Mermaids, Mummies, and Mastodons: The Emergence of the American Museum

by William T. Alderson

A “Feejee mermaid,” the skeletal remains of a “wooly mammoth,” and a “cabinet of learned turkies which will dance to music,” were attractions at Baltimore’s Peale Museum in the early 1800s. As the nation’s first museum directors, Charles Wilson Peale, and his sons Rembrandt and Rubens, laid the foundation of the modern American museum.

Genres: Museology

104 pages, Hardcover

First published December 2, 1991

Reviews

[Timothy Yim-Stueve]

lots of good info in here but the writing is mid. I am fascinated by Charles Willson Peale

[Kassie]

check out the last name! oh yes oh yes oh yes!