Exhibits

Current Exhibit

Many Shades of Being Darcelle: 52 Years of Fashion, 1967 – 2019

August 30 – December 8, 2019

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

Portland’s own Darcelle XV (the stage name of Walter Cole) has been headlining the Darcelle XV Showplace since 1973. This first-ever exhibit features several of Darcelle’s more than 1,500 extravagant costumes spanning over 50 years, often designed and constructed by Walter himself. The exhibit is part of the Darcelle Project, which includes Triangle Production’s fall production of the musical That’s No Lady.

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members
• Researchers
• Teachers

Current Exhibit

Wild About Dance: Oregon Ballet  Theatre Celebrates 30 Years

August 2 – December 15, 2019

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

Oregon Ballet Theatre enriches the community with beautiful, exhilarating, and athletic dance. This exhibit celebrates Oregon Ballet Theatre’s (OBT) first 30 years with vibrant film footage and photographs, costumes, and theatrical artifacts that highlight the Company’s excellent performances, school, and education outreach programs. For those who love OBT and the art of dance, the exhibit will elicit memories of favorite performances and dancers through the years. For those who have yet to discover this Portland-based gem, the exhibit will surely captivate visitors through Oregon Ballet Theatre’s kaleidoscope of classical and contemporary dance.

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members
• Researchers
• Teachers

Current Exhibit

Fighting for the Right to Fight: African American Experiences in World War II

July 12, 2019 – January 12, 2020

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

In the years leading up to World War II, racial segregation and discrimination were part of daily life for many in the United States. For most African Americans, even the most basic rights and services were fragmented or denied altogether. To be black was to know the limits of freedom — excluded from the opportunity, equality, and justice on which the country was founded. Yet, once World War II began, thousands of African Americans rushed to enlist, intent on serving the nation that treated them as second-class citizens. They were determined to fight to preserve the freedom that they themselves had been denied. This is their story.

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members
• Researchers
• Teachers

Current Exhibit

Meier and Frank Santaland

December 6, 2019 – January 3, 2020

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

Generations of Oregonians have fond memories of the downtown Portland Meier & Frank department store’s Santaland. A ride on the iconic Monorail and a chance to sit on Santa’s lap became a Christmas tradition for many families. Following the closure of Macy’s downtown store (which purchased Meier & Frank in 2005), a small number of items from Santaland were donated to the Oregon Historical Society and the Portland Business Alliance. This holiday season, come visit the OHS Santaland display, featuring Santa’s chair, Rudolph, animatronic elves, and decorated Christmas trees!

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members

Current Exhibit

Norma Bassett Hall: Color Block Prints in Oregon Collections

September 20, 2019 – January 12, 2020

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

Norma Bassett Hall was born in Halsey, Oregon, in 1888. Just eighteen years later, she entered the School of the Portland Art Association in its first year, and by 1929, had achieved national recognition for her art. Yet, with her local roots and strong ties to Oregon art, her work has never been the feature of a solo exhibition in Portland – until now.

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members
• Teachers

Current Exhibit

The All American Toy Company: An Oregon Original

September 10, 2019 – January 26, 2020

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

For generations, the All American Toy Company has captured the interest of children and adults alike. Beginning in 1947 with its first release of the Timber Toter, a logging truck, the company’s lineup included a series of vehicles that represented expanding industries in Oregon, including dump trucks used in construction, cattle liners that transported the region’s livestock, fire trucks, and box vans, among others. Those toys, when viewed as cultural artifacts, are capable of illuminating Oregon history during a specific place and time.

• Free for Members
• Family-friendly
• Researchers
• Teachers

Current Exhibit

Flaxen: From Flax to Linen in the Willamette Valley, Oregon

October 8, 2019 – March 31, 2020

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

Reproductions of hand-tinted glass lantern slides from the early 1930s document how flax was grown and processed to make fabric. The slides from the Oregon Historical Society’s Portland Public School (PPS) Collection were shown to schoolchildren to illustrate various Oregon industries and, in this case, children learned about making towels and napkins at the Oregon Linen Mill in Salem.

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members
• Researchers
• Teachers

Upcoming Exhibit

Nevertheless, They Persisted: The Nineteenth Amendment and Women’s Voting Rights

March 13 – November 8, 2020

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

This original exhibit connects Oregon history to the national history of woman suffrage and commemorates the bravery of the women (and men) who demanded the vote and used their rights to shape our nation and our world.

