gallery spaces feel lighter and more airy.
A curator was assigned to each of the Department’s bureaus. Together these teams developed the exhibits. Each bureau’s “story line” was illustrated through the use of objects, photographs, maps, watercolor illustrations, and drawings as well as interpretative panels. Silhouettes cut from zinc to illustrate the work and mission of the Department were installed in some of the lighting coves above the exhibits.
The museum opened on March 8, 1938 and featured 1,000 objects in 95 exhibits. Secretary Ickes held a formal invitation-only party to open the museum on that day, the party also commemorated the 89th anniversary of the first day in office for the department’s first secretary, Thomas Ewing. The museum opened to the public the next day and was an immediate success with 3,000 to 4,000 people visiting the museum monthly.
 |
| Morristown Laboratory museum technicians constructing model of Interior Museum, on a scale of one inch equals one foot, for use by the curators in planning the museum’s exhibits. |
The Museum’s Collections
Today, the collections of the Interior Museum contain almost 6,000 objects of art, photography, minerals, ethnographic, archaeological, and natural history specimens. The museum’s collections are documented, preserved, and managed in ways to enhance their long-term availability. They are used to interpret the history of the department and to educate both the public and departmental employees on the rich and varied work of the many bureaus.
The Gibson and Colburn Collections
The first acquisition for the museum was a purchase by order of Secretary Ickes in 1936 from Mrs. Helen Gibson of San Francisco. The collection consisted of approximately 400 Native American artifacts and made up the majority of the museum’s exhibits for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Later in 1939, Mrs. Frederick Henry Colburn, also of San Francisco, gave her basket collection of approximately 400 pieces to the Interior Museum. Items from the collection have been lent to numerous organizations to help further the understanding of Native American culture.
Ansel Adams
Secretary Ickes hired the photographer Ansel Adams to photograph the National Parks but the project ended abruptly with the U.S. entrance into World War II. Throughout his career, Adams remained connected to the Department. Two of his experimental photographic screens, of which he made only thirteen, remain at the Interior Museum. The screen Leaves, Mills College, Oakland, CA was purchased by Secretary Ickes in the late 1930s for his office and was later given to the museum for its collection. The screen Fresh Snow, Yosemite Valley, CA was given to Secretary Stewart Udall by Adams in 1968.
Thomas Moran
The painter Thomas Moran accompanied the Powell survey of the Colorado River in 1873, and Hayden’s survey of the Yellowstone region in 1871. Following those explorations, he painted The Chasm of the Colorado and The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Both paintings were purchased by the U.S. Congress and were exhibited in the Capital building until 1950 at which point they were transferred to the Interior Museum. These two magnificent paintings were instrumental in the creation of the National Park system and Yellowstone National Park. The paintings hung in the Interior Department building until 1968 when they were lent to the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum. Today, they can be seen along with George Catlin’s Indian portraits at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery.
Story in Miniature: the Museum’s Dioramas
After a review of the museum’s collections, the museum’s exhibit designers determined that dioramas would provide visually stimulating illustrations for the visitors. A diorama is a model group depicting an event or activity that the visitor observes through a window-like opening. A sense of depth and perspective is achieved with special lighting directed through a tilted glass panel and with painted, curved walls blending into the three-dimensional objects in the foreground.
Construction of the dioramas started in 1935 at the National Park Service Field Laboratory in Morristown, New Jersey. The most skilled artists of the period worked collaboratively to build each diorama. The principal diorama artist was superintendent Ned J. Burns, acclaimed for his skills in diorama creation. Upon completion, the dioramas were installed in the museum in July 1937.
Coal Mine Explosion Diorama
Ralph Lewis of the National Park Service oversaw the design for the Bureau of Mines exhibits. The Coal Mine Explosion diorama depicts the heroic efforts of a recovery team to save those trapped below ground by a mine explosion. The designers of the diorama chose to illustrate the tragic 1929 Kinloch Mine explosion in West Virginia. To ensure authenticity, they secured over 40 photographs of the Kinloch Mine and the accident, specifications of the recovery workers’ equipment, and even a fabric sample from the police officer’s uniform.
Small Skiers Diorama
Small dioramas of modeled groups were used to illustrate the uses of the National Parks. Artists Russell R. Fiore and Stuart Cuthbertson created the diorama Winter Use of the National Parks featuring two skiers coming down a mountainside with Yosemite in the background. Fiore was an accomplished sculptor with works exhibited at the National Academy of Design and the Corcoran Art Gallery. He created many of the diorama figures and sculptures featured in the Interior Museum cases.