Persons
Places
Things
Events
Firsts
100
What wealthy American industrialist created the largest history museum of its time in 1929 in Dearborn, Michigan?
Henry Ford
100
Where is the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum?
Bilbao, Spain.
100
What item did Barnum have on exhibit in his museum? Hint: your professor showed this thing to you on a PowerPoint slide last time we met.
A mermaid. A real one. Not like the ones you see on Starbucks cups, either.
100
True or False: Visits to American museums today surpass the combined attendance at all professional sporting events.
True!
100
What was America's first PUBLIC museum and when was it formed?
Peale's Museum, 1786.
200
What museum was commissioned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen?
The Experience Music Project in Seattle.
200
What do museums such as the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, the Wing Luke Asian Museum and the El Museo del Bario have in common?
Subject matter is more inclusive and diverse so as to appeal to a more diverse audience.
200
What is the more polite and elevated term for a specific type of OCD connected to gathering large numbers of objects?
"Collecting," aka "grandmother's attic syndrome (GAS)"
200
What impact did the Cold War have on American museums?
More "patriotic" exhibits and information presented. More science, math and other related information was presented.
200
Where and when was America's first museum formed?
Charleston, SC in 1773
300
Who advocated that museums should pursue a largely educational function in behalf of the general public?
John Cotton Dana
300
How did the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Central Park site reflect its founders’ desires to attract a particular audience?
Location was far from immigrant neighborhoods and closer to the homes of the upper classes whom the museum would serve. Also less well known: Central Park, like most American parks, was "restricted," i.e., minorities and other groups were allowed into the park only on certain days.
300
What device did John Cotton Dana design to aid museum visitors?
"Museum fatigue stools"
300
How did President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration contribute to the growth of museums in America?
More funding for maintenance, development and expansion of American museums and exhibitions during the New Deal (mostly late 1930s).
300
What was America's first African-American museum formed and when?
Hampton Institute (Virginia), 1868
400
Who advocated for pure aesthetic contemplation in art museums?
Benjamin Ives Gilman
400
What three great American museums were founded in 1870?
American Museum of Natural History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
400
In what museum will you find America's oldest windmill?
Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.
400
Why is the de-accessioning of public museum collections a controversial issue?
Engaging the the trade of collections for profit and/or gain (and not for renewing collections) creates potential for conflict of interest. It betrays the public trust and the basic mission of museums. Non-profit status of museums are jeopardized by such activity.
400
What was America's first Children's museum formed and when?
Brooklyn Children's Museum, 1899
500
Who coined the phrase "the efficient educational museum"?
George Brown Goode
500
Cultural critic Tom Wolfe called which museum "a colonial complex inflated to prodigious dimensions"?
MOMA, NY. He said that the building's architecture signaled MOMA's intent to "colonize" the post-war spoils of Europe. (Your professor thinks he was probably wrong.)
500
What really large object did the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum have on exhibit (about WWII) that was so controversial? Why was there so much controversy?
The Enola Gay (airplane that dropped an atomic bomb.)
500
Who would win in a drunken brawl, Gilman or Dana?
Dana, of course!
500
According to Alexander, who was "the first great American museum director"?
Charles Willson Peale, in Philadelphia