Museum Masters: Their Museums and Their Influence. By
Edward P. Alexander. Nashville: The American Association for State and Local
History, 1983. Illustrations. Index. 428 Pages. $22.95.
Reviewed by Dr. Stephen A. Colston, Director of the Center
for Regional History, San Diego State University.
Edward P. Alexander is a leading figure in the museum world.
He is a founder of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH),
served as a president of that organization, was the Director of Interpretation
at Colonial Williamsburg for some three decades, and established the graduate
program of museum studies at the University of Delaware. He is also
distinguished as an author. His Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the
History and Functions of Museums (1982) has become something of a standard
textbook in museum science curricula. Alexander's latest contribution is a
compilation of twelve biographical vignettes of individuals who, like himself,
have nurtured the development of the museum world.
Drawing upon both secondary and published primary sources,
the author has compiled an imposing amount of data which he has adroitly
fashioned to present insightful biographies of these twelve museum pioneers
(eleven men and one woman). Alexander's approach transcends simple narrative and
he has assessed the masters' contributions to the museum facilities with which
they were most closely associated. Alexander devotes approximately equal
coverage to each inductee of his "Hall of Champions" who represent both the
United States and Europe and various types of museum facilities.
Chronologically, the monograph spans some two centuries, from the mid-eighteenth
century when Sir Hans Sloane worked to establish the British Museum to John
Cotton Dana's activities with the Newark Museum during the first quarter of the
twentieth century. The other masters portrayed by Alexander are, together with
the museums they were so instrumental in developing: Charles Willson Peale and
the Philadelphia Museum; Dominique Vivant Denon and the Louvre; William Jackson
Hooker and the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew; Henry Cole and the South Kensington
(Victoria and Albert) Museum; Ann Pamela Cunningham and Virginia's Mt.
Vernon; Wilhelm Bode and Berlin's Museum Island; Arthur Hazelius and Stockholm's
Skansen; George Brown Goode and the Smithsonian Institution; Karl Hagenbeck and
the Hamburg's Stellingen Tierpark; and Oskar von Miller and Munich's Deutsches Museum.
Readers of this journal should find the biographies of
Cunningham, Hazelius and Goode of particular interest. Ann Pamela Cunningham
(1816-1875) was the major force in renovating George Washington's famed Virginia
plantation and, with other programs she implemented at Mt. Vernon, laid the
cornerstone of the historic house movement in the United States. This movement
has greatly influenced the museum world since historic houses constitute the
most numerous type of history museum. The Swede Artur Hazelius (1833-1901)
provided creative, energetic leadership in developing the folk, open-air museum;
he was instrumental in furthering the concepts of both the open-air museum and
of the ethnographic museum with collections of local and regional historical
artifacts. George Brown Goode (1851-1896) conceived the foundation for the
United States' "National Museum," the Smithsonian's multi-museum plan, and
advanced the idea that the historical museum should be more than a static
cabinet of curiosities, it should be a vital instrument for promoting historical studies.
While Museum Masters merits the attention of the
serious student of cultural history, its greatest value rests with its
contributions to museum science literature. This book provides an indispensable
background for cur-rent museum practices and, for that reason, is an excellent
companion volume to Alexander's Museums in Motion.
