Peabody Museum: What's in Harvard's back room?

Peabody Museum   (Photo by Daderot)

As Harvard University’s Peabody Museum turns 150, its vast collection of anthropological curiosities is being dusted off.  By April 2017, 600 such items will be on display.

Associated with the invention of anthropology, the Peabody houses more than a million objects altogether.  Among them are “a grizzly bear claw necklace” from Lewis and Clark’s “expedition to the Pacific coast,” and a P. T. Barnum alleged mermaid “made of paper-mache, wood and fish parts.”

The museum has been directly involved in "many famed excavations,” including those at “the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio” and those at “the Mayan ruins of Copan.”

The advent of anthropology turned out to be a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, it celebrated the diversity of international cultures.  On the other hand, it encouraged "colonialism and imperialism."

Resources

https://www.yahoo.com/news/harvard-museum-dust-off-curiosities-long-kept-storage-044528575.html

Copyright October 17, 2016 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved