The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics

289 Pages·1995·13.217 MB·English

by  Tony Bennett

THE BIRTH OF THE MUSEUM
What is the cultural function of the museum? How did modern museums
evolve? Tony Bennett's invigorating study enriches and challenges our
understanding of the museum, placing itat the centre 01'modern relations of
culture and government.
Bennett argues that the public museum should be understood not just as a
place of instruction but as a reformatory of manners in which a wide range
of regulated social routines and performances take place. Discussing the
historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the
international exhibition, he sheds new light upon the relationship between
modern forms of official and popularculture.
In aseries of richly detailed case studies from Britain, Australia and
North America, Bennett investigates how nineteenth- and twentieth-century
museums, fairs and exhibitions have organised their collections, and their
visitors. His use of Foucaultian perspectives and his consideration of
museums in relation to other cultural institutions of display provides a
distinctive perspective on contemporary museum policies and politics.
Tony Bennett is Professor of Cultural Studies and Foundation Director of
the Institute for Cultural Policy Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at
Griffith University, Australia. He is the author of Formalism and Marxism,
Outside Literature and (with Janet Woollacott) Bond and Beyond: The
Political Career 01a PopularHero.
CULTURE: POLICIES AND POLITICS
Series editors: Tony Bennett, Jennifer Craik, lan Hunter,
Colin Mercer and Dugald Williamson
What are the relations between cultural policies and cultural politics? Too
often, none at all. In the history of cultural studies so far, there has been no
shortage of discussion of cultural politics. Only rarely, however, have such
discussions taken account of the policy instruments through which cultural
activities and institutions are funded and regulated in the mundane politics
of bureaucratic and corporate life. Culture: Policies and Polities addresses
this imbalance.The books in this series interrogate the role of culture in the
organization of social relations of power, including those of class, nation,
ethnicity and gender. They also explore the ways in which political agendas
in these areas are related to, and shaped by, policy processes and outcomes.
In its commitment to the need for a fuller and clearer policy calculus in the
cultural sphere, Culture: Policies and Polities aims to promote a significant
transformation in the political ambit and orientation of cultural studies and
related fields.
ROCK AND POPULAR MUSIC
politics, policies, institutions
Editedby: Tony Bennett, Simon Frith, Lawrenee Grossberg, lohn Shepherd,
Graeme Turner
GAMBLING CULTURES
Editedby:lan MeMillen
FILM POLICY
Editedby:AlbertMoran
THE BIRTH OF
THE MUSEUM
History, theory, politics
Tony Bennett
To Tanya, Oliverand James
for liking fairs and toleratingmuseums
Firstpublished 1995
by Routledge
2Park Square, Milton Park,Abingdon,OxonOXI44RN
Simultaneouslypublishedinthe USA andCanada
byRoutledge
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Cl1995TonyBennett
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ISBN 10: 0-415-05387-0(hbk)
ISBN 10: 0-415-05388-9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-05387-7(hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-05388-4(pbk)
CONTENTS
List 0/ftgures VII
Acknowledgements V111
Introduction
Part I History and theory
1 THE FORMATION OF THE MUSEUM 17
Museums and thepublic sphere 25
The reordering 0/ things 33
Transparency andsocial regulation 48
2 THE EXHIBITIONARY COMPLEX 59
Discipline,surveillance,spectacle 63
Seeing things 69
The exhibitionary disciplines 75
The exhibitionary apparatuses 80
Conclusion 86
3 THE POLITICAL RATIONALITY OF THE MUSEUM 89
The birth 0/the museum 92
An order0/thingsandpeoples 95
The museum andpublicmanners 99
The political-discursive space 0/ the museum 102
Part11 Policies and politics
4 MUSEUMS AND 'THE PEOPLE' 109
A countryside 0/themind:Beamish 110
Peopling the past:Scandinavian andAmericanforerunners 115
Othej·peoples, otherpasts 120
Questions offramework 126
V
CONTENTS
5 OUT OF WHICH PAST? 128
Perspectives on thepast 128
Theformation ofan Australion past:contours ofa history 135
The shape ofthe past 146
6 ART AND THEORY: THE POLITICS OF THE INVISIBLE 163
Part III Technologies ofprogress
7 MUSEUMS AND PROGRESS: NARRATIVE,IDEOLOGY,
PERFORMANCE 177
Organized walking as evolutionary practice 179
Progress andits performances 186
Selective affinities 189
Evolutionary automata 195
One sex at a time 201
8 THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME:EXPO '88 209
Evolutionary exercises 213
Civic callisthenics 219
9 A THOUSAND AND ONETROUBLES: BLACKPOOL
PLEASURE BEACH 229
Modernity and respectahility 230
The Pleasure Beach andBlackpool 236
A site of pleasures 237
A worldturned upsidedown? 242
Notes 246
Bibliography 256
Index 270
vi
FIGURES
1.1 Perspective view ofVictoria 49
1.2 Festival ofLabour, the Familistere, 1872 50
1.3 Cleveland Arcade, 1888-90 51
1.4 The Bon Matche 52
1.5 Bethnal Green Museum, 1876 53
1.6 The Industrial Gallery, Birmingham 54
1.7 Section drawing ofSirJohn Soane's Museum, 1827 54
1.8 Elevated promenade at Luna Park 56
1.9 Observation tower at Luna Park 57
1.10 Southwark Fair, 1733 57
1.11 Bullock's Museum ofNatural Curiosities 58
2.1 The Metallotheca ofMicheie Mercati, 1719 60
2.2 The Great Exhibition, 1851 62
2.3 The South Kensington Museum, 1876 71
2.4 Ferrante Imperato's museum in Naples, 1599 78
2.5 The Crystal Palace 80
2.6 The Chicago Columbian Exposition, 1893 85
4.1 Map ofBeamish Open Air Museum 112
4.2 Beamish Museum: demonstrators at the pit cottages 119
