Description |
1 online resource (xiv, 467 pages) : illustrations |
Physical Medium |
polychrome |
Description |
text file |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-447) and index. |
Contents |
Introduction: the mission of display -- "A vision of the future": the new museum idea and display reform, 1890-1915 -- The drama of the diorama, 1910-1935 -- Displays in motion: experimentation and stagnation in exhibition, 1925-1940 -- Diversifying displays, diverging museums: postwar life science education, 1941-1956 -- "An investment in the future of America": competing pedagogies in post-sputnik museums, 1957-1969 -- The exploratorium effect: redefining relevance and interactive display, 1969- 980 -- From diversity to standardization: edutainment and engagement in museums at the end of the century, 1976-2005. |
Summary |
"Rich with archival detail and compelling characters, Life on Display uses the history of biological exhibitions to analyze museums' shifting roles in twentieth-century American science and society. Karen A. Rader and Victoria E.M. Cain chronicle profound changes in these exhibitions--and the institutions that housed them--between 1910 and 1990, ultimately offering new perspectives on the history of museums, science, and science education. Rader and Cain explain why science and natural history museums began to welcome new audiences between the 1900s and the 1920s and chronicle the turmoil that resulted from the introduction of new kinds of biological displays. They describe how these displays of life changed dramatically once again in the 1930s and 1940s, as museums negotiated changing, often conflicting interests of scientists, educators, and visitors. The authors then reveal how museum staffs, facing intense public and scientific scrutiny, experimented with wildly different definitions of life science and life science education from the 1950s through the 1980s. The book concludes with a discussion of the influence that corporate sponsorship and blockbuster economics wielded over science and natural history museums in the century's last decades. A vivid, entertaining study of the ways science and natural history museums shaped and were shaped by understandings of science and public education in the twentieth-century United States, Life on Display will appeal to historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture, as well as museum practitioners and general readers." |
Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
Subject |
Natural history museums -- United States -- Exhibitions -- History.
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Natural history museums. |
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United States. |
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Exhibitions. |
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History. |
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Science museums -- United States -- Exhibitions -- History.
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Science museums. |
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Museum exhibits -- United States -- History.
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Museum techniques -- United States -- History.
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Displays in education -- History.
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Displays in education. |
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NATURE -- Essays. |
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Museum exhibits. |
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NATURE -- Reference. |
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Museum techniques. |
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TRAVEL -- Special Interest -- Ecotourism. |
Genre/Form |
History.
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Added Author |
Cain, Victoria E. M., 1974- author.
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Other Form: |
Print version: Rader, Karen A. (Karen Ann), 1967- Life on display 9780226079660 (DLC) 2014008021 (OCoLC)871965955 |
ISBN |
9780226079837 (electronic book) |
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022607983X (electronic book) |
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9781322097077 |
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1322097070 |
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9780226079660 (print) |
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022607966X |
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