The Wagner Free Institute of Science of Philadelphia

Part museum, part educational center, the Wagner Free Institute of Science is one of Philadelphia’s most interesting places.  Located on the corner of 17th Street and West Montgomery Avenue, it is also one of the most overlooked.  It would be difficult to stumble upon accidentally and its North Philadelphia address places it well off the beaten path for both tourists and locals.  But once you’ve discovered the Wagner it is difficult not to return and bring others with you to this fascinating place. 

A recent visit to the Wagner began in the auditorium with a brief overview of the Institute’s origins, evolution, and current mission from director Susan Glassman.  Born in 1796 to a wealthy Philadelphia family, William Wagner had both the means and opportunity to pursue his love of science.  In her discussion Ms. Glassman pointed to three periods in Wagner’s life which helped shape the Institute.  Beginning in 1817, Wagner, serving as an agent of Philadelphia banking giant Stephen Girard, traveled extensively.  Circling the globe, he acquired the specimens which would form the core of the Institute’s collection.  The 1820s and 30s saw Wagner engaged in a local, national, and international network of science collectors and researchers.  In the early 1840s, Wagner embarked on a two year trip to Europe to visit the institutions and individuals he had been in contact with during the preceding years.  Interested in examining educational institutions devoted to science, he found that most European collections and institutions were extremely private, accessible only to men of certain social classes.  When Wagner came across the rare exception, like a free public museum in Berlin, he noted it as a model to be emulated.    

Shortly after his return to Philadelphia, Wagner began organizing his collection and presenting a number of informal lectures centered on his holdings.  Wagner’s cabinet began to draw visitors, and by 1855 his series of informal presentations of his collection had become an incorporated educational institution.  The Wagner Free Institute moved to its Montgomery Avenue location in 1865. 

Wagner’s model shares with the prototypical museums of Europe – beginning with Florence’s Medici Palace of the 15th century and continuing with the cabinet collectors of the 16th century – the impulse toward acquisition and education.  What distinguished the Wagner from its historical and contemporary European antecedents was access. Where the collections of his forebears were symbols of wealth and power construed through the control of knowledge, Wagner’s lectures and collection, and later the Institute’s educational programs were open to the public, regardless of gender or class.   

The Wagner underwent a second wave of development following the death of its founder in 1885.  Under the leadership of biologist Joseph Leidy the Institute not only actively expanded its collection and continued its educational programs, but emerged as a research organization, undertaking and financing expeditions and generally contributing to the expansion of scientific knowledge.  The changes of the Leidy period, both to the physical structure and to the collection and its presentation, are preserved in the Institute’s current incarnation.  It is in the Wagner’s specimen collection that the influence of Leidy is perhaps most apparent.  

Housed on the second floor, the biological and geological specimen collection illustrates the move toward classification and hierarchical order characteristic of 19th century science.  It also illustrates the Wagner’s shift in use over time, suggesting the problems associated with the contemporary public perception of the Institute and its mission.  Certainly the collection is fascinating in its own right, both for what it contains an in the way it differs from the contemporary museum going experience.  Initially an extension of the Institute’s educational efforts, the collection seems a primary draw for the contemporary visitor.  Filled with natural wonders, methodically organized and arranged in heavy wooden cases, the exhibition hall is a taxonomist’s (and taxidermist’s) dream.  Filled with natural light and the sounds of the surrounding neighborhood, the collection room is warm and inviting.  The arrangement of the collection – hierarchically for biological specimens, chronologically for geological ones – certainly suggests for the visitor a specific path.  For the contemporary viewer, separated from these organizing principles by time, evolving scientific methods, or a lack prior knowledge, the collection can be experienced in a variety of ways.  One can move freely from one exhibit to the next leaping over millions of years in the process.  Here, invertebrate sea creatures give way to crustaceans and large, bony fish.  Winged beasts – moths, bats, and seagulls – sit near fierce looking birds of prey and snakes and squirrels set in action poses.  The skeleton of a draft horse sits near a scattering of Brontosaurs bones, while geological specimens mingle with the fossil record in nearby cases. 

In his 2009 article “Preserving the Future of Natural-History Museums,” Thomas H. Benton (the pen name of Hope College professor William Pennapacker) provides several observational recommendations for natural history museums moving into the 21st century.  Three of Benton’s recommendations suggest the strengths of the Wagner Institute.  The Wagner “foreground[s] the art of science and aesthetics of the museum” by keeping intact the work of Wagner and Leidy, and it is certainly not “ashamed of dead animals.”  Most importantly, Benton observes: “The world is full of simulations.  Natural-history museums should cultivate the aura of the real: the rare and unique, the beautiful, the exotic, and the grotesque.”  This is what makes the Wagner so remarkable.  It is through the exhibition of its collection that the Wagner restores a sense of (analog) awe and wonder to the museum going experience.  

But the collection also draws attention away from the educational mission of the Institute.  Ms. Glassman noted that the Wagner is often thought of solely as a museum, rather than an institution focused on public education in science.  This seems a natural hazard of preserving and presenting a museum’s past.  By presenting the museum as object, one risks elevating static physical qualities over continually evolving ideological mission.    

Ms. Glassman observed that when preservation efforts began in earnest twenty years ago, the Wagner had become something quite rare – a cultural artifact.  A piece of a scientific history well worth preserving.  Indeed, the Wagner straddles two eras.  It is at once a 19th century natural history museum preserved in amber and a contemporary institution with an active educational mission.  It is both a historical artifact and a living institution, and each has its own appeal and set of priorities.  In the first case, the building, library, and extensive specimen collection draw visitors looking for a authentic representation of a 19th century institution, while in the second, it must provide free, contemporary scientific educational programs to the community.  To maintain authenticity requires constant preservation of the Wagner’s structures and specimens.  The educational programs require the development of attractive and relevant programs and continual community outreach.  By engaging the public on both fronts, the Wagner seeks to establish a balance between its past and present, preservation and growth.

Leaving the Wagner, heading toward Broad Street via Montgomery Avenue, one wonders how its location has helped and/or hurt the Institute over time.  Located on the relative outskirts of the city’s most attractive commercial and cultural districts must have had some effect on frequency of use and effectiveness of its mission.  One wonders how it might look if William Wagner had decided to build his educational institute near what are now Independence National Historical Park or the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.  Would it resemble the American Philosophical Society or the Academy of Natural Sciences?  Certainly its relative isolation made it easier to preserve the collection and structure in its 19th century form.  But has it also limited the execution of its mission?  Moving through the construction dust of Temple University’s expansion project, one wonders how current changes will affect Institute’s future.