Museum History

Capitol City's Natural History Museum is haunted—or at least that's what someone wants people to think. But Wilson Kipper, son of the museum's head paleontologist, knows better. When the mysterious occurrences go from spooky to dangerous, the museum is forced to close its doors. Can Wilson and his friends get to the bottom of things, or will the Natural History Museum be closed for good?

On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum's castle. Rare objects and valuable paintings were destroyed. The flames at the Smithsonian were not the first—and certainly would not be the last—disaster to upend a museum in the United States. The Museum explores the concepts of "crisis" as it relates to museums, and how these historic institutions have dealt with challenges ranging from depression and war to pandemic and philosophical uncertainty.

The fascinating and little-known story of the Louvre, from its inception as a humble fortress to its transformation into the palatial residence of the kings of France and then into the world's greatest art museum.

Scandal, shock, and rivalry all have negative connotations, don't they? They can be catastrophic to businesses and individual careers. A whiff of scandal can turn a politician into a smoking ruin. But these potentially disastrous "negatives" can and have spurred the world of fine art to new heights. A look at the history of art tells us that rivalries have, in fact, not only benefited the course of art, from ancient times to the present, but have also helped shape our narrative of art, lending it a sense of drama that it might otherwise lack.

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase into New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They're the guards in dark blue suits, keeping careful watch over this vast treasure house. Caught up in the early days of a glamorous journalism career, Patrick Bringley never thought he'd be one of them. Then his brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he needed to escape the mundane clamour of daily life. So he quit, and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.

In its first four months of operation, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture surpassed one million visits and quickly became a cherished, vital monument to the African American experience. And yet this accomplishment was never assured. In A Fool's Errand, founding director Lonnie Bunch tells his story of bringing his clear vision and leadership to realize this shared dream of many generations of Americans.

When a summer intern at the Preservation Society discovers an aged document hidden in the binding of an antique book, Society President Nell Pratt is intrigued by the possibilities: Is it a valuable historic document or just a useless scrap of paper? When analysis reveals that it's a hand-drawn map of one of Philadelphia's oldest neighborhoods, Nell learns that the area is being excavated for a new real-estate development and may hold long-buried secrets from the city's historic heyday.

When Elsie, an orphan on the streets of Victorian London, hears about the mysterious Ice Monster - a woolly mammoth found at the North Pole - she’s determined to discover more.... A chance encounter brings Elsie face to face with the creature and sparks the adventure of a lifetime - from London to the heart of the Arctic! Heroes come in all different shapes and sizes in David Walliams’ biggest and most epic adventure yet!

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was a British writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary critic. Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, several plays, plus 4,000 essays and newspaper columns. He was a columnist for the Daily News and The Illustrated London News.

This collection contains: Twelve Years a Slave, Up from Slavery, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, The Life of an American Slave (Fifty Years in Chains), The Experience of Rev. Thomas H. Jones, Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave, From Log Cabin to the Pulpit, and many more.

Today, hundreds of tribes use the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to help them recover their looted heritage from museums across the country. As senior curator of anthropology, Chip Colwell navigated firsthand the questions of how to weigh the religious freedom of Native Americans against the academic freedom of scientists and whether the emptying of museum shelves elevates human rights or destroys a common heritage. His book reveals a dramatic process that involves negotiating the blurry lines between identity and morality, spirituality and politics.

Each of us has an ever-growing collection of personal digital data: documents, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, videos, music, emails, and texts sent and received. To access any of this, we have to find it. The ease (or difficulty) of finding something depends on how we organize our digital stuff.

London, 1895. Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton have been hired by the Natural History Museum to find out who deliberately smashed the fossilised skeleton of a small dinosaur. At first Daniel is reluctant to take the case, pointing out that they deal in murders, not vandalism. But then one of the attendants in the dinosaur room is murdered, his body found tied to a dinosaur skeleton and a note pinned to him saying 'The price of betrayal'. As Daniel and Abigail investigate, they must negotiate a web of legal and professional tensions.

Anarchism claims that there's no need for a state and that it would be better to have a society without central government. Anarchists dislike the authority of the state, but the dream of the stateless society is not a simple matter.

When he retired as the chief security officer of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Barelli had spent the better part of 40 years responsible not only for one of the richest treasure troves on the planet, but the museum's staff, the millions of visitors, as well as American presidents, royalty, and heads of state from around the world. For the first time, John Barelli shares his experiences of the crimes that occurred on his watch, the investigations that captured thieves and recovered artwork....

The New York Museum of Natural History receives their pilfered gem collection back, ground down to dust. Diogenes, the psychotic killer who stole them in Dance of Death, is throwing down the gauntlet to both the city and to his brother, FBI Agent Pendergast, who is currently incarcerated in a maximum security prison.

"The Egyptian Book of the Dead," translated by E.A. Wallis Budge, is a pivotal work that opened the ancient Egyptian world of the afterlife to the West. Comprising a collection of spells, rituals, and incantations, this sacred text was designed to guide the deceased through the Duat (the Egyptian underworld) and ensure their safe passage to the afterlife.

The dream of capturing and organizing knowledge is as old as history. From the archives of ancient Sumeria and the Library of Alexandria to the Library of Congress and Wikipedia, humanity has wrestled with the problem of harnessing its intellectual output. The timeless quest for wisdom has been as much about information storage and retrieval as creative genius. In Cataloging the World, Alex Wright introduces us to a figure who stands out in the long line of thinkers and idealists who devoted themselves to the task.

After the extinction of the dodo and Carolina parakeet and the collapse of the American bison population, naturalists expected many more vulnerable species to die out with spread of industrialization. This triggered a race to collect rare species of animals expected soon to be lost forever. Established in 1893, Chicago's Field Museum aimed to become a global center of study. Zoologist Daniel Giraud Elliot persuaded museum patrons to fund an immediate expedition to British Somaliland (contemporary Somalia). There, his team hunted and killed hundreds of animals for the growing collection.

The Gunmen of the American Wild West Collection brings to life the history of the frontier west of the Mississippi in the latter parts of the 19th century. The gunmen ranged from lawmen to cowboys, ranchers, and outlaws. Most of the outlaws in the Old West preyed on banks, trains, and stagecoaches. Although spread thin, the law was present, usually on the level of deputy US marshal, county sheriff, and the town marshal or constable.