the Academy of Natural Sciences: It is not real, but it is for real.

Most fascinating thing at the Academy of Natural Sciences was that they show basically what kind of job is done behind the exhibition and what people do for sample layouts. Not just through the explanation of curators or other staff, visitors just look around and they could know that Graphic designers and exhibit directors are put in a great deal of effort to make specimens look like alive. When we walked down to the office of the museum and were listening to the explanations, I actually touched some of on-going samples. And they were so realistic and lifelike. I could know that this is how museum is doing for obtaining its trust from audiences.

 So, these are kind of works of art and artifacts based on the scientific facts from the evidence in the monochrome or colored films, photos, and some parts of sketches back in the day. However, personally, several questions came to my mind as I listened to the staff’s saying that people who collect the materials by killing living animals. She did even say ‘it is interesting’ while telling about how the taxidermied gorillas were made. But, is it really intriguing to shoot the living animals in order to preserve their figures for permanent period? 

Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution of the United States in Philly

 Located in close proximity to the Liberty Bell Center and the Independence Hall which is listed as a World Heritage Site, the National Constitution Center(NCC) is a place full of sense of nationhood. Along with these historical sites where the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted, the building is really near the center city in Philadelphia, crowded with people coming and going. I think it has an excellent heritage tourism location so that American citizens can easily approach the place and remind themselves of how this country’s settled and what kind of thought was based on it. The NCC just shows that this center assists in the formation of providing special stories about the Constitution and the history of freedom, which is historically America’s the most important heritage. Especially, visual effect, titled ‘Freedom Rising,’ in the Kimmel Theater was enough to give that kind of impression, although I don’t understand why the narration makes wrong assumption that all the people in the theater would be citizens of the United States. I guess it might be just a part of play. However, president’s House seems to tell another stories with the same topic; slavery. I think it is very interesting that very iconic symbol of American Independence happened at the same time of emersion of kind of opposite conception. And yet, all these sites are raising the spirit of patriotism in many ways, preserving 

What happened behind the walls?

On my first visit to the Eastern State Penitentiary for the Terror Behind the Walls event, which was 2 days ago, I was too busy to scream out and run away from scary people. However, that is not all; including my friends, we became more curious about this place. Maybe this is the beauty of this historical attraction event, which makes visitors come again to explore the museum. So, this museum tour was my second visit to the Eastern State Penitentiary. There were still dark atmospheres inside the building, but it was different. During the daytime tour, I became a little bit more aware of why the Penitentiary still exists until now as well as how important it is. As a result, it changed what I have in mind about the Haunted House Halloween event.

Based on the Quakers’ ideas, Eastern State Penitentiary was and is famous for the first penitentiary that took the original system of separate confinement, individualized trainings, and rehabilitation programs in a small cell room instead of harsh punishments. But, the most interesting thing was that since 1930s prisoners could organize groups for baseball leagues, musical activities, and they were even appeared in the local news paper with other reasons than wanted lists. It seems that another kind of community was formed behind the prison walls, and even partly connected to the neighboring community.

To tell the truth, the stories about this penitentiary and the Pennhurst State School / Hospital, which were mentioned at the Haunted History discussion, are all mixed up in my head. However, one thing is for sure that these historical spaces did have a great effect around the nation.

How to do new things with old things?

According to the dictionary, house museums are called ‘Memory museums’ because it shows the ‘collection of the trace of the people who lived there.’ So, historic house museum is telling about the social history of certain people, and even the story of a certain region and historical period. If the people who stayed in the house were historical figures, the place would become more qualified as a house museum than others. I think this Powel House museum is the case.

As I was traveling around the Powel House Museum, it was interesting to look, touch, and listen to its own episodes of every single furniture and ornament. Also, this house museum seems to be meaningful by making sort of community bonds, judging from the fact that people who related to this house tried to keep the original one no to destroy. Especially, the carved words on a leaf of a door, saying ‘“Powel House 244 S 3^rd Philadelphia Original Shutter - Please Save” was very impressive. Even during the transitional period the project for restoring was attempting, and those 'forward-thinking' museum professional people kept trying to do new educational programs and improve display methods.

Comparing to this way of putting meanings to the museum in terms of preserving, the way of engaging visitors’ interest (Ghost Tour) seems for me to be unrelated to the house museums except the concept of ‘old’ place. As one of the important living history places, is this the way of creating meanings and network connections? Making people come in with events, and then look into the museum? Even so, to tell the truth, I am still not able to figure out what kind of real significance that house museums are carrying other than just historical places. This might be the reason that there was the ‘parking lot revolution’ incident. I think that people who did not think the building was meaningful enough wanted to use more space to store their cars, destroying the houses.

Penn Museum Review

     Penn Museum is called "an internationally renowned educational and research institution dedicated to the understanding of cultural diversity and the exploration of the history of humankind." It was named 'Free Museum of Science and Art,' but changed as a fee-charging museum with the present name. The museum shows us how architecture and archeology appears in each human culture. 

