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UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DE CAMPINAS SISTEMA DE BIBLIOTECAS DA UNICAMP REPOSITÓRIO DA PRODUÇÃO CIENTIFICA E INTELECTUAL DA UNICAMP Versão do arquivo anexado / Version of attached file: Versão do Editor / Published Version Mais informações no site da editora / Further information on publisher's website: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/649321?mobileUi=0 DOI: 10.1086/649321 Direitos autorais / Publisher's copyright statement: ©2000 by University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved. DIRETORIA DE TRATAMENTO DA INFORMAÇÃO Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz Barão Geraldo CEP 13083-970 – Campinas SP Fone: (19) 3521-6493 http://www.repositorio.unicamp.br The Shapingof LatinAmerican Museumsof NaturalHistory, 1850-1990 Maria Margaret Lopes* and Irina Podgorny** ABSTRACT Thisessay reflects upon the milieu and the character of Brazilian and Argentinean naturalhistory museums during the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues thatthe museums were influenced not only by European and North American mu- seumsbut by each other. Museum directors in thetwo countries knew each other and interacted.Some of therelationships between these museums were friendly andcooperative, but because they were in young,emerging nations, they also be- camedeeply involved in theinvention of nationalityin theirrespective countries andinteracted as rivalsand competitors. Even through rivalry, however, they con- tributedto each other'sdevelopment, as did rivalryamong museums within each of thetwo countries. Later in thecentury they went well beyond the nationalist perspective,finding, through their research into paleontology and anthropology in theirregions, a continentaland uniquelySouth American scientific perspective, definedin reactionto NorthAmerican and European views. INTRODUCTION IN RECENT YEARS, SEVERAL HISTORIANS HAVE STUDIED MUSEUMS of naturalhistory and theordering of nature in theeighteenth and nineteenthcen- turies.I Most of thehistory of SouthAmerican museums has been writtenwithin spe- Institutode Geociencias,State University of Campinas,SP, Brazil. CONICET, Departmentof Archaeology, Museo de La Plata,Argentina. Acknowledgments:Irina Podgorny acknowledges the support of an earlycareer grant from Funda- ci6nAntorchas (Buenos Aires), and Maria MargaretLopes acknowledgesthe support of FAPESP Brazil,and the Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowship program, "Pro Scientia et Patria:Los Museosargentinos y la construcci6nde un patrimonionacional," through the Museo Etnogrnfico de la Facultadde Filosofiay Letrasde la Universidadde BuenosAires. They are both especially grateful to thedirector of theMuseo Etnogrnfico,Jos6 A. Perez Gollkn;Dr. Roy MacLeod, Universityof Sydney,Australia; and Dr. SilviaFigueir6a, University of Campinas, Brazil. This article is forSusan Sheets-Pyenson,in memoriam. (See DavidAllen, "Eloge: SusanRuth Sheets-Pyenson, 9 September 1949-18August 1998," Isis, 1999,90:168-9.) ] SallyG. Kohlstedt,"International Exchange and National Style: A Viewof Natural History Mu- seums in the United States, 1850-1900," in ScientificColonialism: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, eds. NathanReingold and Marc Rothenberg (Washington, D.C.: SmithsonianInstitution, 1987), pp. 167-90; Mary P. Winsor,Reading theShape ofNature: ComparativeZoology at theAgassiz Museum (Chicago: Univ.of Chicago Press,1991); Claude Blanckaert,C. Cohen,P. Corsi et al., eds., Le Museum au premier siecle de son histoire (Paris: Mus6um National d'Histoire Naturelle, 1997); @ 2001 byThe Historyof ScienceSociety. All rightsreserved. 0369-7827/99/1401-0004$02.00 Osiris, 2001, 15:00-0() 108 This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE SHAPING OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY 109 cificnational traditions, however, and retains a hagiographicand parochial flavor. In 1988,Susan Sheets-Pyenson discussed two Argentinean museums, the Museum of La Plataand the National Museum of Buenos Aires, within the broader context of the expansionof colonial science.2 The avenueof discussionthat she openedup, how- ever,has neitherbeen followed nor contested. This silence cannot be explainedby discontentwith a revisedframework. It suggests, rather, how highly a nationalscien- tifictradition may be valuedby those who perceive themselves as itsheirs. In this context,local institutionshave continued to be seenas ifthey had emerged as iso- latedand independent phenomena. In thisessay, we do notattempt to writethe history of Latin American museums generallyor ofArgentinean or Brazilianmuseums in particular.3Rather, we wishto reflectupon the milieu, the rhetorical character of scientificinstitutionalization and consolidation,from a