The Academy of Natural Sciences

 

           Our visit to the Academy of Natural Sciences really got me thinking about the often underestimated role that art plays in science museums. I was particularly fascinated by the museum’s dioramas, the majority of which were created between the 1930s and 50s. Building these was a major collaborative task, involving both scientists and artists. First, the animals were killed and skinned on site. Then, their bones were carefully reconstructed in the desired pose and covered with wire, plaster, and lastly their original skin. Everything else in dioramas was created entirely by hand; it took a whole team of artisans to paint the backdrop and make every single leaf and rock, with meticulous attention paid to detail and accuracy. For many museum-goers who saw these in the 1930s, this was the closest thing they could do to actually experiencing such exotic animals in their natural habitats. Yes, there were zoos at the time, but the animals were kept in metal cages, completely out of context. I admired the dioramas not only because they are incredible scientific and artistic achievements, especially considering the technological limitations of the time period in which they were made, but also because they provide visitors with a perspective on how our society’s idea of a “multi-media” museum exhibit have changed over time.  

            Since the rise of movies and television, the dioramas have lost their magical quality for many people. To simply glance at them, without any knowledge of their historical significance or the incredible amount of work that went into them, could certainly leave some 21^st imaginations unimpressed. We had the great opportunity to meet some of the people who work at the museum, and learn how they are dealing with this problem. We got to go behind-the-scenes and see some of the plans for upcoming exhibits, all of which seek to explain the history and debunk the myths and assumptions behind the dioramas, while increasing understanding and appreciation for them. One of them explains the taxidermic process, and will include items for visitors to touch. Another details the process of painting the backdrops, using objects, some actually from the 30s and some new, to demonstrate all of the steps. The big one that they are working on is an exhibit built around a film about a particular expedition (I’ve forgotten which one) and will also include plants, rocks, and trees made by artists. We learned about companies that rent out exhibits to museums, and others that make accurate plant replicas, both of which I didn’t even know existed before this trip. I personally found it to be one of our more informative visits.

            I genuinely admire the people who work in this museum. I think that they are all very intelligent, creative, and dedicated individuals, and that together they will definitely succeed in keeping the Academy of Natural Sciences relevant in the years to come. This was the perfect place to visit last in the semester because it directed our thoughts toward the future of museums.

The National Constitution Center

            By merely gazing at the National Constitution Center from the outside, you can really get a sense of what it’s all about. Located in the heart of old city, near the Liberty Bell Center and U.S. mint, the NCC is a huge, grandiose building surrounded by a vast expanse of green space. There is a jumbo-sized American flag in its spectacular front window. The preamble to the constitution is artfully etched out on the building’s concrete façade, though the only words discernible from far away are “we the people.”

            Upon entering the museum and observing the lobby’s super-high ceilings, visitors feel a combination of awe and comfort. The display of all 50 state flags immediately evokes a sense of national unity, and the quotes on the wall, such as Teddy Roosevelt’s “The people themselves must be the ultimate makers of their Constitution,” suggest to visitors that they belong here and that their presence is important.

            The next stop is a high-tech theatre in which visitors watch a presentation called Freedom Rising. I found this part of the visit to be particularly interesting. This is not simply a film. The theatre is circular. In the center of it is a small stage where a very serious live narrator stands. Everywhere you turn your head, iconic and highly emotional images and video clips flash before your eyes: Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech, Women’s Suffrage activists, footage from 9/11, Vietnam, World War II—the list goes on and on. For me, it was honestly quite overwhelming. I personally felt that this bordered on emotional manipulation; to have all those powerful and historically significant images just simultaneously thrown at you with only a broad, sweeping general explanation. I kept wondering to myself, exactly how short of an attention span is this museum assuming we have?

            Next, visitors walk up a staircase and out into the main exhibit hall, which is also circular, suggesting a kind of democratic freedom to choose your own path. There are lots of exhibits to choose from, ranging from the super-interactive and high-tech to the more traditional look-at-the-stuff-and-read-the-poster sort of displays. It was very apparent to me that the NCC is trying to appeal to all different age groups, and I honestly think they are pulling it off as best as they can. The truth is that it’s difficult to create a heritage museum, especially one that celebrates the collective past of 300 million people, which can easily appeal to a wide range of demographics. I may have personally felt that Freedom Rising was a bit much, but I speculate that for most visitors, especially schoolchildren, it is probably an appropriate and effective attraction.

            Although I sensed a conservative bias at times, I also recognized the museum’s efforts to maintain an appeal to diversity and free speech. The overall message of the museum, as I read it, is that our definition of who exactly “we the people” includes has expanded and evolved over time, and the well-crafted, open-to-interpretation nature of our constitution has allowed for these great societal revisions. It’s definitely a nice message, and one that most Americans, including myself, agree with. I think that the NCC successfully achieves its goal as a heritage museum, and that the view of heritage it has constructed is a broadly appealing one. Sure, it is blatantly nationalistic, but I think it also does a decent job at acknowledging the darker parts of our nation’s past. I may not have agreed with all of its methods, but I still felt welcome there despite the fact.

