Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Early in the 19th century, Charles Willson Peale and his sons, Rembrandt and Rubens, struggled with some of the same problems museums face today -- funding, audience, and balancing scholarship and research with efforts to entertain and educate. The adventures of the Peales are at the heart of this thoughtful and engaging look at an important period of American cultural history.
Synopsis
A "Feejee mermaid," the skeletal remains of a "wooly mammoth," and a "cabinet of learned turkies which will dance to music," were attractions at Baltimore's Peale Museum in the early 1800s. As the nation's first museum directors, Charles Wilson Peale, and his sons Rembrandt and Rubens, laid the foundation of the modern American museum.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-99) and index.