Nature's palace, which is truly glorious in its sophistication, its splendour, and its firm construction, has attracted the eyes of all who are thirsty for knowledge to such an extent that they can scarcely turn away. But to penetrate into this shrine has been granted only to a few. Those, who have proved themselves worthy through much experience, are let into the anteroom, but the most sacred objects are kept as costly treasures in the inner chambers.1
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References
1.
von LinnéCarl, Tvåkönad alstring (Generatio ambigena): Akademisk avhandling under Linnés presidium, Uppsala 1759, transl. by HaglundEjnar, ed. by FredbärjTelemak (Uppsala, 1962).
2.
Sheets-PyensonSusan, Cathedrals of science: The development of colonial natural history museums during the late nineteenth century (Kingston and Montreal, 1988); more recent examples are YanniCarla, Nature's museums: Victorian science and the architecture of display (Baltimore, 1999); KösteringSusanne, “Museumsbau und Museumsreform: Plazierung, Gebäude- und Raumkonzeptionen von Naturkundemuseen in Deutschland, 1871–1914”, in GeusArmin (eds), Repräsentationsformen in den biologischen Wissenschaften: Beiträge zur 5. Jahrestagung der DGGTB [Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie] in Tübingen 1996 und zur 7. Jahrestagung in Neuburg a. d. Donau 1998 (Berlin, 1999), 159–75; ForganSophie, “The architecture of display: Museums, universities and objects in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 139–62; and BeckmanJenny, Naturens palats: Vetenskap, utställning och nybyggnad vid Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, 1866–1925 (Stockholm, 1999).
3.
HuxleyThomas Henry, “Copy of a memorial addressed to the Right Honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer”, Nature, ii (1870), 97–98; the letter is dated 18 November 1858; GrayJohn Edward, “Address”, in Report of the thirty-fourth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Bath in September 1864 (London, 1865), 75–86. The plan was referred to as the “new museum idea” by William Flower (Owen's successor as director of the British Museum (Natural History)), Essays on museums and other subjects connected with natural history (London, 1898), 33.
4.
RupkeNicolaas A., Richard Owen: Victorian naturalist (New Haven and London, 1994).
5.
Köstering, “Museumsbau und Museumsreform” (ref. 2).
6.
Ibid.; Rupke, Richard Owen (ref. 4); also NyhartLynn K., “The museum setting and the environmental perspective”, paper presented at the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology Biennal Meeting, 7–12 July 1999, Oaxaca, Mexico.
7.
William Flower's famous drawing of separate reserve and display collections with connecting doors in every room, can actually be used to support both arguments. Flower, op. cit. (ref. 3), 50.
8.
SwintonW. E., “The function of natural history museums”, Museums journal, xxxix (1939), 378–86, p. 381.
9.
On the development of the modern research university in Sweden and its links to professional education and the professionalization of science, see ElzingaAant, “Universities, research, and the transformation of the state in Sweden”, in RothblattSheldonWittrockBjörn (eds), The European and American university since 1800: Historical and sociological essays (Cambridge, 1993), 191–233, esp. pp. 199–207, and TorstendahlRolf, “The transformation of professional education in the nineteenth century”, in RothblattWittrock (eds), op. cit., 109–41, esp. pp. 118–23. On the expansion and professionalization of education, see RichardsonGunnar, Kulturkamp och klasskamp: Ideologiska och sociala motsättningar i svensk skol- och kulturpolitik under 1880-talet (Göteborg, 1963), and FlorinChristina, Kampen om katedern: Feminiseringsoch professionaliseringsprocessen inom svenska folkskolans lärarkår 1860–1906 (Stockholm, 1990).
10.
Several aspects of this development in an American context are explored in RaingerRonaldBensonKeith R.MaienscheinJane (eds), The American development of biology (1988; New Brunswick, 1991). The historiographical problems of contrasting “biology” and “natural history” are investigated in CaronJoseph A., “‘Biology’ in the life sciences: A historiographical contribution”, History of science, xxvi (1988), 223–68.
11.
The diversity and dynamics of morphological research — In museums and elsewhere — In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are explored in BowlerPeter J., Life's splendid drama: Evolutionary biology and the reconstruction of life's ancestry, 1860–1940 (Chicago, 1996), and NyhartLynn K., Biology takes form: Animal morphology and the German universities, 1800–1900 (Chicago, 1995); also idem, “Natural history and the ‘new’ biology”, in JardineN.SecordJ. A.SparyE. C. (eds), Cultures of natural history (Cambridge, 1996), 426–43.
12.
Nyhart, “Natural history and the ‘new’ biology” (ref. 11), 441.
