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.