8.1 Site map ofWorld Expo '88,Brisbane 216
8.2 The 'Rainbowsphere' 217
8.3 Annexing national time to the multinational corporation 220
8.4 Advertisement for the Queensland Cultural Centre 222
9.1 The nineteenth-century gypsy encampment,Blackpool 232
9.2 Blackpool Pleasure Beach,Easter 1913 234
9.3 The 'white knuckle' rides, Blackpool 239
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Iowe agooddeal to many peoplefor theirhelpin making this book possible.
First, I am grateful to Bronwyn Hammond for her skilied and enthusiastic
research assistance over a number of years. Apart from helping to keep the
book a live prospect in the midst ofothercommitments,Bronwyn's love for
sleuthing in the archives proved invaluablein locatingmaterial whichIdoubt
Ishould otherwise have found.
JenniferCraik and Ian Hunteroffered very helpful editorial suggestions at
the final stage ofassembling the book. I am grateful to both ofthem for the
pains they went to in leaving no sentence unturned. While, no doubt, there is
still room for improvement, my arguments are a good deal more economical
and more clearly formulated as aconsequence.
Both also helped with their comments on the substance ofthe argument in
particular chapters. Many others have contributed to the book in this way.
Those whoseadvice has provedespeciallyhelpfulin this regard includeColin
Mercer, whose unfailing friendship and collegiality I have enjoyed for many
years now,and David Saunders who can alwaysbe counted on for pointed but
constructivecriticism-andformuchmore.Iamalso gratefultoPatBuckridge,
David Carterand lohn Hutchinson for theircomments on Chapter8.
As is always the case, I have Iearned a good deal from the points made in
criticism and debate in the discussions that have followed the various
seminars at which Ihave presented the ideas and arguments broughttogether
here.Iespecially valued the points made by Wayne Hudson in his comments
on an early draft of the arguments of Chapter I when I presented these at a
seminar in the SchooI of CulturaI and Historical Studies at Griffith Univer
sity,I also Iearned a good deal from the discussion which followed a similar
presentation to the Department ofEnglish at the University ofQueensland.
Chapter 3 was first presented at the conference 'Cultural Studies and
Communication Studies: Convergences and Divergences' organized by the
Centre for Research on Culture and Society at Carleton University in 1989.
I am grateful to the conference organizers, lan Taylor, lohn Shepherd and
Valda Blundell, for inviting me to take part in the conference and for their
hospitality during the period I was in Ottawa.
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
However, perhaps my greatest debt of this kind is to the colleagues and
students involved in two courses - 'Knowledge and Power' and 'Australian
Cultural Policies'- in which manyofthe arguments presentedhere were first
developed. So far as the first course is concerned, I learned much from
working alongsideJeffrey Minson and lan Hunter; with regard to the second,
Iespecially valued the inputs ofMark Finnane and Stephen Garton.
1doubt that the book would ever have been completed but for aperiod of
extended study-leave granted me by Griffith University. I am grateful to the
University for its generosity and support in this matter. I am also grateful to
the Department of English at the University of Queensland for offering me
the facilities of a Visiting Scholar over this period. I especially valued the
opportunity this gave me for extended discussions with lohn Frow and
Graeme Turner: I benefited much from their friendship and advice over this
period. I am similarly grateful to St Peter's College, Oxford University, for
the hospitality it extended me when I visited Oxford to consult the resources
of the Bodleian Library - whose assistance Tshould also like to gratefully
acknowledge.
Some of this book was written during the period that I was Dean of the
Faculty ofHumanities at Griffith University. Theassistance lent me overthis
period by Teresa Iwinska, the Faculty Manager, was areal help in allowing
me to divert my energies to the joys ofthe study from time to time.
I am also grateful to the staffof the Institute for Cultural Policy Studies
for their help and support over a number ofyears, and often with particular
referenceto work undertakenfor this book. BarbaraJohnstoneprovidedmuch
valued research assistance in relation to some of the earlier phases of the
work; Sharon Clifford has provided expert administrative support; and
GlendaDonovanandBev Jeppeson have helpedat variousstagesin preparing
the text. Robyn Pratten and Karen Yarrow have also assisted in this. I am
grateful to all ofthem.
Some of the chapters have been published previously in other contexts.
Chapter2 was first published inNew Formations (no. 4,1988) while Chapter
3 was first published in Continuum (vol. 3, no. 1, 1989). Chapter 4 initially
appeared in Robert Lumley (ed.) The Museum Time-Machine: Putting
CulturesonDisplay(Routledge, 1988), whileChapter6 was included inJody
Berland and Will Straw (eds) Theory Rules (University of Toronto Press,
1993).Chapter8first appeared in CulturalStudies (vol. 5, no. I, 1991) while
Chapter 9 was first published in Formations ofPleasure (Routledge, 1982).
All ofthese are reprinted here withoutany substantial variation. Chapter5 is
a shortened version of an occasional paper published by the Institute for
Cultural Policy Studies. Some aspects of Chapter I were rehearsed in an
article published underthe title 'Museums,government,culture' in Sires (no.
25, 1992). However, the formulations publishedhereare substantially revised
and extended.
Iam grateful to Beamish Museumfor its permissionto use the illustrations
ix