13.
Ibid., and Beckman, op. cit. (ref. 2). See also SöderqvistThomas, The ecologists: From merry naturalists to saviours of the nation. A sociologically informed narrative survey of the ecologization of Sweden 1895–1975 (Stockholm, 1986).
14.
NyhartLynn K., “Civic and economic zoology in nineteenth-century Germany”, Isis, lxxxix (1998), 605–30; idem, “Teaching community via biology in late nineteenth-century Germany”, Osiris, xvii (2002), 141–70; idem, “The museum setting and the environmental perspective”, and Susanne Köstering, “Ecology and Heimat in natural history displays in Germany, 1871–1914”, papers presented at the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology Biennal Meeting, 7–12 July 1999, Oaxaca, Mexico.
15.
BazinGermain, The museum age (Brussels, 1967).
16.
One of the first comprehensive accounts of museum visitors is Kenneth Hudson, A social history of museums: What the visitors thought (London, 1975), but the discussion of the period before the twentieth century is largely anecdotal.
17.
The quotation is from a speech before Parliament requesting funds for the new museum by its first director, DalmanJohan Vilhelm, Bilaga till Ridd. och Adelns Protokoll 1823, vi, 110, 114. The first official history of the SMNH is Naturhistoriska riksmuseets historia: Dess uppkomst och utveckling (Stockholm, 1916); modern versions are Beckman, op. cit. (ref. 2), and BrobergGunnar, “The Swedish museum of natural history”, in FrängsmyrTore (ed.), Science in Sweden: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1739–1989 (Canton, Mass., 1989), 148–76.
18.
The early papers of the SMNH are scattered. Most are in the Proceedings of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; some are in the central archives of the SMNH; yet others are in the departmental archives of the SMNH, many of which have not been catalogued. The papers relating to the move of the SMNH are incomplete. The proceedings of the Building Committees are divided between the Archives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Handlingar angående K. Vetenskapsakademiens och Naturhistoriska riksmuseets byggnadsfråga 1899–1903, Handlingar angående K. Vetenskapsakademiens och Naturhistoriska riksmuseets byggnadsfråga 1903–1906); and the archives of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology, SMNH (Handlingar rörande museibyggnaden); some are missing. Official letters and memorials are in the National Archives, Ministry of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs; and in the Proceedings of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Parts of the early proceedings were printed, and wherever possible I have quoted the printed material: Handlingar angående K. Vetenskapsakademiens, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseets och Vetenskapsakademiens Nobelinstituts byggnadsfråga (3 vols, Stockholm, 1902–4); Nya handlingar angående K. Vetenskapsakademiens och Naturhistoriska Riksmuseets byggnadsfråga I (Uppsala, 1906).
19.
The model for this type of museum architecture was Altes Museum in Berlin. Johan Mårtelius, Göra arkitekturen historisk: Om 1800-talets arkitekturtänkande och I G Clasons Nordiska museum (Stockholm, 1987), and Köstering, “Museumsbau und Museumsreform” (ref. 2).
20.
Letter from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to the Swedish Government, 11 June 1856, MS Utgående skrivelser B1:9, Archives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
21.
The most important are the National Museum inaugurated the same year, the Royal Library (1877), and the National Archives (1891). The Nordiska Museet, a museum of Scandinavian ethnography, was a private foundation but its monumental new buildings, erected 1898–1907, were heavily subsidized by the state. To these can be added new Parliamentary buildings (1905), and new edifices to house the Royal Opera (1898) and the Royal Dramatic Theatre (1908).
22.
Beckman, op. cit. (ref. 2), chap. 1, and ErikssonGunnar, Kartläggarna: Naturvetenskapens tillväxt och tillämpningar i det industriella genombrottets Sverige 1870–1914 (Umeå, 1978).
23.
Until 1904 Stockholm University College remained exam-free and lacked a faculty of law, i.e. it formed no part of the system of education for public office. On the other hand, its lectures were open, at least nominally, to everyone regardless of class or formal qualifications. Sven Tunberg, Stockholms Högskolas historia före 1950 (Stockholm, 1957), 27ff.
24.
A contemporary portrayal of the modern capital with an emphasis on science and public culture is LundinClaës, Nya Stockholm: Dess yttre och inre förhållanden; dess olika folkklasser, typer och personligheter; dess kyrkor och bönesalar, vetenskapsmän och konstnärer; dess värdshus, skådebanor och kaserner, föreningar och arbetaresamfund; dess tidningar och literära kretsar; dess sällskapslif förlustelser och idrotter till lands och vatten under 1880-talet (1890; Stockholm, 1987).
25.
