Walker, William S (Author)
Since its founding in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, the Smithsonian Institution has been an important feature of the American cultural landscape. In A Living Exhibition, William S. Walker examines the tangled history of cultural exhibition at the Smithsonian from its early years to the chartering of the National Museum of the American Indian in 1989. He tracks the transformation of the institution from its original ideal as a universal museum intended to present the totality of human experience to the variegated museum and research complex of today. Walker pays particular attention to the half century following World War II, when the Smithsonian significantly expanded. Focusing on its exhibitions of cultural history, cultural anthropology, and folk life, he places the Smithsonian within the larger context of Cold War America and the social movements of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Organized chronologically, the book uses the lens of the Smithsonian's changing exhibitions to show how institutional decisions become intertwined with broader public debates about pluralism, multiculturalism, and decolonization. Yet if a trend toward more culturally specific museums and exhibitions characterized the postwar history of the institution, its leaders and curators did not abandon the vision of the universal museum. Instead, Walker shows, even as the Smithsonian evolved into an extensive complex of museums, galleries, and research centers, it continued to negotiate the imperatives of cultural convergence as well as divergence, embodying both a desire to put everything together and a need to take it all apart.
...MoreDescription Examines the “history of cultural exhibition at the Smithsonian from its early years to the chartering of the National Museum of the American Indian in 1989.” (from the publisher)
Review Bergman, Teresa (2014) Review of "A Living Exhibition: The Smithsonian and the Transformation of the Universal Museum". Journal of American History (p. 230).
Review Conn, Steven (2014) Review of "A Living Exhibition: The Smithsonian and the Transformation of the Universal Museum". American Historical Review (pp. 945-946).
Review Bergman, Teresa (2014) Review of "A Living Exhibition: The Smithsonian and the Transformation of the Universal Museum". Journal of American History (pp. 230-231).
Article
Yochelson, Ellis L.;
(2004)
More Than 150 Years of Administrative Ups and Downs for Natural History in Washington. Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, National Museum of Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB001036105/)
Chapter
Yochelson, Ellis L.;
(2004)
More than 150 years of Administrative Ups and Downs for Natural History in Washington; Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, National Museum of Natural History
(/isis/citation/CBB000620087/)
Book
Steven Lubar;
(2017)
Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present
(/isis/citation/CBB335185013/)
Book
Blanchard, Pascal;
(2008)
Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires
(/isis/citation/CBB001033417/)
Article
MacGregor, Arthur;
(2009)
Exhibiting Evolutionism: Darwinism and Pseudo-Darwinism in Museum Practice after 1859
(/isis/citation/CBB001030752/)
Thesis
Nichols, Catherine;
(2014)
Museum Networks: The Exchange of the Smithsonian Institution's Duplicate Anthropology Collections
(/isis/citation/CBB001567579/)
Book
Samuel J. Redman;
(2016)
Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums
(/isis/citation/CBB181840212/)
Thesis
Pingree, Mark Kirkham;
(2003)
From Revolutionary Patriots to Principal Chiefs: Promoting Civilization and Preserving Savagery in American Museums, 1785--1865
(/isis/citation/CBB001560606/)
Book
Damaschun, Ferdinand;
(2010)
Klasse, Ordnung, Art: 200 Jahre Museum für Naturkunde
(/isis/citation/CBB001230604/)
Article
Catherine A. Nichols;
(2022)
Curating duplicates: Operationalizing similiarity in the Smithsonian Institution with Haida rattles, 1880–1926
(/isis/citation/CBB294813381/)
Chapter
Panagiotis Lazos;
George N. Vlahakis;
Constantine Skordoulis;
(2019)
Instruments and Laboratories in the Schools of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 1850–1960
(/isis/citation/CBB191552274/)
Chapter
Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory;
(2011)
Place and Museum Space: The Smithsonian Institution, National Identity, and the American West, 1846--1896
(/isis/citation/CBB001231568/)
Book
Emmett, Peter;
Kanellos, Tony;
(2010)
The Museum of Economic Botany at the Adelaide Botanic Garden: A Souvenir
(/isis/citation/CBB001033749/)
Book
Steven Turner;
(2020)
The Science of James Smithson: Discoveries from the Smithsonian Founder
(/isis/citation/CBB562434087/)
Book
Ewing, Heather;
(2007)
The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian
(/isis/citation/CBB000772366/)
Article
Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory;
(2008)
Otis T. Mason's Tour of Europe: Observation, Exchange, and Standardization in Public Museums, 1889
(/isis/citation/CBB001022469/)
Article
Lopes, Maria Margaret;
Podgorny, Irina;
(2000)
The Shaping of Latin American Museums of Natural History, 1850--1990
(/isis/citation/CBB000671217/)
Book
Colin Davey;
Kermit Roosevelt III;
Thomas A. Lesser;
(2019)
The American Museum of Natural History and How It Got That Way
(/isis/citation/CBB821898169/)
Article
Lipps, Jere H.;
(2004)
Success Story: The History and Development of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley
(/isis/citation/CBB001036107/)
Book
Peck, Robert McCracken;
Stroud, Patricia Tyson;
Purcell, Rosamond Wolff;
(2012)
A Glorious Enterprise: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Making of American Science
(/isis/citation/CBB001251197/)
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