Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology — Attraction in Cambridge

This museum is incredible! It is so worth the visit!

I do wish they had more native artifacts from local tribes, especially because all of the local museums for specific tribes are closed right now for some reason. I discussed this with the guy at the front desk, and he said that because of a lot of laws that allow tribes to take back artifacts, they have many artifacts from tribes from Montana or Illinois or Mississippi or Maine, but a lot less from local places. Metacom’s bow wasn’t there (presumed to have been used during King Phillips war, where the relationship with the colonists and the natives deteriorated), and I don’t know that there was anything from the Natick tribes.

I was also sad that John Eliot’s Bible wasn’t there! I had just gone to deer Island, where the native tribes were termed during Kings Phillips war, and I had just gone to Newton, to see the location of the Natick tribe that Elliott first made into a praying tribe. I was hoping I would get to see a copy of his Bible, but I did not. Would love to find out where it is because I will go! Unless of course it’s in another country… That would be sad.

There is a way for wheelchair users to get into the building, but it is by going through the adjacent library. If you go through the library, there is an elevator that takes you up a floor so you can get onto the main level of the museum.

There is almost no parking. I had to park by Dudley Café and Starbucks on Wendell Street and walk over. It took me a good hour to walk over because it was so hot and I had to stop and sit and drink and it just took so long. The good thing is that if you have a handicap sticker, you can park in any metered spot and the time limits do not apply and you don’t have to pay. That’s very good because it took me forever to get there. By the time I got there, I was so tired , I just needed to sit for a minute and thankfully everyone was very kind.

Pretty cool that Henry David Thoreau found the arrowheads! How cool is that?!

I also personally had no idea that Harvard had a school for native Americans and it was really amazing to hear about the archaeological work on the campus even today! Very very cool.

As a local educator, I would love to connect more! My students would find that so fascinating!

Free for residents on Sunday mornings 9-12, and Wednesday afternoons (not sure...

Visited on 10/04/24.

This may be naïveté on my behalf, but I was expecting a school with a $50,000,000,000.00 endowment to do better. While there were some pieces from indigenous NA on display, they were grouped in a puzzling manner in regard to tribal and ancestral affiliation and era, and provided very little context on sparse description cards.

There were, however, plenty of signs bragging about Harvard’s “commitment to future equity”, one would assume as a cover for obfuscated ‘methods of acquisition’. A staff member (addressing students, not visitors) said that “Harvard is committed to allowing people access to their native artifacts”, and is “working with ‘groups’ to repatriate objects”. I guess this is appropriately-crafted language when talking about long-dead societies, but not when the items come from people whose children are very much alive today!

This virtue signaling continued with a plethora of empty displays with placards stating nothing more than “removed for cultural sensitivities”. But what cultures? What sensitivities? Surely, to right a possible wrong, Harvard has an obligation to inform museum goers as to why they so insensitively displayed an item in the first place, and the corrective actions they have taken since. I would love to hear actual native voices on this matter. I can imagine peoples’ opinions are as varied as the cultures that were haphazardly clumped together.

When people are paying $250,000.00+ for an undergrad, you’d think there’d at least be a speck of funding available that could assist in dragging the museum into a more 21st century school of thought.

Why not strive for an equitable present? Also, I have a radical suggestion for allowing people access to their ancestral items: give them back. The Peabody museum admission was included in the ticket price of the surrounding museums, so for that reason alone I am...

Covering several distinct areas, this is a great little museum to visit. My favourite sections are on the Columbian Exposition and the different sites set up there from around the world but the old school Harvard Freshman's Dinner section is great too (love the specified cigarette brands on the original menu too!). This is a museum that's at its best on focused exhibitions however some sections can feel just a tad meandering. Very good value ticket offering you access to the Natural History too (and the free Ancient Near East and Scientific Instruments museums are pretty close too!). There are restrooms and lift access to each floor as well as a small gift shop in the lobby (the lady on the counter was very friendly too!). I would also say take a back-up method of payment too- I bought tickets at the Natural History and their card machine was really acting up (card worked fine in all other stores both before and after)- got there in the end but wouldn't want anyone...