It also depends of course on what kind of a museum you mean.  Collectors
cabinets, curiosity cabinets, and museum-type collections began in the
Renaissance and displayed natural wonders.  While mostly private many
were quite extensive.  Natural history museums that were open to the
public such as that created by Charles Wilson Peale in Philadelphia
started in the early 19th century.  It was largely a collection of
natural history exhibits, some of which ended up in PT Barnum's
"museum"- and given the narrow line between education and entertainment
in the 19th century I am not entirely sure that a desire to entertain is
new.  I would say the definition is perhaps fluid and difficult to pin
down.  Museums of pathology and anatomy such as the Mutter Museum in
Philadelphia were meant to instruct doctors.  But given the reaction of
current visitors I wonder if they haven't also been as much a place of
entertainment and a place where people went to gave at human remains
with a mixture of horror and awe.  In closing, I suppose I would say
that natural history museums, in which I am including anatomy/pathology
have had a long history and a history in which
entertainment/wonder/education have always jockeyed uneasily.  As for
society and museums, Donna Harraway wrote a book on primates and natural
history museums in which she pointed out that the arrangement of animals
in nuclear family groupings in the dioramas reflected societal ideas
about families rather than social structures of animals in the wild.

Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig
Archivist and Education Coordinator, Health Science Center
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of History
Box 100014
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32610

>>> [log in to unmask] 02/13/04 14:16 PM >>>
What a wonderful series of questions. What is the role of a museum in
society? Before we can begin to answer this question we need to grapple
with
the reality that museums are far from universal phenomenon and are very
recent in the history of the world's culture. In fact, there is an
uncanny
parallel between the growth of museums and growth in nation states,
increase
of secularization, and industrialization.

The role of an institution such as the British Museum is easy to see. It
began life as a celebration of the power of the Empire, but today it is
a
postcard from a bygone era. The Hermitage Museum for many years was the
conveyor of the culture of the gone reality of tsarism, during the
Soviet
period, but today, it is a necessary link to the history of a nation as
it
is trying to redefine itself without ideological mandates. America's
National Portrait Gallery is a successful effort to define the core of
an
official national culture while the Smithsonian is aptly named "the
nation's
attic." One of my personal favorites is the Maritime Archeological
Museum in
Flevoland in Holland. Flevoland is a recently created polder, where the
earth has been exposed to the sun for the first time in over a million
years. The creation of the archeological museum instantly gave this new
area, history that goes back at least 400 years. Among my favorites are
also
the wonderful creations of spirited individuals who have through
creation of
museums either captured a certain vision of the past or actualized a
mythic
past. To me they are wonderful exemplars of what the British have called
"follies." Sturbridge Village and Plimoth Plantation are among the best
know
of these. The growth of interpretive sites and other institutions that
deal
with cultural intangibles is a relatively new twist to the heavily
materialistic world of the artifact-based 19th century museum. It does
serve
to show the growing sophistication in understanding that not only
materialistic aspects of a culture deserve memorialization and
celebration.

A recent trend towards entertainment, as well as, education and
celebration-the two historically dominant purposes of museums, has added
a
dimension to museum work that is still struggling for full acceptance.
In
short, we are in a dynamic cultural period where new experiments in
museum
practices and realities are constantly struggling with remnants of the
past
and where functions change with the speed of historic shifts. Are
museums
reflections of contemporary society? Obviously, every existing viable
cultural expression is a reflection of the society of the time, but as
society changes the function of any particular museum will also change.
No
museum is really a slice of contemporary society because it is past
oriented. If a sculpture is finished today, and placed in a museum
tomorrow,
it is a statement of the past, not the future. With recent loss of
funding
to many museums it might be interesting to create a museum of museums so
that we have a record of cultural moments that were important at some
point,
but are no longer supported by the society.
nburlakoff

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf
Of Renee Patrick
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 10:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reflection of Society in Museums

Hello,

I am researching museum exhibition design for my
masters thesis at Goldsmiths College in the UK.  I
would like to pose the following questions and would
really appreciate any responses.

Right now I am concerned with the museum's place in
certain societies, and I know this is a very broad
issue, but maybe if people have specific examples...I
am wondering whether the museum can be an accurate
representation of a current society.  For example, in
London we have the British Museum which as it stands,
seems to speak more to Britian's traditional colonial
society rather than the current situation today.  Are
national museums capable of the fluidity needed to
respond to cultural changes or should this be more to
the task of smaller community museums?

Western society seems to be becoming much more
individualistic, how can or should a museum reflect
the individualized society?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Renee Patrick

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