Charles Wilson Peale: World in Miniature

This outing was my first tour of Independence Hall and the Second Bank of the US.  Located in Philadelphia’s historic area, these buildings were once popular gathering places of our ‘founding fathers’.  Our private tour centered on Charles Wilson Peale who arguably produced the first American museum.  He was not wealthy, but continued to paint influential figures and collect specimens.  He succeeded in displaying this content publically; although he never reached his goal of national fame.  Through exploring the room in Independence Hall where Peale displayed his artifacts and seeing his paintings in a modern display at the Second Bank, I now better understand Peale and his motives.  For me it solidified and expanded upon my knowledge about Peale from Harold Colton.  I also formed new perspectives on museum practices and Peale’s role in creating public knowledge.

Peale’s museum was located on the second floor of Independence Hall in an elongated room originally designed as a waiting area.  Here the ‘container’ acts as advertising for the museum content.  It was the City Hall of the time and therefore a popular hub of activity.  Even though it was renovated and reconstructed since the 1800s, I could still imagine Peale’s socio-cultural hierarchy of artifacts lining the walls.  As a member of the philosophical society, He displayed these artifacts and portraits from an Enlightenment perspective, but when Romanticism flourished and other sources of entertainment increased, the museum’s popularity diminished. 

When the museum closed, the city bought 94 of Peale’s portraits that hung on the second floor of Independence Hall.  The Second Bank now houses these portraits.  They each depict a face of someone he deemed politically and socially important.  The arrangement of these portraits changes to accommodate the fast pace of modern society, but the content remains.  Through detailing their expressions, he depicted their personalities.        

At its peak, Peale’s museum was highly regarded and was as popular as those in Europe (Colton 233).  He wanted to portray ‘his world in miniature’ and to provide public entertainment and knowledge (Peale 28).  This purpose is similar to the early definition of museum purposes which was to “inspire and entertain” (Abt 120).  This room may not be remembered for the collection it once housed, but Peale’s legacy as the first museum founder lives on. 

The Wagner: An Often Unacknowledged Innovative Institution

Today’s field excursion was located at the Wagner Institute in a residential area of North Philadelphia a few blocks off Temple’s campus.  This trip constituted as my fourth visit to the Wagner, and although the exhibits don’t change, I innovatively interacted with the “museum” and examined the collections considering Macdonald’s indication that collecting (arguably an innate human function) is the foundation for museums and provides a valuable connection between the physical and social aspects of society.  William Wagner collected some of the specimens locally, but mostly while traveling in Europe.  Following the trend of many upper class white males, Wagner displayed his treasures through a curiosity cabinet, but more uniquely, gave lectures as accompaniments to his display.  He eventually founded the institute (1896) to 1) act as a larger container for his specimens, but 2) mainly as a vessel to teach science to the public.  Lectures and classes were offered on the first floor as a foundation for understanding the collection assembled on the second level.  In the 1880s Joseph Leidy organized the specimens according to Darwinism evolution stages.  As mentioned in Giebelhausen’s essay, this idea of categorization and thinking of the museum as an instrument trended throughout the late 1800s.  Macdonald also notes that at this time, there is an increase in public desire to rationalize collections and objects’ relational values.  Wagner conforms to this trend through the more strategic deployment of his specimens, but is also innovative in that he uses classroom environments to inform the public about the objects in his collection, giving them a thorough understanding of their context and connections to one another. 

I have walked among the collection before, but this expedition was the first time I was notified that the drawers in each case can be opened to expose more specimens.  I quickly realized they were cumbersome, but to the visitor of the late 1800s, they may have been innovatively interactive.  However, their existence is important because even through difficult to open, they allow more of the collection to be publically accessed at all times.  This use of space provided a solution to one issue Macdonald raises that was debated in the early 20^th century; large portions of collections were often not shown, but kept in storage.  Smaller independent museums popularized such as the Wagner.  Unfortunately it is largely detached from the majority of the Philadelphia community today possibly because it is a small personal collection that never changes.  It stands often unnoticed in North Philadelphia like the outcast building of the neighborhood that was forgotten long ago, but its value and authenticity remains as Wagner intended: to freely provide scientific knowledge to the public.  It remains important as a transitional period museum at a time when scientific knowledge was normalizing and divine abstract thinking was being divided from museum design.

Temple's Anthropology Museum

On Monday I visited the Anthropology “museum” strategically hidden behind the café on the first floor of Gladfelter.  Eager to enter this normally overlooked museum, I almost neglected the two cased displays against the wall resting among the empty tables and sparse student company.  The other students seemed oblivious to these dormant pottery shards and post cards, evidence of past cultures and student facilitated expeditions through which these remnants of the past were found.  An overview of this collection is displayed on a wall plaque next to these noticeably public (yet ignored) exhibits.  It’s shared artifacts and knowledge cover the fields of archaeology and biological, sociocultual, and linguistic anthropology.  I approach the heavy doors of the “museum” and scan for any implication of public viewing hours.  After not finding any, and assuming it is open whenever the building is, I ring the door bell necessary to summon someone of authority to allow me access.  A student opens the door with a questioning expression.  I say I am here to see the museum, but his surprised wordless response is followed by “there is a private meeting at this time” and that I can come back later (there is no exterior notification of this temporary closing).  I return an hour later only to be met by a woman who says she is on her lunch break, but allows the student whom greeted me earlier to supervise my visit.  After he asks me a series of questions about my purpose, I am allowed into the main exhibit.  There is a small table cased-in display in the center of the room and one wall of exposed (and impressive) earthenware pottery.  A large (supposed) Native American headdress rests on top a file cabinet; my guide does not know anything about it.  There is no written explanation for the artifacts, but my guide explains them as best as he knows how.  He explains that many of these artifacts have been found by faculty or students on faculty led expeditions from historic sites in Philadelphia.  A large part of the collection was donated by the Commercial Museum after it closed.  The main purpose of this “museum” is intellectual; faculty and students of archeology and anthropology are given access to study the collection.  It is also my assumed reason as to why it is not advertised.  Can it still be labeled a museum if it does not exactly welcome student tourism?  Isn’t one of main purposes of a museum to allow public access and contribute societal knowledge?  However upon closer analysis, this section behind the heavy doors is mainly a laboratory, but it sponsors more public exhibits throughout Gladfelter.  The display in the café is very much publicly accessed, although often unnoticed, it is still shared and explained much like exhibits in institutions publically recognized as museums (even if abstractly).  My guide also informed me about another exhibit located on the 10^th floor of Gladfelter.  I rode the elevator to the quiet 10^th floor where I was greeted by an informative aesthetically charming display on early 19^th century Philadelphia tableware.  There is no mystery to these exhibits, no “revealing curtain”, although under the surface it certainly embodies many foundational aspects of modern day history museums.