Responding to Stories: The 1876 Loan Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus (original) (raw)
This article argues that it is useful to see historical exhibitions as both responses and contributors to narratives about science that are circulating in the public sphere. It uses the example of the 1876 Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus (which was the immediate predecessor of the Science Museum in London). The article demonstrates how, in promoting this huge exhibition and fighting for the necessary support and resources, leading scientific, cultural and political figures engaged with two rather different public interpretations of science's past, present and future. One dealt with science as a vigorous part of culture with a fascinating and under-appreciated past and a dynamic future coming, internationally, to the fore. The other concerned the threat to Britain's international economic ascendancy by countries with equal ingenuity and better education that could lead Britain into a decline reminiscent of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. According to this second narrative, science would be the vaccine that would prevent this disease afflicting Britain. In the aftermath of the exhibition, the narratives were drawn upon again to form and sustain a permanent display that was known from 1885 as the Science Museum. While the memory of the Loan Collection itself was obscured in the 1920s during the Museum's early life as a separate administrative body fighting for resources, the author suggests that continuity can be shown in the narrative arguments used by the creators of the two projects. A greater significance should therefore be given to this exhibition in the story of the development of the Science Museum.
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This article argues that it is useful to see historical exhibitions as both responses and contributors to narratives about science that are circulating in the public sphere. It uses the example of the 1876 Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus (which was the immediate predecessor of the Science Museum in London). The article demonstrates how, in promoting this huge exhibition and fighting for the necessary support and resources, leading scientific, cultural and political figures engaged with two rather different public interpretations of science’s past, present and future. One dealt with science as a vigorous part of culture with a fascinating and under-appreciated past and a dynamic future coming, internationally, to the fore. The other concerned the threat to Britain’s international economic ascendancy by countries with equal ingenuity and better education that could lead Britain into a decline reminiscent of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. According to this second narrative, science would be the vaccine that would prevent this disease afflicting Britain. In the aftermath of the exhibition, the narratives were drawn upon again to form and sustain a permanent display that was known from 1885 as the Science Museum. While the memory of the Loan Collection itself was obscured in the 1920s during the Museum’s early life as a separate administrative body fighting for resources, the author suggests that continuity can be shown in the narrative arguments used by the creators of the two projects. A greater significance should therefore be given to this exhibition in the story of the development of the Science Museum.
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2023
Frank Sherwood Taylor was director of the Science Museum London for just over five years from October 1950. He was the only historian of science ever to have been director of this institution, which has always ridden a tightrope between advocacy of science and advocacy of its history, balancing differently at different points in its history. He was also president of the BSHS from 1951 to 1953. So what happened when a historian got his hands on the nation's pre-eminent public museum of science? To what extent did his historian's training and instincts affect his policies whilst director, and with what effect in the longer term? Taking this exceptional case, I suggest, enables us to consider how museum accounts of the past of science relate to historiographies of science otherwise available in the culture. In this discussion, drawing on new archival research, I consider the role of history within a key policy paper he wrote in 1951. I analyse and contextualize its main themes before considering, by way of conclusion, his legacy.
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.
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.
History of Science in Museums: Introduction
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