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This book is a groundbreaking bottom-up history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exploring both its triumphs and its failings.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Innocents Abroad: The Founding Trustees, 1866–1880
2. General Cesnola and the Temple of Curium: Showmanship and Scholarship in the Age of Barnum, 1865–1895
3. Indentured Gratitude: The Havemeyers and Other Oligarchs, 1869–1913
4. Downtown: Artist-Artisans Between Commerce and Philanthropy, 1880–1914
5. The Guards: Ethnicity, Class, and Labor, 1880–1958
6. Colonial Flatware: Judge Clearwater and the Limits of Americanization, 1906–1933
7. The Ladies Lunch Club: Women and the Curatorial Profession, 1900–1940
8. The Modernists: The Museum and Modern Art, 1921–1950
9. Pupils on Parade: Museum Education as Theater, 1907–1973
10. Uptown: The Met and the “Total Black Community,” 1943–1977
11. Self-Culture for Out-of-Towners: From Miniatures to the Annenberg Center, 1948–1977
12. Changing Occupations: Mannequins at the Met, 1942–2004
13. Legacy Systems: From Multimedia to Digital, 1983–2019
Conclusion: 2020 Vision?
Abbreviations
Notes
Sources and Select Bibliography
Index
About the author
Jonathan Conlin is professor of modern history at the University of Southampton. His books include Tales of Two Cities: Paris, London, and the Birth of the Modern City (2014) and Mr. Five Per Cent: The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, the World’s Richest Man (2019).
Summary
This book is a groundbreaking bottom-up history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exploring both its triumphs and its failings.
