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Museums
What is astounding, though, is the wealth of choices for the visitor from far away and the local tourist just out to see something new in his or her own backyard. There have been several great museum-building eras in Philadelphia. The first dates back to Franklin, who strove through his seven decades in Philadelphia to make it the cultural capital of the New World. The Library Company, for instance, started when Franklin induced his friends to have a subscription library. It considers itself the first cultural institution in the country. The Philadelphia Contributionship, the American Philosophical Society and the U.S. Mint are all among the Franklin-induced museums.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, the scientific, industrial and cultural revolutions influenced the founding of other Philadelphia museums. The Franklin Institute was one of the first science museums in America and continues to be at the forefront of interactive exhibitions. The first major dinosaur skeleton came to the Academy of Natural Sciences. The Wagner Free Institute of Science started the idea of science education for adults. Industrialist Henry Mercer fought to save tools and artifacts that would otherwise have been discarded after the industrial revolution.
The Rosenbach brothers were the world’s greatest literature and rare book collectors. All these collections are among the amazing museum explorations in Philadelphia. The celebration of the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence gave rise to another spate of museums in Philadelphia. The African American Museum, the National Museum of Jewish History, the Shoe Museum, the Mummers Museum, the Please Touch Museum and others reinvigorated the area’s museum scene with new and out-of-the-box thinking of what a museum should be.
But Philadelphia also has the idea that a museum should be fun, not just boring and functional. Walk through the U.S.S. Olympia, a Spanish-American War flagship, along the Delaware River, and you feel you were at sea when Admiral Dewey captured the Philippines. Gaze at the hundreds of black dolls at the Philadelphia Doll Museum, and you see an unusual way of relating to African American history. Fish in the trout creek aside the Newlin Grist Mill.
Look at the eclectic array of artifacts at the Christian Sanderson Museum – from a tile from Eva Braun’s bathroom, to a looking glass made of butterfly wings, and to a piece of the bandage from Abraham Lincoln’s fatal wound – and you have a feel for the mind of a lifelong citizen-collector. So go, certainly, to Philadelphia’s world-famous museums, but don’t forget to look off the beaten track for some unique museum finds.
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