William A. Peniston, Ph.D.

Librarian

The Newark Museum

49 Washington Street

Newark, NJ 07102

Telephone: 973-596-6625

Fax: 973-642-0459

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From the 1880s to the 1920s, the United States become the wealthiest and most dynamic nation in the world. Violent conflicts roiled the U.S. in those same years, and demands for social and political reform mounted on all sides. Some of the strongest champions of reform were intellectuals like the subject of this book, the New Englander John Cotton Dana (1856-1929). Dana was convinced that a more democratic and secular system of education would resolved the conflicts brought on by rapid industrialization and the daily arrival of thousands of immigrants.

Dana, a lifelong bibliophile, saw an opportunity in the public library: it could and should be a catalyst for public enlightenment and progressive change. His first experiment took place in Denver where he created a new kind of city library, an up-to-date institution offering entertainment, practical information, and intellectual stimulation to one and all. His policies, from open stacks to newspaper rooms, would eventually become standard. Coupled with a nonstop stream of smart, brash writing, they propelled Dana into national prominence.

This highly original book tracks Dana's career from its beginnings in the Denver Public Library to his move back East, where he met stiff opposition to his plans for a "museum of service" -- his term for the alternative museum he envisioned. Here Carol G. Duncan uses her incomparable knowledge of the history of museums to assess Dana's conflicts with influential supporters of the arts, first in Springfield, Massachusetts, and then, for almost three decades, 1902-1929, in Newark, New Jersey.

Years of work and politicking and funds from the department store magnate Louis Bamberger finally enabled Dana to build his ideal museum. In its light and flowing galleries, Dana banished the "gloom" he had long decried in the Metropolitan Museum. In stark contrast to the usual museum fare, the Newark Museum held exhibitions of items sold in five-and-dime stores or manufactured in New Jersey -- hats, bathtubs, pillowcases, and toys. Instead of Old Master oils, Newark showed work by living Americans -- affordable prints and paintings by modern artists such as John Sloan, Stuart Davis, and Max Weber.

No previous book has reconstructed Dana's role in the Progressive Movement or been more perceptive about his fiery personality and vision of modernity. A Matter of Class is, as well, an astute guide to the social and political agendas still mixed into the public offerings of our museums and libraries.

Carol G. Duncan, Professor Emerita of Art History at Ramapo College of New Jersey, is internationally known for her pioneering work on the representation of women and patriarchal authority in art. The Aesthetics of Power (Cambridge University Press, 1993) is a collection of her essays on these and other subjects. For the past two decades, her work has centered on the ideological meaning of art museums. Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (Routledge, 1995), her groundbreaking inquiry into the ritual nature of museums, used anthropological concepts to examine representative museums from the 18th century to the present. A Matter of Class keeps within a single historical moment -- the Progressive Era -- and studies a singular institution -- The Newark Museum -- as a product of early 20th-century reform culture.

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What does it mean to turn the public library or museum into a civic forum? Made in Newark describes a turbulent industrial city at the dawn of the twentieth century and the ways it inspired the library's outspoken director, John Cotton Dana, to collaborate with industrialists, social workers, educators, and New Women.

This is the story of experimental exhibitions in the library and the founding of the Newark Museum Association -- a project in which cultural literacy was intertwined with civics and consumption. Local artisans demonstrated crafts, connecting the cultural institution to the department store, school, and factory, all of which invoked the ideal of municipal patriotism. Today, as cultural institutions reappraise their relevance, Made in Newark explores precedents for contemporary debates over the ways the library and museum engage communities, define heritage in a multicultural era, and add value to the economy.

Ezra Shales teaches at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He has worked as a museum educator at the Brooklyn Museum and the Katonah Museum of Art.