Object Lessons and Ethnographic Displays

Museum Exhibitions and the Making of American Anthropology

Bibliographic Data

ID2107971
AuthorsDavid Jenkins (0000-0002-7633-7027, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, corresponding author)
Year1994
Volume36
Issue2
Pages242-270
Publication date1994-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500019046
OpenAlexW2120263266
LanguageEN
Citations received41
References cited67

In the early nineteenth century, many private, well-to-do persons collected rocks, minerals, fossils, insects, skeletons, animal skins, Indian artifacts, and so on, for their aesthetic appeal or mystical connotations. Their fragmentary and miscellaneous collections incited wonder and admiration in those privileged to see them while communicating a narrative of the prestige, esoteric knowledge, and adventurous spirit of the collector. Referring to aesthetic and mystical, rather than scientific criteria, collectors juxtaposed a seemingly incongruous hodge-podge of objects in their cabinets-armadillos and ostrich eggs, quartz crystals and rattlesnake rattles, for example. These collectors sought to celebrate the stability of their belief systems through the commonly understood marginality of the strange freaks and curiosities that sparked their imaginations. The rare, abnormal, bizarre, and the old were especially valued

Admiration · Creatures · Prestige · Wonder · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History of Science and Natural History

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