Stats-Utskottets Utlåtande nr 148, Bih. till R. St. Prot 1856 and 1857. 4 Saml. 1 Afd. 3 Band. 2 Häft., 86–89.
26.
Handlingar angående K. Vetenskapsakademiens, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseets och Vetenskapsakademiens Nobelinstituts byggnadsfråga I (ref. 18), 25. The approximate meaning of the Swedish word ‘åskådning’ is ‘observation’; however, in a pedagogical context it corresponds to the English term ‘object lesson’, or ‘visual education’; vide infra.
27.
Andra kammarens protokoll 1884, nos. 39, 31, 40. A similar suggestion was discussed in the Academy of Sciences a year later and again dismissed. Proposal enclosed to the Academy proceedings of 10 June 1885, Bilagor till Kungl. vetenskapsakademiens protokoll 1885, Archives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
28.
Handlingar angående K. Vetenskapsakademiens, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseets och Vetenskapsakademiens Nobelinstituts byggnadsfråga I (ref. 18), 57.
29.
RupkeNicolaas A., “The road to Albertopolis: Richard Owen (1804–92) and the founding of the British Museum of Natural History”, in Rupke (ed.), Science, politics and the public good: Essays in honour of Margaret Gowing (London, 1988), 63–89; ForganSophieGoodayGraeme, ‘“A fungoid assemblage of buildings’: Diversity and adversity in the development of college architecture and scientific education in nineteenth-century Kensington”, History of universities, xiii (1994), 153–92; and idem, “Constructing South Kensington: The buildings and politics of T. H. Huxley's working environment”, The British journal for the history of science, xxix (1996), 435–68.
30.
Eriksson, op. cit. (ref. 22).
31.
SjöstedtYngve, “Självbiografiska anteckningar”, Sekreterarens arkiv k.27 c:2, Archives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and BeckmanJenny, “Yngve Sjöstedt”, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (forthcoming).
A double issue (2–3) of Theory in biosciences, cxxii (2003), is devoted to Gegenbaur. On Gegenbaur's influence on European zoology, see Nyhart, Biology takes form (ref. 11), chap. 7.
34.
A detailed analysis of the professorial appointments at the SMNH is in Beckman, op. cit. (ref. 2), 73–92 and Appendix.
35.
Examples of cytologically-oriented botanists whose careers followed this path are Oscar Juel and Nils Svedelius, both professors of botany in Uppsala in 1902 and 1924 respectively; a systematist following the same route is Robert Fries, professor of botany at the Bergian Botanic Garden in 1915. Sally Gregory Kohlstedt has drawn attention to the continuing tradition of museums in American universities into the twentieth century: “Museums on campus: A tradition of inquiry and teaching”, in American development of biology (ref. 10), 15–47.
36.
Söderqvist, op. cit. (ref. 13), 30f.
37.
The literature on Linnaeus is vast, particularly in Swedish. For an analysis of his status as a national icon, see KoernerLisbet, Linnaeus: Nature and nation (Cambridge, Mass., 1999); for an expression of it, see HagbergKnut, Carl Linnaeus: Den linneanska traditionen (Stockholm, 1951).
38.
FranzénOlle, “Wilhelm Leche”, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, xxii (Stockholm, 1977–79), 414–16, and PehrsonTorsten, “Zootomiska institutets historia 1880–1960” [1960], unpublished MS, Department of Zoology, Stockholm University.
39.
However, on two occasions in 1879 and 1914, both times in botany, candidates were willing to abandon chairs at the newly founded Stockholm University College for the SMNH and the Bergius Botanic Garden. Both applications (in 1879 Veit Brecher Wittrock was successful, in 1915 Gustaf Lagerheim was not) are in the Proceedings of the Botany Class of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 8 November 1879, and 21 November 1914, Archives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
40.
For museum reactions to plans for reform of the system of academic appointments, see Beckman, op. cit. (ref. 2), 86–92.
41.
Lists of secondary school teachers compiled from Sveriges statskalender; their university degrees are listed in JosephsonAksel G. S., Avhandlingar ock program utgifna vid svenska och finska akademier 1855–1890 (Uppsala, 1891–97)). See NelsonAxel, Akademiska avhandlingar vid Sveriges universitet och högskolor 1890–1910 (Uppsala, 1911), and John Tuneld, Akademiska avhandlingar vid Sveriges universitet och högskolor 1910/11–1939/40 (Lund, 1945). National secondary school curricula as exemplified by BergqvistB. J:son (ed.), Undervisningsplan for realskolan med flera författningar rörande rikets allmänna läroverkjämt överstyrelsens cirkulär (Stockholm, 1906).
