The Franklin Institute

Founded in 1824, The Franklin Institute’s initial purpose “was to honor Ben Franklin and advance the usefulness of his inventions.”  The Franklin opened in its present location on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 1934, becoming “one of the first hands-on science museums in the United States.”  Its current mission is to “illuminate issues in contemporary science” through its exhibitions and programs, with a strong focus on community outreach and public education initiative geared to girls and urban youth.  Spend an hour or so wandering the halls of The Franklin leaves little doubt as to their target audience.  Most everything here is interactive, and the exhibits and displays engage young people (between the ages of 8 and 14) in hands-on activities which allow them to experience scientific phenomena.  There are few places better suited to thinking about the interactive or experiential museum.

 

In Museums, Media and Cultural Theory, Michelle Henning looks at museums as media.  She discusses the “tendency [of modern museums] to both dematerialize and bring objects closer” through exhibition design, a trend away from the static presentation of (sacred) objects toward the creation of experience through visitor interaction with displayed objects (71).  Discussing hands-on science museums like San Francisco’s Exploratorium, Henning notes that museums have moved away from the presentation of artifacts, developing new display techniques which exhibit abstract concepts (71).   She discusses the emergence of the mediatic museum as a manifestation of the belief that “the museum was the best means to inform and educate a mass audience.”  This principle evolved over time in response to the practical concerns facing museums in the 1980s and 90s.  During this period, museums increased interactivity in order to “compete in a [crowded] marketplace of leisure attractions” often trading education for entertainment (81).  The Franklin recently unveiled Electricity exhibit illustrates the conflict between education (and experience) and entertainment in the interactive museum.

The production literature for Electricity exhibit describes its mission, goal, and objective:

• “To invite the visitor to notice, think about, and question where we find electricity, how we use it, and the impacts of integrating electric technology into our way of life.

• “Visitors discover electricity is derived from how charges interact, properties of which allow us to generate electricity, making us responsible for our choices in usage and gene ration.”

• “Visitors encounter electricity through experiences that allow manipulation of electrical phenomena, contain authentic artifacts, and encourage new connections and collaborations.”

It seeks to achieve these objectives by creating a visitor experiences through interactive exhibits, static objects and artifacts, and striking visuals, in addition to linking thematically to surrounding exhibits on the human body and the Earth.

The exhibit is orderly arranged in sections devoted to Franklin’s electrical experiments, how electricity works, demand and sustainability, and electricity in the human body.  There are several strong visual focal points in the exhibit; the giant Tesla coil (that goes off to great effect on the hour) suspended at the center of the exhibit, a giant wall of LED lights that reacts to the electrical signals of visitor’s cell phones, and a dance floor convert movement to energy.  Another interesting feature of the exhibit is the way designers connect the Electricity exhibit thematically with those around it, using objects and/or displays to transition from one to the other.  The exhibit borders areas devoted to flight, the human body, and the Changing Earth, and the ideas of each – the environment, conservation, and the human nervous system easily overlap.  At these transition points, designers have placed a single object or interactive display marking the visitor’s movement from one area to the next.  Each of these displays (supplemented by striking photographs and quotes) creates a threshold experience for the visitor, clearing their mind and readying them new exhibit and new experience.  The most dynamic example of a threshold displays is the Franklin-style key that, when touched, shocks the visitor.  Indeed, it clears the mind as it zaps your hand and after interacting with the display it is difficult not to be drawn deeper into the exhibit.

The Electricity exhibit balances the static objects with exhibits that foster a dynamic experiences.  The exhibit includes a section devoted to Benjamin Franklin which contains a collection of his scientific instruments.  The section devoted to electricity and the human body includes a defibrillator and a piece from Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair series.  One sees the impulse toward interactivity in the displaying of static objects or artifacts.  The Franklin artifacts on display are supplemented by a touch-screen interface which makes these static objects come alive.  Through this interface you can learn more about the history of the objects and see how they were used.  It is an interesting combination, in a single exhibit of the old and new exhibition modes.

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia

Located at the heart of the Museums District The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia “is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas.” Established in 1812 and opened to the public in 1828, The Academy moved to its present location on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in time for the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876.  Established “for the encouragement and cultivation of the sciences, and the advancement of useful learning,” its holdings include one of the ten largest collections of natural history specimens in the United States.  The Academy contains much to recommend it – including the Dinosaur Hall, the active fossil lab, and its contemporary educational programs and research projects. For many, the chief draw is The Academy’s collection of dioramas.  

Housed in the North American Hall, the African Hall, and the Asian Hall, The Academy’s 37 dioramas depict regional animals posed in realistic recreations of their natural environment.  I spent most of my recent visit among the dioramas in the North American Hall.  Most of the dioramas here were created in the 1920s and 30s, using specimens collected through institution funded expeditions and research. 