Eastern State Penitentiary

            In my Haunted Histories essay, I asserted that, though Eastern State Penitentiary is undeniably more dedicated to historical preservation and public education than Pennhurst, it is still unacceptable for them to host a “haunted” attraction on their site. However, after visiting the site for the first time and participating in the day tour, I have begun to question my original stance.

            First of all, I should say that ESP was my favorite museum we’ve visited so far for this class. I found its history not only fascinating but tremendously relevant. It really got me thinking critically about incarceration in the U.S. When it opened, it was one of the country’s most expensive public facilities ever, with cutting edge technology and open support from many of our forefathers. The original intention was well-meaning: use solitary confinement as a means to help prisoners find their “inner light” and then release them back into society as new, enlightened people. Of course, we now know that while in theory this sounds like a good idea, in reality it often drove prisoners insane. However, the site now stands as a reminder of a time in our history when our leaders were much more willing to spend money and time figuring out how to reform prisoners, instead of simply locking them away. Today, our country has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and we are still using outdated and regressive methods such as solitary confinement to punish people. It is a gigantic problem (much bigger than many of us realize), and I think that Eastern State has some truly amazing potential to serve as a place to inspire such critical conversation.

            During some candid discussion with our tour guide Toby, he mentioned that approximately half of the museum’s yearly revenue comes from Terror Behind the Walls. When someone asked him how he felt about it, he said that, as someone who gives day tours, he sees an impressive number of visitors drawn to the site solely because they had attended the haunted attraction. The way I see it now; if the haunted attraction is going to help keep the museum open year-round, and also inspire a few of its visitors to come back for a day tour, thus prompting them to think critically about incarceration in America…then I think it’s worth it. For ESP, the positive effects of the situation outweigh the negatives. For Pennhurst however, I still maintain my original position.

The Powel House

          For our fourth field exercise, we visited the Powel House, former home of Samuel Powel, Philadelphia’s mayor before and after the American Revolution.  Powel and his wife were both crucial figures in the 18^th century Philadelphia and national political scenes. They were dear friends to the Washingtons, who visited often and for long periods of time. In fact, Brandi Levine, executive director of Landmarks and our tour guide for the day, cites a letter of encouragement from Mrs. Powel as one of George Washington’s main motivations to run for the presidency. Levine was very honest with us, not only about the history of the space (which has certainly seen some less glamorous days; it was a warehouse in the early 20^th century before being saved from destruction by local heiress Frances Ann Wister), but also about the financial and organizational dilemmas that come along with keeping such a museum open. This brings me to the big question: do we need another house museum?

            To answer this, let us first consider the value of museums such as the Powel house. Levine stressed to us the importance of house museums to the communities they are apart of. She noted that most of the volunteers and board members live within walking distance of the museum, and take great pride in their affiliation with it. As Marian Godfrey simply and elegantly puts it, “House museums are a vital part of our community. They are tangible reminders of our history, where we came from, and who we once were.” The Powel House is an excellent example of this. It is an especially compelling place because it is one where the founding fathers of our nation discussed and debated the ideas that formed our political system. By physically inhabiting this space, we are able to connect with its past in a more intimate and powerful way than say, reading a book or listening to a lecture. When we visit a house museum, we literally step into its history, inspiring us to think about the ways in which were are situated within its continuing legacy. Museums such as the Powel demonstrate the importance of place in constructing community and individual identity. 

             So, do we need another one? I think that, theoretically (meaning financial difficulties aside), if each neighborhood were to have such a museum, we might see a lot more people taking pride in where they are from. Even if a neighborhood never had a major celebrity or politician emerge from it, wouldn’t it be neat if every community had something to point to and say “this is where we came from, and it’s a part of why we are who we are today”? Surely every neighborhood, especially in Philadelphia, has a rich and important past, one that has contributed greatly to making our city what we know it as today. More house museums would allow us to appreciate that.

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

The Penn Museum is a powerful example of how the time and place in which a museum is established shapes its enduring meaning. Founded in the late 1800s, it was the world’s very first Anthropology museum.  As Seth pointed out during our post-visit discussion, this was a deeply racist point in American history. The influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, as well as the migration of African Americans from the rural south to northern cities, was met with a massive backlash of prejudice in every facet of American society.  The U.S., troubled by Frederick Jackson Turner’s claim that the country’s western frontier had closed, began an Imperialist streak. Scholars of the time sought to justify this racism and Imperialism by “scientifically” proving the inferiority of minority groups. Anthropology, in its early days, was very much devoted to studying ancient cultures and ranking them in order of how “primitive” they were. The original layout of the Penn Museum displayed this by symbolically locating the artifacts of African, Asian, and Native American civilizations in the building's basement and Western artifacts upstairs.

            The layout of the museum has since been changed, but the aura of its troubling origins still remains deeply imbedded in its collecting and organizational practices. The museum’s permanent exhibits are that of ancient civilizations from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South America, North America (Native Americans only) Greece, and Rome. As Americans, when we visit this museum, we are thus gazing not at ourselves but at the “other.” I think this was the intention of the museum’s founders; to make visitors feel like they are separate from and therefore superior to the cultures displayed. Though the curators’ motives have undoubtedly changed since then, the presentation of the artifacts continues to echo this ideology.

