No open-access location is known for this record yet.
No open-access location is known for this record yet.
The ‘Chicago idea’, as anthropologist William Henry Holmes defined it, was that a businessman was uniquely qualified to conduct the business of a museum. Chicago philanthropists and businessmen embraced this idea when they appointed Frederick J. V. Skiff, a former world's fair administrator with no scientific training and no museum experience, to be director of the new Field Columbian Museum. Skiff's appointment was somewhat controversial in the scientific community. In 1895, only two years after the museum was first established, the outspoken paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope sharply criticized Skiff's style of management in American Naturalist. By 1897, Skiff's scientific staff was in open rebellion, charging the director with incompetence and worse. The difficulties of Skiff's early tenure as museum director are examined here, with special emphasis on his troubled relationships with the curatorial staff. An examination of the ‘Chicago idea’ — as embodied by Skiff — provides an insight into the tension between wealthy patrons, their hand-picked directors, and curators in America's Gilded Age museums.
Loading…
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.