76 Estendere fondo foto ART on view Études Océaniennes of Tahiti, the Samoa Society, the Hawaiian Historical Society, the American Museum of Natural History, the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, the Field Museum of Natural History, the University of California, and the Carnegie Institution. Cooperative agreements with major universities on the East Coast and California made possible the participation of top scientists of the era in a wide-reaching program of anthropological surveys. Regrettably, the museum’s expeditions came to an abrupt halt with the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific. During the war, anthropologist Kenneth P. Emory was hired by the U.S. military to provide survival training. This was done in the Long Gallery and Hawaiian Courtyard of the museum. Collections, photos, and a publication resulted. The museum’s research focus shifted from Polynesia to Micronesia after WWII, when the U.S. became trustee of the former Japanese mandated islands. Scientists involved included Emory, George Peter Murdock of Yale University, Douglas Oliver of Harvard University and the University of Hawai‘i (UH), Andrew Lind of UH, John Embree and Samuel H. Elbert of UH. Peter Te Rangi Hiroa Buck joined Emory in an intensive study of Kapingamarangi Island (a Polynesian outlier) in 1947 and 1950. These all added to the Pacific collection. The museum has also continued its work on Pacific archaeology. Expeditions were made to Tahiti and Marquesas in the 1960s by Emory and Yosihiko Sinoto. These were followed by expeditions to Samoa, Easter Island, Uvea, Futuna, Tonga, Fiji, New Hebrides, and other islands of the western Pacific by museum scientists. Together these resulted in Pacific archaeological collections that are the best and largest in the world. Unveiling the Pacific Hall The two-story Polynesian Hall maintained variations of its Victorian displays for more than half a century. In 1961, a modernized installation featured fifty-four new exhibits focused on the physical geography and natural history of the Pacific area, under the title Hall of Pacific Life. This involved removing some of the original cases and the addition of walls to cover the mezzanine balustrades. Ten years later, in 1971, the use of the name Polynesian Hall was resumed and it became home to an exhibit called Two by Two, which featured a private collection of stuffed, mounted animals from around the world. This was displaced in 1978 by the famed Artificial Curiosities exhibition, which showcased art and artifacts collected during James Cook’s voyages in the
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