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Dr. Soanes' Odditorium of Wonders : the 19th century dime museum in a contemporary context

19th century dime museums were a North American phenomenon that flourished in urban
centres from the mid- to late-1800s. Named thusly due to their low admission cost, dime
museums provided democratic entertainment that was promoted to all classes as
affordable and respectable. The resulting facilities were crammed with art, artifacts,
rarities, living human curiosities, theatre performances, menageries, and technological
marvels. The exhibition Dr. Soanes’ Odditorium of Wonders strives to recapture the spirit
and aesthetic of the dime museum to invoke wonder in the viewer and to combine art,
artifacts, and oddities to provoke questions about the boundary between education and
amusement. Both the academic and curatorial texts utilize a mix of methodological
approaches appropriate to museology, art history and cultural history: theoretical research
into historiographical issues concerning theories of display and spectacle; archival
research and discourse analysis of historical documents, and material culture analysis
(including the semiotics of display). / iv, 60 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:ALU.w.uleth.ca/dspace#10133/3426
Date January 2013
CreatorsEdmundson, Jane, University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Fine Arts
ContributorsMills, Josephine, Ramp, William
PublisherLethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Arts, c2013, Arts and Science, Department of Art
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
Languageen_CA
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
RelationThesis (University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Fine Arts)

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