American Man

When I skimmed the article about Charles Willson Peale, I was really excited to go and see his artwork. He had the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe support his artwork, that is something that probably 99% of the people who ever lived could say. He was also able to set up his museum in Independence Hall, which was the most famous building of the time. That's how well respected he was and just how smart he was. After seeing his artwork and hearing the history behind him, I thought about what Glassberg said about how memories get selected for us. I thought about Political and Place for this museum. He wanted the people to see the evolution of the country through the most prominent people of the Revolutionary Period. He only painted people who mattered and fit his "type" of male. White, wealthy, upper class. Also, the place. All these men shaped the country into what we know as the United States. Whether it was Science, Business, War, Philosophy, these men all did something that was worth recognition in United States history. One of the things that I really liked about this place was, they had both something about the person and something about an event significant related to the persons field. For example, John Marshall had a plaque for just him and also something that had to do with the Supreme Court, so it wasn't just about him. You learned about the person and at the same time about the field in which the person was important to. Going back to the sections, I really liked how they broke the people into them. You learned a lot more about the person and even more about the history behind the section they were broken down too. Overall, I really liked this place because it holds so much of the nations history, with just portraits of the people.

Wagner

Going into the Wagner Free Institute of Science, I really didn't think much of it. It looks like a run down building, in a neighborhood that's not that well-known for museums. But, when you walked into the building and saw how it was built, you could tell that it was going to have a pretty sweet collection inside. The building had that Victorian style inside and it made you think that the things and people who built the museum were important. We found out that Wagner came from a wealthy family, but unlike the people we talked about from the 1400-1700's in Europe, he wanted to share his collection and knowledge of the sciences with normal people. You know the museum believes in evolution, because they base their lineup of animals, fossils, minerals, and rocks off of Darwinism. I also think that the Wagner hits the six primary functions we went over in class, collection, preservation, exhibition, education, administration, and public engagement. They have a great collection of animals, minerals, rocks, and fossils. They have preserved animals that I have never seen before and make them look like there about to job out at you. Their exhibition I thought was done nicely, big to small for the evolution of mankind and minerals. The education part was kind of bleak for me, but I still saw animals and other things I never knew or thought of and it gained my interest a little. For the administration, I thought the person who gave us the intro did a good job of explaining what it was and how it become what it is. And the public engagement was awesome for me. I could walk up to anything and look at it from a few inches away and thought that was really cool. The one thing that did piss me off was when, the fossils and a few animals that I looked at were in Latin and didn't know what the hell they were. But, when we got back to class and the topic was brought up it made sense. He wanted people to look at his collection, but at the same time learn from it also, by not just looking at it, but learning about what they were and where they came from during his lectures. I didn't think much of it from the outside, but the Wagner is definitely a very cool place and has a lot of history behind it. It was nice to know that he didn't want to just show off his collection like other rich people during his time, but actually god for bid have people learn something while they are there. That made the museum a lot more enjoyable for me.