Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century (2014)
Rader, Karen A. (Author)
Cain, Victoria E. M. (Author)
University of Chicago Press
Physical Details: 456 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English
Rich with archival detail and compelling characters, Life on Display uses the history of biological exhibitions to analyze museums' shifting roles in twentieth-century American science and society. Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain chronicle profound changes in these exhibitions---and the institutions that housed them---between 1910 and 1990, ultimately offering new perspectives on the history of museums, science, and science education. Rader and Cain explain why science and natural history museums began to welcome new audiences between the 1900s and the 1920s and chronicle the turmoil that resulted from the introduction of new kinds of biological displays. They describe how these displays of life changed dramatically once again in the 1930s and 1940s, as museums negotiated changing, often conflicting interests of scientists, educators, and visitors. The authors then reveal how museum staffs, facing intense public and scientific scrutiny, experimented with wildly different definitions of life science and life science education from the 1950s through the 1980s. The book concludes with a discussion of the influence that corporate sponsorship and blockbuster economics wielded over science and natural history museums in the century's last decades. A vivid, entertaining study of the ways science and natural history museums shaped and were shaped by understandings of science and public education in the twentieth-century United States, Life on Display will appeal to historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture, as well as museum practitioners and general readers.
...MoreReview John Mathew (2017) Review of "Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 87-93).
Review Jenna Tonn (2016) Review of "Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century". Endeavour: Review of the Progress of Science (p. 217).
Review Paul D. Brinkman (2017) Review of "Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century". Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 685-687).
Review Lynn K. Nyhart (2016) Review of "Visual Cultures in Science and Technology: A Comparative History". Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology (pp. 442-446).
Review Ann Fabian (2016) Review of "Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century". Journal of American History (pp. 1225-1225).
Review William Knight (2016) Review of "Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 202-204).
Review Alberti, Samuel J. M. M. (2015) Review of "Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 719-721).
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