The Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War is a museum and educational organization in Culver City, California that preserves and collects important cultural artifacts of the Cold War with the aim of educating and galvanizing a broad understanding of this important time in history. The museum's name, Wende, is the German word for "turning point" and as such the museum focuses, broadly speaking, on the period before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. The museum, which houses over 100,000 items, explores this period and its ramifications today.
Located in Culver City, California there is a Library that carries such history, stories and memorabilia that bring people all around the world to understand the African American Culture. Established and created by Mayme A. Clayton herself, being able to create a sanctuary where people can learn about African American History was her goal. Mayme A. Clayton was all about bringing communities together and work hard for a cause. This library does exactly that by letting not just neighboring communities of Culver City but states all over the world know the stories that many African Americans experienced. Mayme A. Clayton helped create a establishment that not only taught African Americans about themselves and their ancestors but other cultures too.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology seems like any typical museum, and that’s just what it wants you to think. Founded in 1988 by David Wilson, the museum contains various exhibits of art and historical artifacts, including portraits of soviet space dogs, intricate dioramas of trailer park homes, and the personal history of the man who discovered that bats can fly through solid objects (which of course, they can’t). The Museum exhibits blend history and fiction with displays containing elements of verifiable events and individuals, alongside fabricated and fantastical stories. The way that the museum presents embellished history as truth leads visitors to question the ways that we learn in museums, and maybe even the ways we learn about history in general. Going to the MJT is a fun way to explore your own critical thinking skills, and the ways you use them when you approach historic places.
Sitting on the University of California Los Angeles campus near Royce Hall, the Fowler Museum at UCLA has earned the reputation of being one of the United States’ respected authorities on the cultures, art, objects and artifacts from Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. This admission-free museum explores the non-western global cultures and arts and how they are woven into the fabrics of politics and social action around the world. The museum houses displays from the ancient, historical, and current worlds.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art was established in 1965 and has grown to include a collection of over 120,000 works of art, becoming the largest art museum in the western United States. The museum's art collection includes works from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas-including works that predate the arrival of Columbus. The museum boasts one of the largest and most important collections of modern and contemporary art, and also holds an award-winning collection of art from the Middle East.
Located in Hancock Park, the La Brea Tar Pits Museum is one of the city's more unique attractions. It is named for a group of natural asphalt tar pits ("brea" is the Spanish word for tar) that have been seeping tar, and trapping animals and plants, for tens of thousands of years. As such, the pits have been a treasure trove paleontologists who have recovered an estimated one million (and counting) well-preserved specimens—231 species of invertebrates, 234 species of vertebrates, and 159 species of plants—since 1906. These include large animals such as saber-toothed tigers, mammoths, dire wolves, and smaller creatures such as rodents, insects, and mollusks. The museum features many of these on display, including a nearly complete Columbian mammoth skeleton. The museum also offers tours and features a lab where visitors can see paleontologists process fossils. The tar pits site is National Natural Landmark and a California Historical Landmark.
The Los Angeles Fire Department Museum and Memorial is housed in the former Fire Station 27 in Hollywood, California. Built in 1930 and designed by architect Peter L. Schabarum in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, it was called the largest fire station west of the Mississippi River at the time of its completion. It is operated by the Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Society and contains thousand of artifacts, hundreds of hours of film and video, and houses thirty pieces of firefighting equipment. The museum aims to educate the public about fire fighting, to preserve the physical history of the department, and to honor those fire fighters who have lost their lives in the line of duty. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1962.
The Hollywood Museum has the largest collection of Hollywood memorabilia in the world. Its four floors showcase thousands of pieces of Hollywood history. Visitors can step into the building’s past life as the workplace of Max Factor, walk through the “Dungeon of Doom,” or learn about the past and present of movies. Some of the museum’s items include Elvis Presley’s bathrobe, costumes from I Love Lucy, and Cary Grant’s car.
