Proprietary Museurns in Antebellurn Cincinnati: "Something to Please You and Something to Learn"
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Proprietary Museurns in Antebellurn Cincinnati: "Something to please you and something to learn" Ulana Lydia Baluk A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education, Department of Theory and Policy Studies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto @Copyright by Ulana Lydia Baluk 2000 National Library Bibliothbque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 3QS Wellington Street 395, ruo Wellington OnawaON K1A ON4 OnawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Cana& de reproduce, loan, distribute or seil reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in rnicrofom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/fih, de reproduction sur papier ou sur fonnat électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celleci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract Proprietary Museurns in Antebellum Cincinnati: "Something to please you and something to learn" Ulana Lydia Baluk, Ed. D., 2000 Department of Theory and Policy Studies University of Toronto Judged by contemporary standards of rnuseum practice and disrnissed as "chance assemblages of objects" or as vulgar exploitations of the Amencan public's eagemess for exotic novelties, the proprietary mwums of antebellum America have received little attention in the historical literatwe. Few efforts have been made to examine the developrnent of proprietary museums within theù particular socio-historical contexts. The cumnt study re-examines the history of the Westem Museum of Cincinnati, established in 18 18. The Westem Museum is considered as the product of a number of influences: the constmct of a "museum" as interpreted in the most popdous Eastern seaboard cities, the popular culture and religious values of the urban fiontier and of antebellum America, as well as the vicissitudes of the local economy of Cincinnati. The Museum's exhibits were also influenced heavily by the interests, talents and expertise of its founders, proprietors, paid staff and their associates. Biographical Uiformation is provided about Daniel Drake, Joseph Dorfeuille, John James Audubon, Frances Trollope, and Hiram Powers. The study relies upon paid advertisements, travellers' recollections, biographicai accouats and the extensive correspondence of Hiram Powers, the Museum's resident artist, to trace the development of the Museum hma specialized scientific cabinet associated with the Cincinnati College to its establishment as a commercial, popdist museum. The impact of iii competing local institutions such as Letton's Museum as well as more ephemeral entertainments is considered upon the Western Museum's exhibits and entertainments. Although earlier historical accounts have attnbuted the development of the Western Museum's most enduring exhibit, the animated wax-work depiction of Dante's Inferno to the imagination of Frances Trollope, this study challenges ihis assumption and indiates that the influence of the ex-patriate British museum proprietor William Bullock must be considered. Although the Western Mwum swived as a commercial venture until 1867, this study concentrates on the first twenty years of its existence. The graduai move toward the development of a publicly-funded museum in Cincinnati is discussed. The study calls for more contexnialized research into these early proprietary museums in which the cunently-contested museological issues of "scholarship versus entertainment" and "commerce versus education" are rooted. Acknowledgments 1 would like to extend my heart felt appreciation to my advisor Dr. Harold Troper for his lively engagement with this topic and his thoughtfùl reading of my paper. 1 would also like to thank Dr. David Levine for his encouragement and fiendship over the past years and Dr. Lynne Teather for introducing me to the richness of museurn history while 1 was a student in the Museum Snidies department at the University of Toronto. My gratitude is also extended to rny colleagws, both former and current, at the Royal Ontario Museum for their support and encouragement throughout the years. A special thank you is offered to the staff of the Cincinnati Historical Society Library - without their assistance and knowledge, this work would not have been completed. I am particularly grateful for the many kindnesses they showed me while 1 conducted the archival research. But my greatest sense of gratitude is to my family. 1 am etemally indebted to my parents for their unflagging interest in my studies and in particular, to my husband Michael for his enthusiasm, humour, help and cornpanionship in this long process. 1 find that 1 am gettiag into a much greater field than 1 had fvst expected or intended, I find it very arnusing, and 1 hope in the end it wiil be ussehi [sic]. Charles Willson Peale Table of Contents Abstract Ac knowledgments Dedication Chapter One: Introduction and Historical Overview Chapter Two: The Early Arnerican Museum Chapter Three: Cinci~atiand the Western Museum Daniel Drake and the Founding of the Western Museum Chapter Four: The Western Museum Society Letton's Museum Chapter Five: The Western Museum under Joseph Dorfeuille Chapter Six: The Invisible Girl Chapter Seven: The Creators of the Infernal Regions Frances Trollope William Bullock Hiram Powers Chapter Eight: The Infernal Regions Chapter Nine: The Western Museum afler the Infernal Regions Chapter Ten: The Birth of the Publicly Funded Museum in Cincinnati Chapter Eleven: The Proprietary Museum Revisited Chapter One Introduction and Historicai Overview "A chance assemblage of curiosities... rather [than] a series of objects selected with reference to their value to investigators, or their possibilities for public enlightenment."' George Brown Goodc's assessmcnt and dismissal of early American museunis, presènted at the third annual meeting of the Amencan Historical Association on December 26, 1888, has exerted an enduring and seldom-questioned influence on the historiography of rnuseums. As the assistant secretary to the Smithsonian Institution and the tirst forma1 historian of museums in North America. Goode laid the fiundation for a critique of museums which has been echoed and re-echoed throughout the past century. He declared that pre-1870 American museums had consisted of either spectacular or bizarre objects with no scientific or educationai value. These collections were merely sideshows which existed for the public's vulgar gratification. Goode was also responsible for introducing a second contradictory but equally pervasive critique. He charged that early museums had been eiitist enclaves serving the desires of the dite and had failed to take the necessary steps to attract the general populace. This line of criticism clairned that early museums had violated the egalitarian ethos of America. While Goode failed to reconcile these contradictory criticisms, his assertions formed the bedrock upon which the critique and analysis of the early American museum has 'George Brown Goode, "Museum-History and Museums of History," in Papers of the American Historical Association (New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1888), 263. 7 4, been established.' Echoes of his statements have been heard in the works of historians and museum workers over the next one hundred years. Goode was firmly committed to the idea of the museum as an educator; it was established to increase and dimise scientific knowledge. The museurn was to achieve this goal by becoming a "collcction of instructive labels. sach illus~atedby a weli-srlectd specimen." In subsequent works, including his Principles ofMuseum Administration ( 1895). Goode tùrther elaborated his beliefs that the museurn was to function as a "passionless reformer". The museum. like the park. library and reading room, he argued, could influence men's behaviour and monlity. It could help a man select a life characterized by moral restraint and couid lead him to wisdom. gentleness, and ultimately. to heaven. The museurn would seme as an uplifter of popular taste and design as well as an enforcer of sobriety and productivity. In elaborating this view of the role of the museum, Goode was influenced by Sir Henry Cole. the founder of the South Kensington Museum (1 852) in London (later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum). Goode acknowledged Cole as the undisputed leader and originator of the educational mission of the museum, dismissing earlier American museum keepers as merely mercenary proprietors. The American rnuseum, as envisioned by Goode, would serve only an adult audience. Children were dismissed as potential museum visitors; Goode professed that he did not believe the museum to be a place for "people in their larval 'Joel Orosz, Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870 (Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1WO), 1-2. or school-going stage of existence."' By the early twentieth century, Goode's views were deeply entrenched in the museological literature. John Cotton Dana, a former 1ibraria.n and director of the Newark