A01=William S. Walker
American cultural heritage institutions
American museum studies
anthropology and public history
Author_William S. Walker
Category=AB
Category=JBCC9
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
chronological study of museum history
Cold War cultural institutions
cultural anthropology in museums
cultural convergence in museum exhibitions
cultural display and historical narrative
cultural divergence in museums
cultural exhibition in museums
decolonization and museums
development of American museums
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnographic display in museums
evolving museum missions
exhibitions and cultural pluralism
exhibitions of cultural history
folk life exhibitions
global perspective in American museums
historical analysis of exhibitions
history of museum curation
history of museum expansion after WWII
history of museum professionalization
history of the Smithsonian
institutional decisions and public policy
institutional history of Smithsonian museums
interpretation of human experience in museums
multiculturalism in museum practice
museum and natio
museum anthropology and cultural representation
museum complex evolution
museum education and public engagement
museum exhibition trends
museum governance and policy
museum leadership and curatorship
museum research and public debate
National Museum of the American Indian origins
postwar cultural politics
postwar museum expansion
Smithsonian as a research institution
Smithsonian galleries and research centers
Smithsonian Institution history
social movements and museum development
transformation of American cultural institutions
universal museum concept
Product details
- ISBN 9781625340269
- Weight: 485g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jul 2013
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
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.
William S. Walker is assistant professor of history, Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY Oneonta, USA.