The Hollywood Heritage Museum, also the Lasky-DeMille Barn, is dedicated to the preservation of Hollywood’s film history, especially during the silent film era. The museum is housed in the Lasky-DeMille Barn, named after two of the founders of Paramount Pictures, Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille, and it is Hollywood’s oldest surviving film production building. The barn, built around the turn of the 20th century, was adapted in 1914 for the production of The Squaw Man, directed by DeMille and the first feature film to be shot in Hollywood. For more than 50 years, the barn was situated on the Paramount lot and served as a backdrop for many western television shows and films. Hollywood Heritage, formed in 1980, acquired the Lasky-DeMille Barn in the early 1980s and opened it as a museum in 1985.
Located in Griffith Park, Travel Town Museum preserves and promotes the legacy of how railroading shaped the history of Southern California and the Western United States. Opened in 1952, the museum features many rolling stock on display including locomotives, passenger cars, freight cars and cabooses, interurbans and motorcars. The museum also has a miniature train which can be ridden and goes around the perimeter of the museum. Visitors are also allowed to tour passenger cars and invited to volunteer.
Founded in 1931, the Museum of Neon Art encourages learning, curiosity and expression through the preservation, collection and interpretation of neon, electric and kinetic art. Neon is a gateway between scientific principles and artistic expression. Neon illumination integrates electrical technology, creative design, and fundamental concepts of physics and chemistry. The Museum of Neon Art is the only museum in the world devoted exclusively to art in electric media, exhibiting electric and kinetic fine art, and outstanding examples of historic neon signs, for over three decades. The collection includes neon signs from the Brown Derby and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
The Southwest Museum was founded in 1907 as the Southwest Museum of the American Indian by Charles Lummis. In 2003, it merged with the Autry Museum of the American West so that its collections could be better preserved and shared with the public. As such, the museum's collection is now housed at the Resources Center of the Autry in Burbank, which is undergoing construction and will be completed in 2019 (phase one of the construction was to build the storage areas in the facility). The Center will serve as a preservation and educational facility where the collections of the Autry Museum and Southwest Museum will be available to the public through research and exhibitions. The Southwest Museum's Native American collection is considered one of the best in the world. Artifacts in the collection date from prehistoric times to today. The collection is particularly strong in archaeological artifacts and ceramics. There are a few exhibits at the museum that can be seen when the museum is open on Saturdays.
Located along the edge of the Montecito Heights neighborhood, the Heritage Square Museum is a living history museum that preserves and promotes the history of Southern California during the period between 1850-1950. It was during these 100 years that Los Angeles and the region really took over in terms of economic, cultural and social development, shaping the region to what it is today. The museum features eight well-preserved buildings (and one recreated building), whose architecture reflects this development up to the turn of the century. The museum offers tours of the buildings as well as a variety of events and educational programming. Staff members are often dressed in period clothing to provide a more authentic experience. Events and programming include lectures, living history performances, a vintage fashion show, and holiday celebrations.
The Chinese American Museum is dedicated to preserving and promoting the cultural heritage of Chinese immigrants in California. To this end, it offers fine art and historical exhibits using items in its collection of 7,500 items, which includes artifacts, documents, and photographs. It opened in 2003 after 20 years of planning, becoming the first museum of its kind in Southern California. It is housed in the historic Garnier Building, which was constructed in 1890 by Philippe Garnier who rented it to Chinese merchants and organizations (many Chinese social functions were held here as well). As such, the building became the center of Chinese cultural life for much of the first half of the 1900s. The building is also significant because it is the last remaining Chinese building in Southern California. It is also a contributing property of the El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument, a historic district in the oldest part of the city that was once the center of the city and eventually home to the city's original Chinatown. The museum's aim is to not only highlight Chinese contributions but to celebrate the multi-cultural heritage of Los Angeles and Southern California as well.
Opened in 1992, the Japanese American National Museum has been promoting the understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese-American experience with its domestic and international visitors for nearly 25 years. It is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to telling the tale of Japanese Americans.
