Museum of History and Industry Programs
MOHAI creates and presents award-winning exhibits that explore specific themes in local history or present nationally relevant topics to local audience. MOHAI's core exhibit, True Northwest: The Seattle Journey explores some of the trials and tribulations of Seattle on its long and bumpy journey from wilderness to world city. MOHAI also curates and builds exhibits, such as Celluloid Seattle: A City at the Movies and Punctum/Poetry which, in collaboration with Arts Corps a nonprofit arts education organization, features poetry and spoken word produced by Seattle high school students.
Anchoring these exhibits are artifacts and images from MOHAI's extensive permanent collection, including more than three million photographs, over 100,000 3-D artifacts, and an archive of 200,000 items such as corporate records, theater programs, ephemera and oral histories. The collections provide an invaluable resource to researchers interested in the rich past of Seattle and the Puget Sound.
MOHAI's education programs served more than 45,000 K-12 students and teachers last year. MOHAI works with area teachers to ensure all programs are aligned with state learning standards and are easily integrated with lesson plans. Through museum-based and in classroom programs, MOHAI provides hands-on experiences for students that connect what they learn in the classroom with artifacts and stories from our past. MOHAI ensures that all students regardless of means can participate by providing scholarships and subsidizing bus transportation.
Reaching out to the community, MOHAI offers a wide range of public programs focused on adult learning. From pub trivia nights to neighborhood history tours that explore and interpret Seattle's past to curator and artist lectures, MOHAI makes history accessible and fun for people across the region.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
On December 29, 2012 MOHAI opened a new museum in the historic Naval Reserve Armory in Lake Union Park. Tens of thousands of people are learning about Seattle's past, and deepening their commitment to Seattle's future.
We have expanded our education programs to include early learning with miniMOHAI where the museum is transformed into an engaging play space for kids with six stations set up in the building including stories, dramatic play, math and pattern activities. New school programs include Salish Stories where students play a game listening to stories, looking at historic photographs and handling artifacts crafted by local artists to discover the culture, history, language and lifeways of our region's first peoples. The Significance of Salmon is a hands-on program where students investigate the important role of salmon in the Pacific Northwest by exploring the history of salmon as a resource and the stewardship of salmon populations today. This is co-presented with the Center for Wooden Boats. Students visit both locations and venture out on Lake Union in a historic Gill Netter boat.
One of our current needs is to fund our scholarship program where qualifying schools can receive discounted program fees and assistance in paying for bus transportation.