Useful objects : museums, science, and literature in nineteenth-century America / Reed Gochberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gochberg, Reed, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Museums--United States--History--19th century.

Museums.

Museums--Social aspects--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (273 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

Useful Objects examines the cultural history of nineteenth-century American museums through the eyes of writers, visitors, and collectors. Throughout this period, museums gradually transformed from encyclopedic cabinets to more specialized public institutions. These changes prompted wider debates about how museums determine what objects to select, preserve, and display-and who gets to decide. Drawing on a wide range of archival materials and accounts in fiction, guidebooks, and periodicals, Useful Objects shows how the challenges facing nineteenth-century museums continue to resonate in debates about their role in American culture today.

Contents:

Circulating objects : loss and decay in the American Philosophical Society's cabinet

Shadowed silhouettes : writing indigenous resistance in early American museums

American claimants : overwhelming collections and visitor impressions at the British Museum

Novel inventions : nation and spectacle in the U.S. Patent Office gallery

Specimen collectors : preservation and classification at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-755351-6

0-19-755350-8

OCLC:

1245960059