This contemporary art museum is home to one of the most prominent collections of contemporary and postwar art. The museum is named in honor of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, who established the Broad Art Foundation in 1984. The foundation announced plans to build this museum in 2007 and it opened in 2015. The museum's contemporary building was designed by the late Zaha Hadid and features two floors of gallery space. The museum is also home to the Broad Art Foundation and its art library that lends its collection to other libraries across the globe.
Opened in 2008, the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live is dedicated to history, significance, and preservation of all forms of music, from classical to hip-hop. A particular emphasis is paid to those artists who have won Grammy Awards. The museum features permanent, traveling and interactive exhibits that explore music's impact on the world as well as the technology that has helped (and continues) to shape music to where it is today. On display include a wide range of memorabilia, photographs, and clothing worn by Grammy winners. The museum also features a 200-seat theater that hosts live performances and lectures. Other programming includes seminars, classes, film screenings, and free public programs with artists.
“Dedicated to,” according to its mission statement, “collecting, conserving, and sharing the heritage of African-American firefighters through collaboration and education,” the African-American Firefighter Museum is the sole free-standing African-American firefighter museum in the U.S. With its collection of historic firefighting equipment, photos, and a large variety of other firefighting memorabilia and artifacts, the museum tells the tale of African-American firefighters who have been serving in Los Angeles for well over 100 years.
The Sports Museum of Los Angeles is a private museum which can be seen by appointment only. It is the largest and broadest known collection of iconic sports memorabilia and collectibles in the world. It contains 10,000 artifacts collected over 25 years by Los Angeles businessman Gary Cypres.The museum has 30 galleries dedicated to some of the more prominent sports figures and teams. Some of these include Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Los Angeles Dodgers, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Rams.
Founded in 1977, the California African American Museum celebrates and preserves the history and cultural heritage of African Americans through art, research, and public programs. It was the first museum centered on African American history fully supported by the state. Its permanent collection contains over 4,000 items comprised of works of art, historical artifacts, and memorabilia. Many of these items can be seen displayed in the exhibitions the museum puts on throughout the year. While the museum focuses on the history and art of African Americans in California and the Western U.S., African Americans from the rest of the country are represented as well. The museum is located in Exposition Park, which features the L.A. Memorial Coliseum and other major museums. It opened to the public in 1984 after being first located at the California Museum of Science and Industry.
Established in 1939 by Elizabeth Holmes Fisher, the USC Fisher Museum of Art was the first museum in Los Angeles dedicated solely to the collection and exhibition of art. The collection is comprised of 1,800 works of art—paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, drawings, and decorative art—from Europe, America, and South America that date from 1500 to today. Areas of strength include 19th and early 20th-century American landscapes, 16th through 19th-century Western European paintings, and 20th and 21st-century works. As for particular works, highlights include "Venus Wounded by a Thorn" by Peter Paul Reubens, "Mrs. Burroughs" by Thomas Gainsborough, and "Richard Nixon" by Andy Warhol. The museum is located across the street from Exposition Park, which contains other museums such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the California Science Center.
With a collection of 35 million items consisting of natural history specimens and cultural artifacts, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is one of the largest museums in the western United States. The total amount of It was established in 1913 as the Museum of History, Science, and Art. Among its collections are the famous La Brea Pitt Ice Age fossils, the largest of its kind in the world, gemstones, ancient sea creature fossils, and, interestingly, Charlie Chapman's tramp costume. The building itself is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The California Science Center is a museum located in Exposition Park which features the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the California African American Museum. The Science Center opened in 1998 and features numerous exhibits that explore life on earth, aerospace, and technology. The museum has four exhibits main exhibits: World of Life, which shows how all life forms are connected; Creative World, which looks at how humans have used technology for transportation, communication, and buildings; Ecosystems, which features 11 "zones" that show how different ecosystems—such as a desert, ocean, and deep sea—are connected to each other; and Air and Space, which features the space shuttle Endeavor and aerospace artifacts. The museum also offers traveling exhibits and live shows and demonstrations.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This tour allows users to visit (or at least digitally browse) two-dozen Los Angeles museums. The tour includes museums dedicated to art, science, history, and culture, and includes specialty museums that focus on everything from fighting fires to filming movies.
