From Useful Knowledge to Rational Amusement: Museums in Early America

This study examines the rise of early American museums following their birth from intellectual societies in the American colonies. The two primary categories of collections, scientific and patriotic items, were examined for their significance and intended purpose. Likewise, both popular education and interesting entertainment were identified as factors for encouraging early museum proprietors to seek the appeal of the general public while simultaneously drawing visitors to these early establishments of learning and leisure.

In order to understand the motives behind intellectuals’ desires for popular education, scientific knowledge, and patriotic enthusiasm, the writings of many American intellectual elites were consulted. The study relied upon writings of the Founding Fathers to better understand the growing importance of educating the general public and the desire to form a stronger and more resilient nation following the American Revolution. In addition, broadside and newspaper advertisements, biographical accounts, and the extensive papers of Charles Willson Peale, one of Philadelphia’s first museum proprietors, helped trace the development of museums from a specialized scientific cabinet associated with private intellectual organizations to the establishment of publicly available museums.

This study challenges the long held belief that cabinets of curiosity and early museums were comprised of random items with no clear objective or purpose in mind. In fact, research indicated that the ideas for creating profitable, educational, and entertaining museums mattered greatly in revolutionary America. The two earliest museums in Philadelphia serve as models to study the birth of publicly accessible museums in America. The formation of these two influential museums in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, inaugurated issues surrounding museums that still persist some two hundred-twenty years later.