Ordering Wonder: Collections, Curators, and Showmen in Antebellum America

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dc.contributor.advisorPandora, Katherine
dc.contributor.authorBurnes, James
dc.contributor.committeeMemberFields, Alison
dc.contributor.committeeMemberHale, Piers
dc.contributor.committeeMemberMagruder, Kerry
dc.date.accessioned2023-12-07T23:05:39Z
dc.date.available2023-12-07T23:05:39Z
dc.date.issued2023-12-15
dc.date.manuscript2023
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation explores the development and execution of five museum collections established between the 1793 opening of Charles Willson Peale’s museum in Philadelphia and the opening of the Smithsonian Institution as America’s National Museum in 1855. The Smithsonian Institution and, later, the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art seem to many like the beginning of "real" museums in America, but what this research demonstrates is that they are the result of decades of trial and error by many previous, equally real, museums. Through generations of changes not only of the nation but of the people and culture of that nation, museums’ content and displays reflected changes in government, cultural shifts, and new populations with leisure time and extra money to spend. They at once reveal something uniquely American in content while tying themselves to existing European models, providing excellent avenues to study the early exercise of American science with international comparisons to older, more established institutions, professionals, and audiences.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11244/340021
dc.languageenen_US
dc.rightsAttribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/*
dc.subjectHistory of Scienceen_US
dc.subjectHistory of Museumsen_US
dc.subjectMuseums in Popular Cultureen_US
dc.subjectMaterial Cultureen_US
dc.thesis.degreePh.D.en_US
dc.titleOrdering Wonder: Collections, Curators, and Showmen in Antebellum Americaen_US
ou.groupDodge Family College of Arts and Sciences::Department of History of Scienceen_US

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