History Of The Portrait Collection Independence National Historical Park

This volume provides a history and catalog of the portraits by Charles Willson Peale, who painted heroes of the American revolution, founders of American government, statesmen, jurists, men of science, and individuals who contributed art and letters. The three chapters by Fanelli (Cultural Resources Management, Independence National Historical Park) discuss the collection from its inception through the period in which the shrine that housed it became a museum. Each of the 250 entries (mostly b&w, with a few in color) in the catalog includes a brief biography of the subject, a physical description of the painting, the circumstances under which it was created, and its provenance. They are arranged alphabetically by sitter. Edited by Karie Diethorn, chief curator, Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Independence Hall is a place Americans think they know well. Within its walls the Continental Congress declared independence in 1776, and in 1787 the Founding Fathers drafted the U.S. Constitution there. Painstakingly restored to evoke these momentous events, the building appears to have passed through time unscathed, from the heady days of the American Revolution to today. But Independence Hall is more than a symbol of the young nation. Beyond this, according to Charlene Mires, it has a long and varied history of changing uses in an urban environment, almost all of which have been forgotten. In Independence Hall, Mires rediscovers and chronicles the lost history of Independence Hall, in the process exploring the shifting perceptions of this most important building in America's popular imagination. According to Mires, the significance of Independence Hall cannot be fully appreciated without assessing the full range of political, cultural, and social history that has swirled about it for nearly three centuries. During its existence, it has functioned as a civic and cultural center, a political arena and courtroom, and a magnet for public celebrations and demonstrations. Artists such as Thomas Sully frequented Independence Square when Philadelphia served as the nation's capital during the 1790s, and portraitist Charles Willson Peale merged the arts, sciences, and public interest when he transformed a portion of the hall into a center for natural science in 1802. In the 1850s, hearings for accused fugitive slaves who faced the loss of freedom were held, ironically, in this famous birthplace of American independence. Over the years Philadelphians have used the old state house and its public square in a multitude of ways that have transformed it into an arena of conflict: labor grievances have echoed regularly in Independence Square since the 1830s, while civil rights protesters exercised their right to free speech in the turbulent 1960s. As much as the Founding Fathers, these people and events illuminate the building's significance as a cultural symbol.

Jews and Urban Life recognizes that throughout their long history, Jews have often inhabited cities. The reality of this urban experience ranged from ghetto restrictions to robust participation in a range of civic and social activities. Essays in this collection present relevant examples from within the Jewish community itself, moving historically from the biblical period to the modern-day State of Israel. Taking a comparative approach while recognizing the particulars of individual instances, authors examine these phenomena from a wide variety of approaches, genres, and media. Interdisciplinary and accessibly written, the articles display a multitude of instances throughout history showing the range of Jewish life in urban settings.

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice, 2015 Winner, Ewell Newman Award of the American Historical Print Collectors Society, 2016 In 1849 the Smithsonian purchased the Marsh Collection of European engravings. Not only the first collection of any kind to be acquired by the new Institution, it was also the first public print collection in the nation, and it presented an important symbol of cultural authority. The prints formed part of the library of Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), a member of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. The uncertainty of the Smithsonian's mission in the early years complicated its motivation for purchasing the collection, especially given Marsh’s position as a Regent in financial difficulty. After a serious fire in 1865, portions of the collection were deposited at the Library of Congress and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Efforts to reclaim it began in the 1880s, as a new generation of Smithsonian staff expanded the National Museum, but they achieved only mixed success. Through the story of the Marsh Collection, the book explores the cultural values attributed to prints in the 19th century, including their prominent role in expositions and their influence on visual culture at a time when collecting styles were moving from an individual’s private contemplation of artworks to wider public venues of exposition in museums and reception by multiple audiences. The history of this first Smithsonian collection enlivens an important stage in the development of American cultural identity and in the formation of the Smithsonian as a national institution.

The 558 documents in this volume cover the period from 1 May 1816 to 18 January 1817. During this time, Jefferson expects political upheaval in Great Britain, welcomes the imminent presidential transition from James Madison to James Monroe, and privately suggests substantial amendments to Virginia's constitution. Jefferson occasionally gives legal advice, including an opinion on whether perjury can be committed before a grand jury. He turns down a request to sell Natural Bridge, calculates the latitude of Poplar Forest and Willis's Mountain, receives a large shipment of foreign books, exchanges the last of a series of letters with Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, and is appointed a visitor of Central College. As before, sojourners flock to Monticello. The Baron de Montlezun and Francis Hall provide informative accounts of Jefferson's home, way of life, and thoughts on many subjects. Jefferson attempts to bring Destutt de Tracy's Treatise on Political Economy into print, offers biographical information for Delaplaine's Repository, and recommends revisions to a forthcoming biography of Patrick Henry. Jefferson and Francis Adrian Van der Kemp trade letters about Jesus's life and teachings, and after the ailing Charles Thomson circulates the mistaken idea that Jefferson has converted to Christianity, correspondents question him about his spiritual beliefs.

The first history of the deaccession of objects from museum collections that defends deaccession as an essential component of museum practice. Museums often stir controversy when they deaccession works—formally remove objects from permanent collections—with some critics accusing them of betraying civic virtue and the public trust. In fact, Martin Gammon argues in Deaccessioning and Its Discontents, deaccession has been an essential component of the museum experiment for centuries. Gammon offers the first critical history of deaccessioning by museums from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and exposes the hyperbolic extremes of “deaccession denial”—the assumption that deaccession is always wrong—and “deaccession apology”—when museums justify deaccession by finding some fault in the object—as symptoms of the same misunderstanding of the role of deaccessions in proper museum practice. He chronicles a series of deaccession events in Britain and the United States that range from the disastrous to the beneficial, and proposes a typology of principles to guide future deaccessions. Gammon describes the liquidation of the British Royal Collections after Charles I's execution—when masterworks were used as barter to pay the king's unpaid bills—as establishing a precedent for future deaccessions. He recounts, among other episodes, U.S. Civil War veterans who tried to reclaim their severed limbs from museum displays; the 1972 “Hoving affair,” when the Metropolitan Museum of Art sold a number of works to pay for a Velázquez portrait; and Brandeis University's decision (later reversed) to close its Rose Art Museum and sell its entire collection of contemporary art. An appendix provides the first extensive listing of notable deaccessions since the seventeenth century. Gammon ultimately argues that vibrant museums must evolve, embracing change, loss, and reinvention.