The North American Hall is a dark and quiet space.  Lit by the glow from the diorama cases, the hall seems a bit mysterious (and for children perhaps a little frightening).  It is a shrine of sorts – a place for quiet reflection upon the natural world not unlike an art museum.  I visited on a Thursday afternoon, an hour before closing, and the hall was virtually empty – certainly not the best time for observing the behavior of others.  It is not difficult, however, to image the hall filled with children and adults captivated by these displays.  The first dioramas contain animals familiar to Pennsylvania, including Black Bears, White Tail Deer, Beavers, Squirrels, Opossums and Striped Skunks.  If you’ve lived in the country, or even on the edges of the city, you likely have more than a passing familiarity with these creatures (and to see them somewhere other than my trash can is nice).  Despite the familiarity of the specimens. these exhibits trigger awe and reverence, through proximity and through an awareness of the craftsmanship involved in the creation of the scene.  The power of the diorama is reinforced in the more exotic displays that fill the rest of the hall.  In these displays the Kodiak Brown Bear, the cliff-dwelling Dall Sheep, the majestically horned Caribou, and the elegant and dangerous Polar Bear are presented close enough for inspection and in expertly constructed environments.  

In Museums, Media and Cultural Theory, Michelle Henning charts the origins and influence of the diorama. A reaction to the overcrowded and impenetrable quality of the Victorian-era natural history museum, the diorama served to organize the content of the natural history museum and make it accessible to the modern viewer. She places the diorama’s emergence “at the point of the decline in popularity of natural history as a practice,” when institutions began to move away from creating science through research toward presenting established scientific ideas.  As institutions began to view “education as the dissemination of already-formed facts and ideas to as large a public as possible” the diorama became a valuable tool in presenting the natural world to a mass audience (46).  The diorama directs the gaze of the increasingly distracted modern visitor, directing “visitors toward a particular understanding of nature whilst, at the same time, positioning them as consumers” of the natural world, rather than active participants (50).  Dioramas replace “the bodily experience of being in nature” and “position the visitor as a solitary spectator…privileged to examine in detail a scene that may have otherwise existed momentarily, or possibly not at all for the human viewer” (51-52).

 As The Smart Set’s Jesse Smith observed in a recent article: “[F]or all their power as symbols of science museums, [dioramas] have strong nods to their art counterparts...their rectangular proportions suggest works of art, [and the] benches in the center of their halls suggest the kind of reflection one is more likely to have” in an art museum than a natural science museum…issues of art and science, and art versus science, often come up in discussions of dioramas.”  The Academy’s website describes their dioramas as “a distinctive fusion of art and science” and “early versions of virtual reality,” marking the diorama’s dual origins and primary function.  Both educational and entertaining, dioramas draw from a number of influences outside the realm of natural science, including panoramic paintings, photography (“a snapshot of a time and place”), and window display advertisements.  Further, “For many, dioramas provided their only opportunity to experience distant places and exotic wildlife.”

Each diorama in composed of three elements – the specimen, the landscape, and the background.   The specimens are the most important part of the display.  They are extremely life-like and are arranged in action (or mid-action) poses.  In many of the dioramas, the main animal is placed with creatures that share its environment.   Sometimes the relationship between animals is friendly, other times it reflects the brutal relationship between predator and prey.  The second feature of the diorama is the landscape.  A specimen is placed in a physical recreation of its natural habitat.  The diorama containing the Bighorn Sheep and the Collard Peccary is particularly complex, containing all the sand and rock, and low scrub flowers and towering cactus one would expect from their arid desert environment.  The final element is the painted background.  This concave painting adds depth to the scene, and is the most perceptibly artificial component of the diorama.  For all of the three-dimensional authenticity of the diorama’s foreground, the painted background is a two-dimensional reminder that what you are seeing is an illusion.  

In short, “The diorama marshals these technologically produced effects of the real into a coherent composition.  In doing so, it manages to be simultaneously modern and popular, addressing a visitor reconfigured as a consumer, and carrying an (apparently) morally uplifting conservationist message, mixing scientific veracity with popular illusionism” (52). 

Combining the techniques of natural history with popular amusement, the enormously popular diorama helped, for better and worse, shape perceptions of the natural world.  They are certainly problematic.  The Academy’s website touches on some of the diorama's issues.  “Today, most museum visitors won't approve of the killing of animals required for the creation of these displays.”  Indeed, the popularity of taxidermy seems to have been waning for quite some time (perhaps since the release of Psycho…).  Henning observes the ways in which “illusionist scenarios” obscure the cruelty of the exhibit, the idyllic scenes eclipsing the fact that animals have been captured and killed.  This is certainly at work in the North American Hall, though several dioramas here depict the cruelty inherent in the relationship between predator and prey.  

