Survival of the Fittest: The Romanesque Revival, Natural Selection, and Nineteenth Century Natural History Museums

The roles, affordances and social agency of natural history museums are discussed in relation to the writings of Edward Forbes. These signal a motivation, in the mid-nineteenth-century, to naturalize the established social order through the systematic arrangement and display of natural history specimens. The perceived importance of the embodied messages of social order, as an antidote to radicalism and revolution, overrode concerns about temperance and abstinence and immediate fears for the physical safety of collections. The tensions between temperance, and the broader concerns about social order, were played out over the matter of the museums themselves being licensed premises.

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Susan Sheets-Pyenson. Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums during the Late Nineteenth Century. Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press. 1988. Pp. xii, 144 and W. A. Waiser. The Field Naturalist: John Macoun, the Geological Survey, and Natural Science. Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 1989. Pp. x, 253. $30.00

The American Historical Review ◽

10.1086/ahr/96.4.1154-a ◽

1991 ◽

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Natural Science ◽

Geological Survey ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History Museums ◽

University Of Toronto ◽

History Museums ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Field Naturalist

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Placing nature: natural history collections and their owners in nineteenth-century provincial England

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s0007087402004727 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 291-311 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

SAMUEL J. M. M. ALBERTI

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Cultural History ◽

Local Level ◽

Admission Criteria ◽

Natural History Museums ◽

Intended Audience ◽

History Museums ◽

History Of ◽

National Governments

The cultural history of museums is crucial to the understanding of nineteenth-century natural history and its place in wider society, and yet although many of the larger metropolitan institutions are well charted, there remains very little accessible work on the hundreds of English collections outside London and the ancient universities. Natural history museums have been studied as part of the imperial project and as instruments of national governments; this paper presents an intermediary level of control, examining the various individuals and institutions who owned and managed museums at a local level in provincial England, and their intended audience constituencies. The shifting forms and functions of collections in Newcastle, Sheffield and Manchester are studied in the hands of private collectors, learned societies, municipal authorities and civic colleges. I argue that the civic elite retained control of museums throughout the nineteenth century, and although the admission criteria of these various groups became ostensibly more inclusive, privileged access continued to be granted to expert and esteemed visitors.

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Susan Sheets-Pyenson. Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums during the Late Nineteenth Century. Kingston & Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. 1988. Pp. 144, ill. ISBN 0-7735-0655-1. £19.95.

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s0007087400044642 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 117-118

Author(s):

Sophie Forgan

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History Museums ◽

History Museums ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Queen's University

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Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century, Susan Sheets-Pyenson. 1988. McGill-Queen's Publication, Canada. 156 pages. ISBN: 0-7735-0655-1. $24.95

Bulletin of Science Technology & Society ◽

10.1177/027046769001000235 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 120-121

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History Museums ◽

History Museums ◽

Late Nineteenth

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Cathedrals of science: The development of colonial natural history museums during the late nineteenth century by Susan Sheets-Pyenson. 227 x 150 mm, xii + 144 pp., with black and white illustrations. Kingston/Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988, £19.95 (ISBN 0 7735 0655 1). McGill-Queen's University Press, 1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HA, UK.

International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship ◽

10.1016/0260-4779(89)90096-4 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 347-348

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Natural History Museums ◽

Black And White ◽

History Museums ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Queen's University

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The meaning of ceraunia: archaeology, natural history and the interpretation of prehistoric stone artefacts in the eighteenth century

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s0007087402004776 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 255-269 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

MATTHEW R. GOODRUM

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Eighteenth Century ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Natural History ◽

Natural Sciences ◽

Stone Age ◽

Natural History Museums ◽

History Museums ◽

The Earth ◽

History Of

Historians of archaeology have noted that prehistoric stone artefacts were first identified as such during the seventeenth century, and a great deal has been written about the formulation of the idea of a Stone Age in the nineteenth century. Much less attention has been devoted to the study of prehistoric artefacts during the eighteenth century. Yet it was during this time that researchers first began systematically to collect, classify and interpret the cultural and historical meaning of these objects as archaeological specimens rather than geological specimens. These investigations were conducted within the broader context of eighteenth-century antiquarianism and natural history. As a result, they offer an opportunity to trace the interrelationships that existed between the natural sciences and the science of prehistoric archaeology, which demonstrates that geological theories of the history of the earth, ethnographic observations of ‘savage peoples’ and natural history museums all played important roles in the interpretation of prehistoric stone implements during the eighteenth century.

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