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members
• Researchers
• Teachers

Permanent Exhibit

Experience Oregon

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

Visitors of all ages, and from all parts of the world, come to the Oregon Historical Society each year to learn about Oregon. Whether you were born here, have chosen to make this place home, or are just passing through, it is undeniable that there is something special about this state. From its varied geography to its innovative legislation, Oregon is complex and distinctive, filled with people whose stories are the foundation of the state we see today. A dynamic educational space, Experience Oregon allows visitors to learn about the countless people, places, and events that have shaped this place.

• Family-friendly
• Free for Members
• Teachers
• Researchers

Permanent Exhibit

History Hub

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

History Hub is an exhibit where Oregon’s youth, students, and families can explore the topic of diversity through fun, hands-on interactives, objects, and pictures. History Hub is developed in partnership with an advisory committee of students, teachers, cultural organizations, and museums to tell the stories of people who live in Oregon, today and in the past. The content of History Hub spans grades K-12 with a focus on 4th – 8th grade.

• Free for Members
• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Permanent Exhibit

Oregon Voices

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97205

Oregon Voices examines some of the important people, events, and ideas that have shaped the state in the modern era, from the end of World War II to the present. It features the people of Oregon, from Native Americans, who have lived here since time immemorial, to recent arrivals. It looks at Oregonians who have fought for and against social change. And it explores the land—how people have used it and how they have worked to save it.

• Free for Members
• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Permanent Exhibit

Vanport Interpretive Panels

Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, Oregon 97205

On Memorial Day in 1948, the Columbia River, swirling fifteen feet above normal, punched a hole in a railroad embankment that served as a dike, starting a flood that would leave 18,000 people homeless and alter race relations in Portland forever. This exhibit of four interpretive panels tells the story of what was once the second-largest city in Oregon.

• Free for Members
• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Online Exhibit

“A Symbol of Home”: The Environmental and Political Legacy of Tom McCall in Oregon

Famous for his forceful language and political skill, Governor Tom McCall has remained the name and face of Oregon’s remarkable legacy of environmental lawmaking. His environmental efforts were not the earliest in the state, nor were his achievements his alone; but he provided people with a compelling and ambitious narrative that emphasized citizen responsibility to protect the land and its resources. This narrative continues to inform many aspects of lawmaking and advocacy in Oregon.

• Family-friendly
• Researchers
• Teachers

Online Exhibit

Black Athletes Disrupting White Supremacy in Oregon

These exhibit panels were displayed on the campuses of the University of Oregon and Oregon State University during February 2014 to accompany public programs about national and state history related to African American football players. The exhibit panels were created by Dr. Darrell Millner of Portland State University in collaboration with OHS staff.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Online Exhibit

Frames Per Second: Selections from the OHS 16mm News Film Collection, 1969-1981

The images in this exhibit are scans from the KOIN and KPTV 16mm news film collections held at the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) Research Library. Every three frames of 16mm film represents 1/8 of a second — or just faster than the blink of an eye. These stories represent, in part, the day-to-day events that helped shape Portland from 1969 to 1981.

• Family-friendly
• Researchers
• Teachers

Online Exhibit

Mirror on the Modern Woman: Selected Images from the Oregon Journal, 1927–1932

The 1920s heralded the era of the Modern Woman, a more adventurous and independent type open to new possibilities. The new exhibit Mirror on the Modern Woman depicts some of these Modern Women, young and old, at work and at play. The exhibit features fifteen photographs from the 1920s and ’30s selected from the Oregon Historical Society Research Library’s collection of negatives from the Oregon Journal newspaper.

• Family-friendly
• Researchers
• Teachers

Online Exhibit

Portland: A Lot of People Have Lived Here

Call it the Clearing, Stumptown, City of Roses, P-Town, PDX, Ripcity, Bridgetown, or Little Beirut—Portland answers to them all. The city sits on the Willamette River, both sleepy and overwrought, dominating Oregon in population and voting trends. Obama loved it, George H.W. did not, Teddy Roosevelt slept here, and the Queen of Romania stopped by for dinner.

