Main entry:

Orosz, Joel J., author.

Title & Author:

Curators and culture : The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870 / Joel J. Orosz.

Publication:

Tuscaloosa, Alabama : University of Alabama Press, 1990
©1990

Description:

xii, 304 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Series:

History of American science and technology series

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-294) and index.
Preface -- Prologue: Thesis, definitions, and structure -- The Curio Cabinet transplanted to the New World, 1740-1780 -- The Moderate Enlightenment, 1780-1800: The museum for the respectability -- The Didactic Enlightenment, 1800-1820: The decline of the respectability -- The Age of Egalitarianism, 1820-1840: The ideal of popular education -- The Age of Professionalism, 1840-1860: The scientists lead the way -- The American Compromise, 1850-1870: The synthesis of popular education and professionalism -- Epilogue: The American Compromise and museum historiography -- Notes -- Select bibliography: Manuscript sources ; Secondary sources -- Index.
In English.

Summary:

"The conflicting demands for popular education on the one hand and professionalism on the other were a continuing source of tension in American museums after about 1835, and those conflicting demands were resolved after 1870 by synthesizing the two claims into a rough parity. This synthesis, which Orosz terms the 'American compromise,' remains the basic model of museums in America to the present. Orosz researched ten museums founded prior to 1870, using primary sources. Those chosen comprised a geographically diverse sample of pre-1870 American museums and covered a range of disciplines, among them art, history, and natural science. The ten museums are Du Simitière's, Peale's, and The Academy of Natural Sciences, all of Philadelphia; The American Museum, Peale's, and the New-York Historical Society, all of New York; the Wadsworth Atheneum, of Hartford; the Western Museum, of Cincinnati; Peale's Museum, of Baltimore; and the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, of Washington, D.C. Five other museums are examined in less detail: the Charleston Museum; the American Philosophical Society and the Library Company of Philadelphia, both of Philadelphia; the Museum of Comparative Zoology, of Cambridge; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of New York City."--from the inside front and back flaps.

ISBN:

0817304754 (alk. paper)
9780817304751 (alk. paper)
(pbk. ; alk. paper)
0817312048
9780817312046

Subject:

Museums United States History.
Museum curators United States History.
Popular culture Museums United States History.
Popular culture United States Museums History.
Musées États-Unis Histoire.
Conservateurs de musée États-Unis Histoire.
Culture populaire États-Unis Musées Histoire.
Culture populaire Musées États-Unis Histoire.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS Museum Administration & Museology.
REFERENCE General.
TRAVEL Museums, Tours, Points of Interest.
Museum curators
Museums
Popular culture Museums
Museum
Musea.
United States
USA
United States Popular culture Museums History

Form/genre:

History

Added entries:

History of American science and technology series.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 259997
Call No.: BIB 190907
Status: Available