Although a sizable subcategory of the nonprofit museum sector, historic house museums have received limited attention in discussions of best practices, most notably in topics of administration, funding, and risk management. Historic house museums serve as a cornerstone of American and international cultural tourism for their accessibility and low, or free, attendance costs. This research argues for historic house museum operations, rather than its period of restorative preservation, as the focus of inquiry. The subjects of this research are three sites that were the products of late nineteenth-century industrialization in the American Midwest, a region under-studied in current literature. Past scholarship on historic houses has been dedicated to preservation methodology and interpretation. No study of house museums attends to business and legal concerns as well as architectural history and preservation. Utilizing archives, interviews, and financial documents in the analysis of three case studies, I argue that historic house museums provide an illuminating lens onto issues of professional practice facing museums in the twenty-first century. This dissertation focuses on three historic house museums constructed after the 1876 Centennial and before the turn of the twentieth century. Chapter One offers the history of the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee, a German Renaissance Revival structure built in 1892 for brewing magnate Captain Frederick Pabst, and provides a discussion of community funding and post-recession heritage tourism. Chapter Two details the story of the Driehaus Museum in Chicago, a Renaissance Revival mansion built in 1883 for banker Samuel Nickerson and now funded primarily by investor Richard Driehaus. This chapter illuminates the issues of single-donor funding, the problematization of definitions of the historic house museum, and modern development of private art collections. Chapter Three is dedicated to the Samuel Cupples House in St. Louis, a Richardsonian Romanesque residence constructed in 1890 for manufacturing magnate Samuel Cupples and now owned by Saint Louis University, and delves into topics of institutional stewardship and university management of cultural resources. The conclusion proposes a diversification of scholarship concerning historic house museums that embraces financial management to ensure operational sustainability.

Throughout their history in America, museums, including those of art, have adapted according to their environment. One result of this adaptability is that objects in art museum collections are not as permanent as those outside the museum field tend to believe. As scholarship, funding, and audiences change, objects which at one time were considered pertinent to a museum collection may be deaccessioned, the term used for when a museum removes an accessioned object from its permanent collection. Yet deaccessioning in America tended to remain the exception, rather than the rule, until the last three decades of the twentieth century. How deaccessioning became a normal element of collections management in the late twentieth century can be understood as a consequence of a number of factors, including a change in the institutional and economic climate in which art museums operated. Examining some of the factors leading to the normalization of deaccessioning, at least for those in the museum community, can help us better understand the implications of such a shift.

No description available.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis investigates why twentieth-century philanthropists, such as Henry Ford, John and Abby Rockefeller, Henry du Pont, and Henry and Helen Flynt, developed American museums between 1925 and 1970. These individuals shared similar beliefs and ideological perspectives of American history, which shaped their museum-building efforts. Additionally, philanthropists had financial resources, social networks, and access to agents. The combination of these elements assisted in the establishment of their institutions. Over two generations, these museum builders established an American museum ideal through the implementation of their philanthropy. Philanthropists’ extensive financial resources, combined with philanthropic and museum-oriented ideas of the time, provided the impetus for the creation of new museums and collections. Furthermore, this work investigates Henry Ford as a case study of the philanthropic system used to establish these institutions. Ford’s agents mediated an exchange of artifacts and resources between Ford and average people, who were willing to give buildings, furnishings, and industrial machinery to the museum. This multi-directional system of philanthropy exemplifies the relationship between Ford as the philanthropist, his agents, and potential donors, to create his museums. Other philanthropists and institutions are referenced to further illustrate the museum building process and the role of philanthropy established at this time.