      According to the video clips in audiovisual room, the director of the museum brought the stuffs in the museum to the TV show, called ‘What in the world?’ Never heard of it, it was very popular for about 20 years since 1950’s. At the show, he invited some experts, artists, and celebrities to introduce the object, give some visual examinations, and talk to the public. This interesting story was available to hear at the ‘Video Theater’ inside the Roman World exhibition. There are 6 each story about the museum and one of its collections. Among them, the most interesting thing was about a Crystal Sphere from China in Qing Dynasty. While I was watching the video, I was wondering why they didn’t put this wonderful content before visitors tour the China exhibition just as they did for Egyptian Sphinx exhibition. It was much easier and much more interesting to walk around the displays after seeing the videos. 

      Right after watching the video clips, I directly went back to the crystal to check out. It had no meanings until I know what was going on behind it. And then, when looking below the display, there was a sign ‘Adopt Me.’ This sign was attached Not only on the crystal, but also on the ‘Lioness with Cub’ statues. Why they are trying to give away the artifacts that they scraped and preserved for quite a long time? If more visualized information is given in advance of touring, it would be much helpful to get closer to the contents of the museum.

Independence Hall & Gallery in the Second National Bank

All I know about the Independence Hall was that it is the place where the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted. Never heard of Peale Museum and it was unfamiliar for me, but it became somewhat special historic place after touring with Karie Diethorn, a public historian and curator.

  On the first floor of Second National Bank building, there are some of pictures by Charles Peale, who was a artist, naturalist, and “museumist.” For me, the relationship between the building that 94 portraits are exhibited now and its contents looks quite ironic and interesting. Those portraits are drawn by a person who was very affected with the Enlightement idea, whose philosophy is that ‘science provided a way to understand human society.’ However, the gallery (Second National Bank) is built after the model of the Temple of Parthenon, honoring the goddess. Pictures painted with the techniques and styles of all about the realistic elements are exhibited in the place looking like the temple where the least place talked about science and realistic stuffs.

The original place for Peale’s museum is on second floor of Independence Hall, a part of Independence National Historical Park. Back in the days, there were a lot of art works, taxidermied stuffs, scientific specimen that he drew or collected by himself (or his family members and hired artists), but almost all of them are sold to other people. He gave the management and responsibility of the museum to his son when Peale got through with his museum work, but the exhibits are all sold because of his debt.

 Sad to say, those portraits and other collections had been moved from space to space for financial reason. I thought that most of them could have been well preserved if the government had enough power or money, and tried to them as meaningful historic evidence. By opening his own collection to the public, he intended to show how he perceived the world and what he was trying to talk to the public. But it is beyond his personal intention.; thanks to his enthusiasm for the museum, now we can know of what was going on in 18^th century when the idea of the Enlightement was overflowing, and subsequent events related to why his museum lost the public interest. While listening to the explanation about this unfortunate truth, I wondered why the man who was such a detailed and literally devoted himself to draw and accumulate his collection did not make any plans for the future administration of the museum.

The Wagner Free Institute of Science museum; Old, dusty, but Valuable stuffed stuffs in a beautiful Victoran Building

Unlike the trend in the modern science museum which let visitors be more accessible to the exhibition stuff, the Wagner Free Institute of Science museum in Philadelphia shows how the traditional science of natural history should be. Based on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, quite vast range of collection was systematically set on just one floor of around 150-year old museum, such as from the formation of earth with lava explosion to minerals, rocks, fossils, taxidermied ancient animal specimens and huge skulls.

After about an hour of introduction of museum and touring all exhibitions, I found some fascinating parts in it. One thing is that Mr. and Ms Wagner, the collector of this exhibition, began this administration of museum with the educational purpose, which presents how this institutionalized museum collections makes its meaning for the public and its collectors themselves. It means that the museum has taken the relational value as offering social performance with professors’ classes for adults and kids, and, especially, various lessons for working class people. Still, the institution is working on science education program for children and group lessons for grownups, lecturing about the world of insects, arthrobods, and ocean life. Although its activity rate appears not to be high as what the institute had used to be in the 18^th century, it’s carrying on making public be part of it.

Another intriguing fact is that there are traces and efforts of having been collected for a long time. For example, some unique and old labels with cursive handwritten script were mingled with the rather newly printed tags without detaching old ones, which shows how and when those displays were collected. Also, they kept the broken-off parts along with the exhibition together. And the museum had a restoration work in 2003 and 2004, removing the original windows and replacing with new material but maintaining its earlier ones. Those meticulous operations allow the museum to be more proud of its collection.

 So, it seems that the museum is well accomplishing its mission to keep the collection safe. The environment of conservation, however, gave the impression of being a little apprehensive. Most of the specimens could be vulnerable to insects, humidity, temperatures and so on. Although the taxidermists must have done their job well, the condition doesn’t look ideal enough for olden exhibits. Plus, people who are introducing this museum should be more enthusiastic about what they are doing and be more aware of what they have so that they can properly explain visitors about the museum, instead of answering ‘I’m not sure.. I don’t know exactly..’  too many times to visitors’ questions because it would very disappoint people who expect to have more information.

** Taxidermy : the craft of preparing the skins of dead animals and birds and filling them with a material to make them look as if they alive.