42.
Letter from Veit Brecher Wittrock, director of the botany department, to WilleNordal, 30 December 1880, Brevsamling nr 97, Håndskriftsamlingen, National Library of Norway.
43.
Kungl. Vetenskapsakademiens årsbok, 1914, 176–7. The importance of the interaction between amateurs and academic scientists is described by Anne Secord for a mid-nineteenth-century English context: “Science in the pub: Artisan botanists in early 19th-century Lancashire”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 269–315; idem, “Corresponding interests: Artisans and gentlemen in nineteenth-century natural history”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvii (1994), 383–408; and idem, “Artisan botany”, in Cultures of natural history (ref. 11), 378–93.
44.
DahllöfUrban, Akademiska avhandlingar vid Sveriges universitet och högskolor 1890–1939 (Uppsala, 1987), and idem, Disputationerna och specialarbetsmarknaden för doktorer i skolväsendets undervisningsämnen 1890–1939 (Uppsala, 1987).
45.
Beckman, op. cit. (ref. 2), 95–99.
46.
The early years of the SMNH are described in LönnbergEinar, “Riksmuseum 1819–1841”, in Naturhistoriska riksmuseets historia (ref. 17), 21–51.
47.
Handledning vid beseendet af zoologiska samlingarna vid Riksmuseum (Stockholm, 1856).
48.
Vägledning i Naturhistoriska riksmuseets biologiska utställning av ryggradsdjur (Stockholm, 1920).
49.
Research into visual culture in the nineteenth century is a rapidly expanding field. For a discussion of the links between panoramic display techniques and pedagogy in a Swedish context, see EkströmAnders, “Konsten att se ett landskapspanorama: Om åskådningspedagogik och exemplarisk realism under 1800-talet”, in BergströmMartin, Publika kulturer: Att tilltala allmänheten, 1700–1900 (Uppsala, 2000), 125–70.
50.
WondersKaren, Habitat dioramas: Illusions of wilderness in museums of natural history (Uppsala, 1993).
51.
Ibid., 10.
52.
NordenskiöldErland, “Vandringsmuséer”, in Berättelse över det andra allmänna svenska folkbildningsmötet i Stockholm den 28–29 juni 1907 (Stockholm, 1907), 80–88; cf. the discussion of travel for school children in RantataloPetra, Den resande eleven: Folkskolans skolreserörelse 1890–1940 (Umeå, 2002).
53.
Lynn Nyhart has studied the importance of Anschauungsunterricht in German science teaching. Nyhart, “Civic and economic zoology in nineteenth-century Germany”, and “Teaching community via biology in late nineteenth-century Germany” (ref. 14).
54.
SörensenAnna, Svenska folkskolans historia III: Det svenska folkundervisningsväsendet 1860–1900 (Stockholm, 1942), 352.
55.
AspmanMaria, “Om naturkunnighetsundervisningen och dess samband med den praktiska bildningen”, Pedagogisk tidskrift, xl (1904), 257–66; BohlinKnut, Om en enhetlig plan for den naturvetenskapliga undervisningen i de allmänna läroverken (Stockholm, 1904), 5; idem, “Några ord om sambandet mellan teori och praktik med hänsyn till skolundervisningen”, Pedagogisk tidskrift, xli (1905), 289–300; and NordwallJ. F., “Om vetenskaplig metod i skolans biologiundervisning”, Pedagogisk tidskrift, lii (1916), 170–80, 209–22.
56.
Bergqvist, op. cit. (ref. 41), 51–65, and NordwallJ. F., “Botaniken i realskolan: är en revision av undervisningsplanen behövlig?”, Pedagogisk tidskrift, xlvi (1910), 208–21. ‘Biology’ as a collective designation for botany and zoology was not implemented at the level of higher education until 1969.
57.
This view is evident in the debates in the pedagogical journals of the period, e.g. OhlsonSiri, “Zoologiundervisningen”, Verdandi, xxvii (1909), 336–40; EkmanSven, “Zoologiundervisningen i våra läroverk: En kritik och ett par synpunkter”, Pedagogisk tidskrift, xlvii (1911), 495–507; NordwallJ. F., “Biologiens värde som läroämne i skolan och gymnasiet”, Pedagogisk tidskrift, xlix (1913), 184–200; and idem, “Zoologiundervisningen i våra läroverk”, Pedagogisk tidskrift, xlix (1913), 305–14, 435–41. Lisbet Koerner has emphasized the importance of pedagogy in Linnaeus's work: Koerner, “Women and utility in Enlightenment science”, Configurations, iii (1995), 233–55. Even outside Sweden the sexual system continued to be widely used for its usefulness as a diagnostic tool: KeeneyElizabeth B., The botanizers: Amateur scientists in 19th century America (Chapel Hill, 1992), 62–63.
