Women and Museums, 1850-1914: Modernity and the Gendering of Knowledge (original) (raw)

Women\u27s Work: The Gendered Discourses of Art Museum Education

2006

Today, it is commonly acknowledged in the field that art museum education is a profession most frequently occupied by women, but there has been little historical investigation into the myriad discourses that molded and shaped it into "women's work." As with any profession, particularly those primarily practiced by women, the perception of their work as "feminine" directly affects the status and esteem of that work by colleagues and society at large. While women's history and status in the art world began to be explored as part of the second-wave feminist movement of the 1970s, these writings have focused primarily on women as subjects (Mulvey, 1975), as artists (Nochlin, 1971), as art educators (Collins & Sandell, 1984), and as art historians, professors, art museum curators and directors (Sherman and Holcomb, 1981). Art museum educators remain curiously and conspicuously absent from the literature. In this project, I investigate the ways in which contemporary art museum educators are situated within a gendered art museum hierarchy. My experiences as a professional art museum educator are a critical component to this research, as these experiences and my struggle to understand them both personally and professionally drove me to the research trajectory that I currently pursue. I believe that perhaps the biggest stumbling block toward improving and changing the profession is that we as practitioners have little sense of our history, of how we are situated within larger societal discourses, or even within the art museum context. Utilizing an adaptation of post-structuralist historian Michel Foucault's notion of genealogy, informed by feminist and critical pedagogical theories, I will examine the history of art museum education specifically

Women' s Work: The Gendered Discourses of Art Museum Education

Marilyn Zurmuehlen Working Papers in Art Education, 2006

In this project, I investigate the ways in which contemporary art museum educators are situated within a gendered art museum hierarchy. My experiences as a professional art museum educator are a critical component to this research, as these experiences and my struggle to understand them both personally and professionally drove me to the research trajectory that I currently pursue. I believe that perhaps the biggest stumbling block toward improving and changing the profession is that we as practitioners have little sense of our history, of how we are situated within larger societal discourses, or even within the art museum context. Utilizing an adaptation of post-structuralist historian Michel Foucault’s notion of genealogy, informed by feminist and critical pedagogical theories, I will examine the history of art museum education specifically during periods of substantial growth and development in order to identify, mine, and problematize the discourses that shape art museum education. My goal is to disrupt traditional narratives of art museum education (Newsom & Silver, 1978; Zeller, 1989, Cherry, 1992), creating a new conceptual space for informing and empowering art museum educators.

Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870

The American Historical Review, 1991

REVIEWED BY DANIEL GOLDSTEIN, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA r Joel J. Orosz examines the histories of eleven American museums and places them in the context of the communities they served. He describes a century-and-a-half-long effort by museum directors and curators to establish institutions devoted to science, art, and history that could also prosper in an environment that was often indifferent to their goals. He argues that from 1740 to 1870 American museums passed through six distinct ages, in each of which a different facet of the museum was dominant. From 1820 to 1840, for example, American museums were directed primarily toward popular education, while from 1840 to 1850, the public interest suffered at the expense of the demands of professional scientists. Finally, by 1870 the conflicting goals of popular education and professional research had been balanced in a uniquely American fashion that Orosz calls the American Compromise. That compromise, he says, has shaped the course of American museums ever since. Museum history is a small but growing specialty of great potential, and this book makes a genuine contribution to the field. Orosz demonstrates that there was a dynamic museum culture in America earlier than we have usually recognized. He concentrates on museums in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York, and more briefly looks at museums in other cities, including Cincinnati and Charleston, South Carolina. Most of these institutions were dedicated to natural science, while a smaller number focused on art and history. Orosz is at his best when he explains what he has discovered about the changing fortunes of the museums from his careful examination of their archives. He shows how their owners and directors struggled to define the character of each museum, and how their plans often failed to develop as expected. In doing so, he raises questions that have confronted and continue to confront all museum professionals. Why should this museum exist? Who is the intended audi

Was Culture a Commodity 'all' Victorians Could Afford? -Notes on the First British Public Museums