The website also observes that “dioramas played a major role in the celebration of Americans in their natural heritage and increased their awareness and appreciation of the loss of wilderness.  The rise of the Conservation Movement and the popularity of dioramas went hand-in-hand.”  This is certainly true, but as Henning points out this was not always a good thing, and if dioramas brought a greater understanding of the need for conservation they also helped legitimize U.S. nationalism, imperialism, and racism.  The questionable ethnography of New York’s American Museum of Natural History dioramas is not present in the North American Hall, however The Academy’s dioramas remain symbols of conquest and colonialism as well as conservation.

Betsy Ross House

What can you say about the Betsy Ross House?  Located in the heart of historic Old City Philadelphia, the Betsy Ross House is one of several attractions dealing with birth of America.  The museum offers a look at the life of Betsy Ross – supposed resident of the Arch Street property from 1773 to 1785, alleged creator of the first American flag, and the best known female figure of the Revolutionary period.  Indeed, Ross often seems the lone female figure of the Revolutionary War, standing alongside Washington in the popular memory as America’s founding mother.  It is hard not to be cynical about such a place.On one hand the Betsy Ross House is an old-fashioned tourist trap, filled with patriotic pabulum/hokum, on the other it is an attempt to inject a woman’s story into the male dominated Revolutionary narrative.  It is in telling the story of a woman artisan, providing a glimpse into domestic and working life at the end of 18th century, that the museum is most successful. 

Betsy Ross as is a 19th century creation.  The emergence of Ross as an iconic American figure parallels the creation of the Betsy Ross House museum.  The origins of both are problematic at best.  The story of Ross as creator of the first American flag and the importance of the house as site of creation and transaction was promoted by her family well after her death.  Ross’ grandson William Canby first brought her story to public attention in an 1870 speech to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and later, with “other members of Betsy's family signed sworn affidavits stating that they heard the story of the making of the first flag from Betsy's own mouth.”  On the word of her surviving family members, the house was by the late nineteenth century “recognized as the place where [she] lived when she made the first American Flag.”  The image of Ross in her parlor (a more genteel setting than her workshop) presenting the new flag to George Washington comes from this period as well, made famous in Charles Weisgerber’s painting, Birth of Our Nation’s Flag.  By 1898 Weisgerber was living in the house, having helped mount a successful campaign to purchase it in the name of preserving Betsy Ross’ legacy.  Two rooms of the Betsy Ross house were opened to the public – the famous parlor and a gift shop.

Built around 1740, the house itself is an unassuming structure – a two and half story building designed for living and working.  Today, the house is flanked by a “civic garden” (built in 1941) and an annex building (built in 1965) containing a gift shop and exhibit space.  

Entering the annex building places visitors in the gift shop, where all sorts of (anachronistic) Revolution-themed goods can be purchased.  After passing through a small exhibit space and along a short breezeway, visitors enter house proper through a side-door.  Once inside, visitors are lead through a series of period room recreations of the house in use circa 1777.  The first stop is the parlor, the most famous room in the house.  Small and cramped, the room is unremarkable in every way, whatever charm it might possess is squashed by thick piece of plexiglass protecting the objects from the visitors.  The tour moves quickly through the remaining rooms – upstairs to the bedroom, downstairs to the upholstery workshop and storefront (the only room not obscured by plexiglass), into the basement to the storeroom and kitchen, and then to the courtyard.  There is little information about the objects displayed in these rooms.  The objects here gain value from their association with Ross, but what, if anything, belonged to Ross is left to the visitor’s imagination.  The period rooms are supplemented by informational signs dealing with 18th century sewing techniques and dispelling “Myths of Colonial America.”  The Museum prefers to leave the “myth” of Betsy Ross mostly intact, dealing with the dubious second hand history by putting the onus on visitors:  “historical fact or well-loved legend, the story of Betsy Ross is as American as apple pie. After your visit, decide what YOU believe!”

On the surface, the Betsy Ross House is selling the standard issue heroic creation narrative.  It draws visitors in with the familiar image of Ross as the creator of the first American flag, while quietly making a place for women in that narrative in its representation of domestic space.  The bulk of the museum is devoted to representations of domestic and working life at the end of the 18th century, which suggest the ways in which urban women lived and worked in the colonial period.  It establishes within domestic space a social and economic role for women in the birth of a nation.  The significance of this is undermined by its reinforcement of the Betsy Ross legend.  

 Emerging scholarship on Betsy Ross, especially Marla Miller’s recent book Betsy Ross and the Making of America, “demolishes the legend of Ross as our national seamstress, offer[ing] in return someone much more interesting: a real-life artisan, wife and mother whose fortunes and travails were closely tied to the new nation” (for more on this see Marjoleine Kars' review of Miller's book in the Washington Post).  The Betsy Ross House could benefit from the interrogation of legend.  By adding a more complex analysis of Betsy Ross the woman and the legend, the house would become something more than just another stop on the Revolutionary tour of Philadelphia.