This thesis argues the continued relationship between museums and the middle class over
the period from 1850 to 1950, showing in particular how major events and trends affecting the
history of the middle class influenced the manner in which museums developed. It argues,
however, that, despite participation in an international bourgeois culture which included a
worldwide "museum movement', the regional circumstances of both museums and the middle
class in Canada had a significant effect on their related histories determining, if not the final
product, at least the timing of its completion and the manner in which it was reached.
This argument is made through a comparison of the histories of the Provincial Museum
of Nova Scotia, the Ontario Provincial Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the British
Columbia Provincial Museum. For each institution, three themes are considered: the way in
which its collection shaped or reflected a regional identity; the form of education it offered, the
intended audience, and the ways in which both changed; and the impact of professionalization
on both the museum and the people who worked in it. The comparisons show that, despite the
uniqueness of the museums' collections and histories, in the final analysis, each institution
conformed to the patterns of the 'museum movement', or, as in the case of professionalization,
to the pattern of a professionalizing middle-class society.
Informed by recent critical work on the history of museums, this thesis uses archival and
secondary sources to establish the narratives of four Canadian museums and places them into the
broader context of the international 'museum movement', while also indicating the uniqueness
of Canadian cultural institutions created by the colonial experience. In this way, it adds a new
perspective to the history of Canadian museums. At the same time, it adds to our understanding of the Canadian middle class through its demonstration of how the major societal trends affected
individual members of that class. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/6172 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Mak, Eileen Diana |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 23343799 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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