Defining the modern museum: a case study of the challenges of exchange

239 Pages·2013·2.605 MB·English

by  McTavish, Lianne

DEFINING THE MODERN MUSEUM
A Case Study of the Challenges of Exchange
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Defining the Modern
Museum
A Case Study of the Challenges of
Exchange
LIANNE McTAvISH
UNIvERSITy OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2013
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in Canada
isbn 978-1-4426-4443-4
Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with
vegetable-based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
McTavish, Lianne
Defining the modern museum : a case study of the challenges of exchange
/ Lianne McTavish.
(Cultural spaces)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-4426-4443-4
1. New Brunswick Museum – Case studies. 2. Museums – Case studies.
3. Museum techniques – Case studies. I. Title. II. Series: Cultural spaces
am21.n4m37 2013 069.0971591 c2012-906128-x
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts
Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to
Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the
Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing
activities.
For my former colleagues in the Department of History
at the University of New Brunswick
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Contents
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: The Impossible Museum 3
1 Exchanging values in the Nineteenth-Century Museum
Marketplace 22
2 Learning to See: vision, visuality, and Material Culture,
1862–1929 48
3 Offering Orientalism: Women and the Gift Economy of the
Museum, 1880–1940 71
4 Libraries and Museums: Shifting Relationships, 1830–1940 105
5 Gendered Professionals: Debating the Ideal Museum Worker during
the 1930s and 1940s 129
Conclusion 153
Notes 159
Bibliography 201
Index 215
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Illustrations
i.1 Exterior of the New Brunswick Museum (est. 1929), Douglas
Avenue location, Saint John, opened 1933. 10
i.2 Façade of the New Brunswick Museum, Market Square, Saint
John. 11
2.1 L. Marie Hansen and R. Florence Harned in the School Service
Department, New Brunswick Museum. 54
2.2 Genevieve Thorne and Gloria Roulston in the School Service
Department, New Brunswick Museum. 55
3.1 Unidentified members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Natural
History Society of New Brunswick, Oriental Exhibition, January
1924. 72
3.2 Overall view of display cases in the Art Department of the New
Brunswick Museum, 1930s–1940s. 73
3.3 Façade of the Museum of the Natural History Society of New
Brunswick, purchased in 1907, Saint John (now destroyed). 79
3.4 Interior of the Museum of the Natural History Society of New
Brunswick, Oriental Exhibition. 81
3.5 Bridal crown, South China, brass, beads, and Kingfisher feather,
likely Qing Dynasty. 88
3.6 Shoe for bound foot, China, Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), cotton,
silk, dyes, leather, wood, and metallic paper. 91
3.7 Case in the Art Department of the New Brunswick Museum,
c. 1930s–1940s, featuring Chinese ceramics from the Han
Dynasty. 97
3.8 Case in the Art Department of the New Brunswick Museum,
c. 1930s–1940s, featuring Chinese ceramics from the Tang
Dynasty. 98