A Troubled Legacy: Making and Unmaking Race in the Museum

Abstract

This essay explores how exhibitions in museums of natural history, American history, art and science have constructed and critiqued racial ideology and its legacies since the nineteenth century. Focused primarily on museums in the United States, the essay analyzes changing conceptions of race and identity, trends in museum practice, and how museums large and small have succeeded and failed in grappling with race, ethnicity, and their own histories as cultural institutions. Selective rather than comprehensive, the article explores these themes by examining notable exhibitions in each type of museum.