• Family-friendly
• Researchers
• Teachers

Online Exhibit

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde

The people of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde represent almost thirty different tribes and bands that the U.S. government removed to the Grand Ronde Reservation in the nineteenth century. The history of the reservation—and how so many western Oregon Native people came to reside there—is long and complex. With support from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund, the Oregon Historical Society is working with scholars in an ongoing effort to create Oregon Encyclopedia entries on the people, places, and events connected to the history of the Grand Ronde people. Included in this new online exhibit are recently published entries by E.A. Schwartz, Kenneth Ames, David Lewis, Robert T. Boyd, Henry Zenk, William Lang, Dan Boxberger, Yvonne Hadja, and Chuck Williams. OHS archival material connected to the history of the Grand Ronde have been digitized and published on the OHS digital history websites.

• Family-friendly
• Researchers
• Teachers

Online Exhibit

The Fred Meyer Story

In many ways, the story of Fred G. Meyer and Fred Meyer, Inc. mirrors the story of the expansion and development of the city of Portland from a small, rugged, Western town to a booming metropolis. Follow the story of Fred Meyer from its humble beginnings to its expansion across the West.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers
• Researchers

Online Exhibit

Lost Portland

At the turn of the 19th century, Portland was still the metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, and its buildings reflected a sense of urban grandeur rivaling the great cities of North America. As the twentieth century progressed, many of these buildings fell victim to changing needs, economic imperatives, and a growing decentralization of urban life. While the Oregon Historical Society’s Davies Family Research Library holds thousands of images of lost Portland, few are so evocative of the city’s past grandeur as these postcards, created from re-touched and hand-colored photographs.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers
• Researchers

Online Exhibit

Windows on America

From June 2013 through February 2014, the Oregon Historical Society was proud to showcase Windows on America, the first ever public display of the world-class Mark Family Collection. Now, thanks to a new partnership with Visiting Media, students and history enthusiasts across Oregon and beyond can experience the exhibit online! Visitors to the virtual exhibit can experience the same content offered in the physical exhibit, as well as new digital enhancements. Get up close to artifacts, read text panels, hear recordings of historic documents, and go behind the scenes of some of the exhibit’s treasures in videos with OHS Executive Director Kerry Tymchuk.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Traveling Exhibit

Clink! A Taste of Oregon Wine

Adapted from the Summer 2014 exhibition, "Clink! A Taste of Oregon Wine," the Oregon Historical Society has developed a traveling version of the exhibition which includes twelve colorful banners with photographs and text illustrating the history of the flourishing Oregon wine industry. This traveling exhibit is currently available for rental to historical societies and other groups.

Traveling Exhibit

Oregon Is Indian Country

First exhibited in 2009 at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Oregon Is Indian Country represents a groundbreaking project that brought together all nine federally recognized Oregon Tribes to present information, never-before-assembled in one exhibit, on contemporary indigenous cultures. This rich content is now available for museums and cultural institutions across the state as a traveling exhibit of vibrant banners.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Traveling Exhibit

Oregon: 150 Years of Statehood; 150 Million Years in the Making

In 2009, Oregon celebrated 150 years as a state. Oregon’s landscape has a much longer history — geological processes have been building the state's landscape for more than 150 million years! The windows in this exhibit illustrate how geology crafted Oregon’s landscape and natural resources and continues to shape the land and lives of its citizens. The most iconic of Oregon’s landscapes — Crater Lake, Multnomah Falls, Newberry Crater, Steens Mountain, the Painted Hills, and so much more — display Oregon’s geologic splendor.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Traveling Exhibit

Oregon's Landmark Legislation

Oregon has repeatedly led the nation in creating, revising, and implementing laws shaping the quality of life of its citizens. While Oregon’s innovations have evoked controversy, they have charted the course for other states and nations. The 16 exhibit panels highlight groundbreaking legislation that Oregon has passed since Statehood either by Politician, Legislative Action, or Public Initiative. Arranged chronologically, the window panels present legislation that focuses on environmental, social, and land use issues.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers

Traveling Exhibit

What If Heroes Were Not Welcome Home?

This poignant exhibit examines the prejudice that Japanese American veterans from Hood River, Oregon experienced upon their return home from serving our country in World War II. These American citizens served heroically with the United States Armed Forces in the South Pacific and in Europe, yet many of their families were unjustly incarcerated in concentration camps on American soil.

• Family-friendly
• Teachers