Mission:
The San Diego Museum of Man: Inspiring human connections by exploring the human experience.
Vision:
The San Diego Museum of Man…The place to go to learn about each other, reflect on our place in the world, and build a better community.
History:
In 1911, San Diego began planning the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, creating a unique educational concept to distinguish itself from the San Francisco exposition planned for the same year.
Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett of the School of American Archaeology (now the School of American Research) was appointed designer of the central exhibit, The Story of Man through the Ages. He took expeditions to the Southwest to collect prehistoric pottery and to Guatemala to make replicas of Maya monuments.
Dr. Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution was engaged to collect specimens for the most comprehensive physical anthropology exhibition ever assembled. Expeditions were sent to Alaska, Siberia, Africa, and the Philippines, and European museums provided important casts and photographs of early man fossils. From Peru, skeletal material and rare trephined skulls were collected.
