Women's Museums

Museum Evolution

According to the American Association of Museums, there now are more than 17,500 museums that attract 865 million visitors a year in the United States alone. The worldwide statistics are inestimable. However, long before museums were the publicly accessible institutions they are today, they existed as private collections of art, scientific specimens, and assorted natural and human-made oddities. Often these “cabinets of curiosities” were shared with strategically selected guests as a means of flaunting personal wealth and power. During the Enlightenment, members of elite societies commissioned scientific expeditions around the world, housing their spoils in facilities accessible only to members and their guests. Later, in the United States, these societies occasionally opened their collections to immigrant populations in large cities as tools of mass “Americanization.” This chapter in museum evolution was quickly followed by enterprises such as the P. T. Barnum's American Museum in New York City (1841) that supplemented education with sideshow entertainment through exhibits featuring a mix of genuine and fake wonders.

As museums evolved, so have their functions. Today, museums reflect their rich legacy by fulfilling all the functions that characterized earlier eras, including the display of personal and collective privilege; production of knowledge; collection, preservation and interpretation of artifacts; professional and mass education; construction of civic identity; and entertainment. In addition, increasingly museums are recognized as vital tools for development programs aimed at attracting tourist dollars as a means of reviving local economies.

Museums and the Social Order

Museums have never been mere apolitical cabinets of curiosities; rather, they are ideological texts that communicate contestable messages about the structure, values, and practices of society. This is most clearly illustrated by controversies that have pitted special interest groups against museum officials. For example, outcry from veterans groups in the 1990s regarding the National Air and Space Museum's proposed treatment of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan in World War II resulted in the cancellation of the exhibit. The Women's Museum in Dallas, Texas, has been criticized by feminists who charge that corporate interests are too prominently displayed.

From their earliest days until the mid-20th century, museums primarily represented the viewpoint of the culture's elite—white, male, and moneyed. The collection, preservation, interpretation, and display of artistic, natural science, and historical artifacts, therefore, represented and reinforced patriarchy. One powerful result of the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s has been the movement toward the democratization of museums. This trend manifests itself in a number of ways. Many museums have added multiple voices to their formerly univocal exhibitions. Colonial Wilhamsburg, Virginia, for example, now tells the [Page 905]story of the village's slave population as well as that of its aristocratic citizens. A more radical strategy is the rise of new museums that specifically focus on the history and cultural production of groups traditionally ignored or underrepresented. For example, the 16th addition to the Smithsonian family of museums, the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004, was planned and designed in collaboration with native populations. Other museums focusing on African American experiences, various immigrant groups, Muslim culture, and women are all part of this recent “critical turn” in museum evolution.

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