comparativeperspective. A LatinAmerican point of view that aimsat going further than the limits imposed by national boundaries quickly reveals thatnational histories have more in commonthan it is customaryto assume.With regardto Argentinean and Brazilianmuseums of thesecond half of thenineteenth century,we wantto showthat the influence of contemporaryEuropean and North Americaninstitutions was mediatedby South-South links among local naturalists. THE LOST WORLD As a consequenceof the "enlightened" policies of Spain and Portugal at theturn of theeighteenth century, museums, cabinets, botanical gardens, and scientificsocie- tiesarrived in IberianAmerica on theships of metropolitanscientific expeditions. In return,the cabinets of America sent collections to the new or reorganized botani- cal gardensand museums of Madrid, Lisbon, and Coimbra. Within this framework camethe first Cabinete de HistoriaNatural, in Havana,Cuba, the Casa Botainicade Bogota'in Colombia,the Casa de HistoriaNatural of Rio de Janeiro,as well as cabinetsin Mexicoand Guatemala. The disruptiveevents that followed-scientific controversies, wars of indepen- dence,shortages of funding and staff-led to the dispersal of these early collections. Nevertheless,what remained was thebasis on whichmuseums were organized in thecontext of newlyindependent South American colonies during the first half of thenineteenth century.4 Continuities with the scientific and cultural projects inher- itedfrom the colonizing powers did notmask the special character of thesenew institutions.The museumsof naturalhistory established in BuenosAires (1812 / 1823), Rio de Janeiro(1818), Santiagode Chile (1822), Bogota(1823), Mexico (1825), Lima (1826), and Montevideo(1837) wereall framedin theprocess of buildingnew nation states; national museums were found as formercolonies became AndreasGrote, ed., Macrocosmoin Microcosmo:Die Weltin der Stube;zur Geschichtedes Sam- melns,1450 bis 1800 (Opladen:Leske & Budrich,1994). 2 SusanSheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Mu- seumsDuring the Late NineteenthCentury (Montreal: McGill-Queen's Univ. Press, 1988). 3 Foran overviewof Brazilian museums, see MariaMargaret Lopes, 0 Brasildescobre a pesquisa cientifica:Os Museuse as cienciasnaturais no seculoXIX (Sdo Paulo: Hucitec,1997). 4 Culturaland academicexchanges between Spain and Portugaland theirformer colonies in Americawere reestablished at theend of thenineteenth century. This content downloaded from 143.106.108.94 on Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:42:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 110 MARIA MARGARET LOPES AND IRINA PODGORNY independent.5In the New World,museums were the loci of institutionalizationof naturalhistory. But as a standardmeasure by whichto testthe scientificculture of a country,they also became symbolsof nationalidentity. The governmentsof thenew politicalentities created in Brazil and in theAndean and RiverPlate regionshad highhopes forthe natural sciences and theirmuseums. In particular,the Creole elites of the independentrepublics sought to overcomethe economic,social, and culturalfragmentation resulting from the rupture of thecolo- nial orderby discoveringand surveyingnew reservesof naturalresources. One of themain roles of thenatural history museum, especially in thevery first years, was to collect and to displaythe mineralogical resources of theseterritories. Mineralogical collectionswere used for teachingin new universitycourses, but theywere also used to createdazzling exhibitionsof thecountry's mineral wealth. Interest in min- eral researchwas at thecore of the firstmuseums of LatinAmerican countries,6 but in the second halfof thenineteenth century other fields such as evolutiontook their place. This process can be understoodpartly as a consequenceof thegrowing spe- cialization of the naturalsciences, but also in termsof the emergenceof specific institutionsfor different scientific disciplines. In fact,by thesecond halfof thenine- teenthcentury the museums of LatinAmerica had changedtheir priorities from min- eralogical"El Dorado" exhibitsto broaderscientific purposes. One commontrait of naturalhistory museums in thisperiod-not limitedto Latin America,as Sheets-Pyensonobserved-tied the "builders"of science to theirinsti- tutionaland scientificsettings.7 On the otherhand, alliances and conflictsamong museumdirectors and scientificstaff did not necessarilyfollow nationallines. In fact,international scientific networks sometimes brought together local and "for- eign" scientists,in defenseof local institutionalleaders and theirmuseums. Museums,as symbolsof urbancivilization, were also specificloci fordisplaying the historiesof local natureand the historiesof the extinct-or nearlyextinct- indigenousinhabitants of theNew World.In LatinAmerica, as elsewhere,museums were also