Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870

Using primary sources, Orosz researched ten geographically diverse museums founded prior to 1870 and covering a range of disciplines. He finds that early pioneer curators were guided not so much by European examples as by the essentials of the American democratic culture, and that by 1870 the conflicting demands for popular education and professionalism were synthesized in a basic model of museums in America that continues today. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.