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.