Made in Newark
322 pages, 6 7/8 x 10
77 illustrations. 12 color and 65 black and white
Hardcover
Release Date:30 Jun 2010
ISBN:9780813547695
Made in Newark
Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era
By Ezra Shales
Rutgers University Press, Rivergate Books
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 Associationùa 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.
This is the story of experimental exhibitions in the library and the founding of the Newark Museum Associationùa 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.
Shales offers rich and compelling insights into the discussion of industrial arts. His deft handling of a wide variety of source material—from visual and material culture to performance culture, from educational philosophy to economic policy, and from craft romanticism to scientific management—distinguishes this book as an important contribution to design history, used in the broadest and best sense. It is a gripping story of shifting alliances and goals.
Made in Newark is no ordinary museum history. By dismantling boundaries between art, artisanship, and industry, Shales provides a view of a past moment that looks very much like a future to strive for. Setting a huge range of production into a richly described social setting, he shows how truly moving and enlightening interdisciplinary history can be.
Shales draws on an impressive array of sources to weave ideas about education, citizenship, economics, cultural pluralism, and the role of the museum in a manufacturing town. The result is an intensive and intriguing view of the past.
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.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Cultivating the Industrial City
One: The Engine of Culture
Two: The Business of Culture
Three: The Virtues of Industry
Plates
Four: Molding and Modeling Civic Consumption: Clay Industries of New Jersey, 1915
Five: Weaving the New into the Old: Textile Industries of New Jersey, 1916
Six: A Parade of Civic Virtue
Conclusion: The Industrious Citizen
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Cultivating the Industrial City
One: The Engine of Culture
Two: The Business of Culture
Three: The Virtues of Industry
Plates
Four: Molding and Modeling Civic Consumption: Clay Industries of New Jersey, 1915
Five: Weaving the New into the Old: Textile Industries of New Jersey, 1916
Six: A Parade of Civic Virtue
Conclusion: The Industrious Citizen
Notes
Index
