Museum of the Peaceful Arts
Originally envisioned as a complex of twenty museums to be located on the west side of Manhattan in Riverside Park, or, according to later plans, near the Jerome Park Reservoir in the Bronx, the Museum of the Peaceful Arts was established at 24 West 40th St. in Manhattan ca. 1920; it was eventually relocated to 220 E. 42nd St.[1]
Dr. George Frederick Kunz proposed the organization of an entirely new museum, the “Museum of the Peaceful Arts”. As there are museums dedicated to science, war and industry, this would be one devoted to the study and exhibition of the peaceful arts. “…Mr. Julius Rosenwald’s industrial museum gift paralleled the $2,500,000.00 bequest of the late Henry R. Towne, lock and hardware man, to New York for a Museum of Peaceful Arts. Mr. Towne had been interested in such a museum by Dr. George F. Kunz, mineralogist and gem expert, an honorary fellow of the American Museum of Natural History, who has visited every world’s fair since the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876. Announcement of the Towne bequest sent experts in agriculture, animal industry, mining and metallurgy, transportation, engineering, aeronautics, etc., etc., flocking to Europe to study exhibits in such places as the German Museum in Munich, which contains replicas or originals of epochal contrivances, including James Watt’s first steam engine, Diesel’s oil-compression engine, Dunlop’s original tires. The findings of these experts will assist Chicago’s industrialists as well as New York’s, in assembling a record of material ascendancy of mankind, a record that is to be made practical rather than theoretical, with many working models of machinery, to afford inventors an industrial laboratory.”[2] In a book on the history of science, Dr. George Sarton says: “This museum is quoted here only pro memoria. The idea was originated by George F. Kunz (1856-1932): The projected Museum of the Peaceful Arts (paper read before the American Museum Association’s Meeting, New York, 1912, 12 pages). Great efforts were made to obtain sufficient capital but failed. It was more or less replaced by the New York Museum of Science and Industry. G. Sarton has in his archives a considerable correspondence on this subject.”[3]
References
- ^ Smithsonian Institution. Museums of the Peaceful Arts. Collection of reports, photographs, and other materials related to the Museums of the Peaceful Arts.
- ^ “Chicago’s Luck.” 1926. Time. August 30, 1926.
- ^ Sarton, George. Guide to the History of Science: First Guide for the Study of the History of Science With Introductory Essays on Science and Tradition. Waltham, MA: Chronica Botanica Co. 1952. Page 283.
Bibliography
- Kunz, George F. “Museums of the Peaceful Arts: Album of Plans.” 1927. Unpaged, no place of publication given. (Library of Congress)
- Kunz, George F. “The Projected Museum of Peaceful Arts in the City of New York.” New York, 1913. 8vo. 12 pages. Presented at the international conference relating to the program for celebration of the centenary signing of the Treaty of Ghent and one hundredth anniversary of peace among English speaking nations. (American Museum of Natural History) (Library of Congress)
- “The Projected Museum of Peaceful Arts.” Proceedings. American Association of Museums, vol. 6, pages 30-42. Press Notice, Sun, Jan. 5, 1912. Press Notice, Evening Post, Jan. 5, 1912.
- Smithsonian Institution. Museums of the Peaceful Arts. Collection of reports, photographs, and other materials related to the Museums of the Peaceful Arts, years: 1912, 1930 Publications type: Mixed Materials. 10 volumes; 29-41 cm. Vol. 1 contains founding documents and miscellaneous newspaper clippings; v. 2-5, supplements to the president's report; v. 6 and v. 9, photograph albums; v. 7, album of plans; v. 8, "What other museums are doing: a volume of miscellaneous information"; v. 10, "The Newark Museum, a study.” Typescript documents, records, photographs, blueprints, plans, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous printed materials related to the establishment of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts. This collection of reports and scrapbooks documents the creation of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts and the institution's early years under its president, George F. Kunz. Much general information is included on standards of museum stewardship in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s, along with examples of contemporary printed materials issued by other museums. The final volume is a study of the Newark Museum (for comparison purposes), prepared with the assistance of the Newark Museum Association and curator Alice W. Kendall.