Synopses & Reviews
During the last half of the nineteenth century, many of the country's most celebrated museums were built. In this original and daring study, Steven Conn argues that Americans, endowed with the belief that knowledge resided in objects themselves, built these institutions with the confidence that they could collect, organize, and display the sum of the world's knowledge. Conn discovers how museums gave definition to different bodies of knowledge and how these various museums helped to shape America's intellectual history.
"Conn is an enthusiastic advocate for his subject, an appealing thinker, an imaginative researcher, a scholar at ease with theory and with empirical evidence." —Ann Fabian, Reviews in American History
"Steven Conn's masterly study of late-nineteenth century American museums transports the reader to a strange and wonderful intellectual universe. . . . At the end of the day, Conn reminds us, objects still have the power to fascinate, attract, evoke, and, in the right context, explain." —Christopher Clarke-Hazlett, Journal of American History
Review
"In this interesting history of American museums at the turn of the century, Steven Conn follows the changing role that museums play: from institutes of scientific research and presentation of that research to the more current emphasis on entertaining-while-teaching. Behind this transition was a struggle between museums and emerging universities as to where the advancement of science was to be conducted, and a change in the way Americans viewed the object-based learning that was the 19th-century museums' fundamental approach for disseminating knowledge. The strength of this book lies in Conn's witty and engaging portrayal of many of the personalities that participated in the struggles that shaped the American museum." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
During the last half of the 19th century, Americans built many of the country's most celebrated museums, such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Chicago's Field Museum. This title argues that Americans built these institutions with the confidence that they could collect, organize, and display the sum of the world's knowledge. Museums of the late 19th century were on the cutting edge of American intellectual life; by the first quarter of the 20th century, however, museums had largely been replaced by research-oriented universities as places where new knowledge was produced. This changed both the way knowledge was conceived, and also who had access to it.
Synopsis
During the last half of the nineteenth century, many of the country's most celebrated museums were built. In this impressive study, Steven Conn argues that Americans, endowed with the belief that knowledge resided in objects themselves, built these institutions with the confidence that they could collect, organize, and display the sum of the world's knowledge. Conn describes how museums gave definition to different areas of scholarship, and how they occupied a central place in America's intellectual life.
About the Author
Steven Conn teaches History at The Ohio State University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1: Museums and the Late Victorian World
2: "Naked Eye Science": Museums and Natural History
3: Between Science and Art: Museums and the Development of Anthropology
4: The Philadelphia Commercial Museum: A Museum to Conquer the World
5: Objects and American History: The Museums of Henry Mercer and Henry Ford
6: From South Kensington to the Louvre: Art Museums and the Creation of Fine Art
7: 1926: Of Fairs, Museums, and History
Notes
Index