Review of “The Building,” “People and Money,” and “The Collection”
in Riches, Rivals, and Radicals by Marjorie Schwarzer
Answer your driving question and support it with evidence from the text. Include page numbers.
Group A: “The Building”
How have politics (systems of power including people’s power) and economics (distribution of wealth)
influenced the style of and what kind of buildings house museums in the United States?
Group B: “People and Money”
How have the social and political philosophies and economic status of museum founders and
administration (individuals, government, foundations, corporations, community organizations)
influenced the different kinds of museums established in the United States?
EXAMPLE
Group C: “The Collection”
How have politics (systems of power including people’s power) and economics (distribution of wealth)
influenced museum collections in the United States?
“Behind every great museum collection, there are stories, often fascinating ones, about how and why
these objects were gathered” (71).
Wealth and power, including people’s power, determine who collects, why they collect, and how their
collection will be displayed and interpreted. Wealthy collectors desire to promote their personal prestige
and to fill leisure time. People’s collectors desire to affirm their cultural identities.
Wealthy Collectors:
74
Changes in tariff laws that make art acquisition easier (1909;1913)
76
Andrew Mellon’s precedent setting donation and the creation of D.C. National Art Gallery
80-86 Darwin’s theory of evolution hijacked to promote supremacy of Western “civilization”
Henry Fairfield Osborn, President American Museum of Natural History 1908-1933
Fascination with “vanishing worlds”
indigenous cultures (museums), flora (botanical gardens), fauna (zoos)
87
Antiquities Act (1906)—permission to “collect and preserve” artifacts and people; devastated
Native American Culture
89-90 Nazi sell off of looted artwork to finance war; Soviet sell off of artwork to stabilize government
92-97 Scandal: deaccessioning and “illicit trafficking of cultural property” (theft and exploitation)
People’s Power:
98
International Congress of Americanists: resolution against looting pre-Columbian antiquities
99
1970s: document lives of all Americans; research and return looted objects; better
representations of indigenous art (cultural pride AND records of genocide, slavery, internment)
107-14 Ethnic museums; Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act