 While browsing the museum, I remembered our discussion on how museums remember for us what is important about culture (Crane 98). By carefully choosing specific artifacts from China and putting them together in a big room, the museum is, in a way, telling us “This is what you need to remember about China, and, in essence, this is China.” I think this is a huge power that museums wield, and we should always to be conscious of it when visiting one, no matter how prestigious and old of an institution it may be.

Independence Hall and the Second National Bank

              For our second field exercise, we explored the life, museum, and mission of Charles Willson Peale. Peale is quite an intriguing character; a true “Renaissance” man with many hobbies and interests, he is now remembered mostly for his portraits of elite Americans of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and for the museum he ran in Philadelphia from 1802 to 1826. I knew virtually nothing about him or his museum before this class, so it was a very informative and thought-provoking experience for me.

              Our first stop was the second floor of Independence Hall, where Peale’s museum was once located. Now it has been restored to look like it did at the time of the American Revolution, but visiting the space still helped inform my understanding of it. Curator Katie Diethorn provided us with a comprehensive base knowledge of Peale and his museum. She explained Peale’s vision of containing “the world in miniature” within his museum, a true product of the Enlightenment period he came of age in. All of his artifacts were organized according to Linnaeun taxonomy; the most “simple” specimens were located on the bottom shelves, increasing in complexity as visitors gazed upwards. At the very top of the walls were Peale’s own portraits of the nation’s most revered citizens of the time, who were all, of course, elite middle-aged white men. Diethorn explained how Peale worked tirelessly to get federal funding for the museum, but to no avail. His ultimate goal was for it to become the official national museum, which is one of the reasons why he strategically chose to place it in America’s most famous building. The museum closed down in 1826 due to financial troubles. Most of the natural specimens were sold to P.T. Barnum and then lost in fires, but a large collection of his portraits are now housed in the Second National Bank.

               Next, we visited the Second National Bank to see the exhibit featuring Peale’s paintings. Diethorn raised up many great points about the objectives of modern day history museums. She explained that as time goes on and U.S. society changes, what we choose to extract from our history changes as well. This, she noted, is why the exhibit in the bank is completely revamped every fifteen years or so. In the past, it mainly focused on the stories of the few but powerful. Now, even though it still features Peale’s portraits of elite white men of the Revolutionary Era, it also incorporates visuals and information to give visitors a feel for how “everyday” people of the period lived as well, including women and minorities. This illustrates our collective memory’s pattern of evolving over time, and how that process is both influenced by and reflected in our history museums. She also reminded us that every museum, without exception, is presenting visitors with a point of view, and that we should always keep this in mind. Coming from a curator, I found this very powerful. I admired Diethorn’s honesty about Peale, his museum, and the current exhibit in the bank. She encouraged us to think critically about Peale’s notions of gender and race, and did not blatantly romanticize the information she gave us, as is so often done in discussions of Revolutionary War Era history. All in all, I found this to be a very interesting visit that really got me pondering about how public history museums evolve through the years, and what their goals and function should be.

Field Exercise I: The Wagner Free Institute of Science

          Yesterday we visited the Wagner Free Institute of Science, located nearby Temple’s campus. I knew very little about the institute prior to this field exercise. I actually live right around the corner, yet I was still unaware of the building’s history and what exactly goes on inside. I was eager to learn more about this landmark in my own neighborhood.

            The visit began with a short information session in the lecture hall, where we heard a bit about William Wagner, his vision of free public science education, and the history of the building. I was immediately struck by the seeming authenticity of my surroundings; everything in the lecture hall, with the exception of a television and projector, appeared to be from the 19^th century. It was clear to see that the Wagner’s mission to provide science education to the community is not its sole one. Preservation of the building is especially important to the institute as well.

            We then walked upstairs to the exhibit hall, which I found to be quite fascinating. It is an impeccably preserved example of a Victorian natural science museum. We browsed aisles of old wood and glass cabinets, gazing at bones, fossils, and animal carcasses, many of them labeled with hand-written notes. The experience felt eccentric, almost whimsical. The curator noted that in the early days of the institute, the collection was not organized at all (“curiosity cabinet” style), but was later organized according to Darwin’s theory of evolution…though it still seemed quite random to me. I noticed that I was not learning much from simply looking at all of the objects. Very little description was provided. It made me wonder if this was William Wagner’s intention. Perhaps he wanted to make visitors realize how little they know about science in order to draw them to the institute’s classes. Or perhaps it was simply the way museums operated in the Victorian age, long before all of the interactive technologies we associate with the science museums of today. 

             The Wagner is a museum in transition, caught somewhere between a curiosity cabinet and a modern museum, purposely frozen in time. It is meant to show us what museums used to be. It is also an excellent example of how crucial objects’ context and containers are in shaping their meaning. Without the 19^th century building, furniture, and display cabinets, the Wagner collection is just a group of one man’s natural oddities. It has very little to communicate to us in the 21^st century. However, because of its context, it speaks volumes about the way museums functioned in the Victorian age, and allows visitors to “step back in time” and experience it for ourselves.