Just and Patriotic: Creating a National Museum in Guatemala (1831–1930)

Abstract

This article traces a century of efforts to create a National Museum in Guatemala City. Political instability and natural disasters thwarted these efforts, which nevertheless formed a significant chapter in the country's museum history. The contents of the laws and decrees that ordered the formation of museums provide indications about their political context and aims, while travellers’ reports and museum publications provide a hint at the collections and exhibitions of the first and second national museums, which functioned at the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (1866–1881) and the Palacio de La Reforma (1898–1917). In addition to local politics, both the country's participation in international expositions and foreign involvement in archaeological research and collecting played a role in museum formation and demise. Special attention is given to the laws and initiatives of the 1920s, which led to the opening of a National Museum in 1930, with a critique of previous work on this important period of Guatemalan museum history.