Behind the Exhibit: Displaying Science and Technology at World's Fairs and Museums in the Twentieth Century (original) (raw)
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Process, Products, and Possibilities: Interactive Exhibition and the Future, 1933-1940
This study explores how world’s fairs and museums embraced participatory and decidedly showy exhibitions during the 1930s. In Chicago, the Century of Progress Exposition (1933-1934) opened alongside the fledgling Museum of Science and Industry, the first science museum in the United States with few “hands off” signs, and the New York World’s Fair (1939-1940) offered spectacular visions of the future of the American city. This paper briefly examines some specific exhibits and explores both the purpose and the exhibition strategy used by each display. The essay begins by describing some differences between the depression era fairs and previous American expositions to show how the 1930s expositions departed from earlier ones. Using the contemporaneous establishment of the Museum of Science and Industry as an example, the larger goal is to demonstrate how the depression-era fairs influenced museum exhibition philosophy by building exhibits that were complex, interactive, featured clear expository narration or signage, and spoke directly to the common person. These exhibits provided groundwork for today’s museology. The four examples presented here: the Houses Of Tomorrow, Coal Mine, Futurama, and Democracity, demonstrated through innovative display how applied science (as opposed to theoretical science) and industrial design could improve life for average Americans. These popular exhibits, and their corporate sponsors predict the traveling, often high-tech, “blockbuster” exhibitions of today’s museums.
Science Museums in Transition: Cultures of Display in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America
This volume explores the transformation of scientific exhibitions and museums during the nineteenth century. Contributors focus on comparative case studies across Britain and America, examining the people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge during this period.
Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum
Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum, 2002
What goes on behind the closed doors at museums? How are decisions about exhibitions made and who, or what, really makes them? Why are certain objects and styles of display chosen whilst others are rejects, and what factors influence how museum exhibitions are produced and experienced? This book answers these searching questions by giving a privileged look 'behind the scenes' at the Science Museum, London. By tracking the history of a particular exhibition, Macdonald takes the reader into the world of the museum curator and shows in vivid detail how exhibitions are created and how public culture is produced. She reveals why exhibitions do not always reflect their makers' original intentions and why visitors take home particular interpretations. Beyond this 'local' context, however, the book also provides broad and far-reaching insights into how national and global political shifts influence the creation of public knowledge through exhibitions.
2014
The Victorians are well known for their love of spectacle and their enthusiasm for science. In the wake of Richard Altick’s ground-breaking book The Shows of London (1978), the interpenetration of science and spectacle has been much studied in relation to the exhibition spaces promoted by emerging scientific communities, especially museums. Yet, as Altick himself indicated, the sciences were put on show across a wide range of display sites, including those which were not hallowed with the app...