Anglo Saxonica, 2021

The etymology of mouseion gave rise to the word 'museum' and initially referred to the temple of the Muses. It is noteworthy to recall that the first museum was the Alexandria Museum, set up by Ptolemy in 300 B.C., as a temple, a library, an astronomical observatory, an amphitheatre, a botanical garden and a research venue (Anico 105). The outset of museums can be found later on in private collections, which continued until mid-18 th century. Additionally, with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, museums started being regarded as an ally to combat myths, dogmata and superstitions and thus 'Curiosity Cabinets' were gradually replaced by the first public museums, such as the Galleria degli Uffizi (1571), in Florence, the British Museum (1753), in London, and the Louvre Museum (1793), in Paris. Simpson (126-127) considers these new cultural spaces as a means for European powers to rewrite their history and exhibit their past deeds, as well as a way to show off the heritage they unlawfully gathered in their colonial periods, in line with the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, in London. Taking these assumptions into account, we aim at describing the birth of the first British public museums and the resources they wished to make available to their visitors (e.g. admission fees, facilities, lighting and guides), so as to reflect on the underlying concept of access to culture in Victorian mindset. Was culture a commodity then? In line with Kelly (Culture as Commodity), cultural products and services may have symbolic or even status-symbolic dimensions and this understanding leads us to a further question related to the target audiences of Victorian museums: Were they supposed to be accessible to everyone? Or were they merely for "the initiated" vs. "the primitive" (Chu)?

EMPOWERING WOMEN IN MUSEUMS THE PROCESS

In this paper we present an experimental process of women's empowerment in museums. The starting point is our perception of a frequent exclusion of women in the work developed by Portuguese museums. We adopt a position in the field of museology defined as the study of the relation between human beings with their cultural heritage. We broaden the scope of research of museology to the subject " women " by integrating the analytical category of gender, and adopting an integrated gender perspective in museum work. We focus our attention on museum exhibitions considered as the privileged means of communication in museums and we present the most frequent images of women in some Portuguese museums through the categories of women and dominant feminine stereotypes. Finally, we present the stages of the project " Feminine Museum " by stressing the adopted methodology with particular emphasis on the contribution of the integration of a gender perspective in the design and organization of museum exhibitions as a contribution to women's empowerment.

Gender Perspective and Museums: Gender as a Tool in the Interpretation of Collections

Museum International, 2020

Este artículo aborda el uso del concepto de género en el análisis de las colecciones como estrategia para la inclusión de la perspectiva de género en los museos. La toma en consideración del enfoque de género en los museos se ha traducido en dos grandes tipos de estrategias: cuantitativas ‒basadas en las cuotas de género, la discriminación positiva, o la visibilización‒ y cualitativas ‒basadas en el cuestionamiento de valores, del canon y de los discursos. Las estrategias cualitativas son, en la mayoría de los casos, todavía necesarias, pero por si solas son insuficientes: varios estudios han cuestionado el modelo de “añadir mujeres y agitar” (“just add women and stir”) por su incapacidad de generar un cambio real. Un modelo de inclusión de la perspectiva de género transversal, inclusivo y transformador ha de basarse en un continuo cuestionamiento del discurso y las prácticas del museo. La crítica feminista y la teoría queer han posibilitado este cuestionamiento que se traduce, entre otras cosas, en el uso del género como herramienta de análisis de las colecciones. A partir de este modelo, nos centramos en la interpretación y la mediación de las colecciones, tomando como ejemplo dos proyectos llevados a cabo en el Museo Nacional de Cerámica de Valencia: las visitas temáticas para público escolar y adulto “Una cuestión de género” y los recorridos virtuales con perspectiva de género “Relecturas. Itinerarios museales en clave de género”. Partiendo del género como construcción cultural, desde un enfoque no binario e interseccional y usando el género como categoría analítica en la interpretación de los objetos, se ofrece otra lectura de las colecciones para cuestionar prejuicios misóginos, homofóbicos y transfóbicos.