58.
Sörensen, op. cit. (ref. 54), 408.
59.
JungeFriedrich, Bydammen såsom natursamhälle jämte en af handling om den naturhistoriska undervisningens mål och metod (Lund, 1901). Junge figures prominently in Nyhart, “Teaching community via biology” (ref. 14).
60.
ApplegateCelia, A nation of provincials: The German idea of Heimat (Berkeley, 1990), 154ff.
61.
Wonders, op. cit. (ref. 50), 10.
62.
Nyhart, “The museum setting and the environmental perspective” (ref. 6).
63.
Cf. BennettTony, “Pedagogic objects, clean eyes, and popular instruction: On sensory regimes and museum didactics”, Configurations, vi (1998), 345–71.
64.
The most prominent examples are the botanists Carl Lindman and Gustaf Malme, the former tutor to the royal princes, head of the most prestigious secondary school in the country and editor of Pedagogisk tidskrift, the latter head of the main teacher training college in Stockholm; and the zoologists Einar Lönnberg, founder of the popular journal Fauna och flora and an active participant in the pedagogical debates of his day, and his successor Hialmar Rendahl, the Swedish editor of Brehms Tierleben and the author of numerous popular books on birds and other vertebrates from the 1920s onwards.
65.
LöwegrenYngve, Naturaliesamlingar och naturhistorisk undervisning vid läroverken (Stockholm, 1974).
66.
Forgan, “The architecture of display” (ref. 2). Electricity was not installed in the exhibition halls until several years after the inauguration of the new museum, and window size was a central concern during the planning process; Nya handlingar (ref. 18), 53ff.
67.
JacknisIra, “Franz Boas and exhibits: On the limitations of the museum method of anthropology”, in StockingGeorge (ed.), Objects and others: Essays on museums and material culture (Madison, 1985), 75–111.
68.
The official course of the planning process at its most intense can be traced through the documents printed in Nya handlingar (ref. 18).
69.
The building committee does not refer to any specific American institution built according to this design, but they insisted that it was an American idea. This is not surprising, since American and British institutions had been at the heart of the discussion of museum reform during the late nineteenth century. Cf. Köstering, “Museumsbau und Museumsreform” (ref. 2). A European example of a museum built on this plan is the Bayrisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, completed in 1899.
70.
Until 1925, the official name of Oslo was Kristiania. Wille's letter is printed in Nya handlingar (ref. 18), Appendix 1, 47–48.
71.
NathorstA. G., “Anförande vid Kgl. Vetenskapsakademiens sammankomst den 2 november 1905”, printed in Nya handlingar (ref. 18), 66–76.
72.
LindmanCarl, “Skrifvelse till Kungl. Vetenskapsakademiens byggnadskommitté”, printed in Nya handlingar (ref. 18), 33–35.
73.
ThéelHjalmarAurivillius Chr. and LönnbergEinar, “Förslag af professor Théel m. fl. till lösning af riksmuseets byggnadsfråga”, printed in Nya handlingar (ref. 18), Appendix 2, 105–10.
74.
Anderberg's plan and the letter from the museum directors accepting it are enclosed with the Proceedings of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 24 November 1906. Bilagor till Kungl. Vetenskapsakademiens protokoll 1906:2, Archives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
75.
Cf. Yanni, op. cit. (ref. 2), 94.
76.
Sophie Forgan has written extensively on the subject. Two voluminous, fairly recent anthologies are GalisonPeterThompsonEmily (eds), The architecture of science (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), and SmithCrosbieAgarJon (eds), Making space for science: Territorial themes in the shaping of knowledge (Basingstoke, 1998).
77.
Yanni, op. cit. (ref. 2), 12; HillierBill, Space is the machine: A configurational theory of architecture (Cambridge, 1996), 397; and MarkusThomas A., Buildings and power: Freedom and control in the origin of modern building types (London and New York, 1993), 5ff.
78.
Van ZantenDavid, “Architectural composition at the École des Beaux-Arts from Charles Percier to Charles Garnier”, in DrexlerArthur (ed.), The architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts (New York, 1977), 111–323, and EtlinRichard, Symbolic space: French Enlightenment architecture and its legacy (Chicago and London, 1994).
79.
StriboltBarbro, Stockholms 1800-talsteatrar: En studie i den borgerliga teaterbyggnadens utveckling (Stockholm, 1982).
80.
The question is posed by Köstering, “Museumsbau und Museumsreform” (ref. 2), 175.
