Skola på museum: Ernst Klein och Nordiska museets undervisningsavdelning 1929–1938

Abstract

School at the museum: Ernst Klein and the Teaching Department at Nordiska museet, 1929–1938. This article examines the dynamic relationship between schools and museums during the 1930s. It investigates how elementary school teachers and students became a prioritized audience for Nordiska museet in Stockholm by analyzing the foundation of the museum’s teaching department (“undervisningsavdelningen”) and the work of the museum’s first lecturer Ernst Klein (1887–1937). Material from the museum’s archive reveals how a mutual beneficial relationship was established between the museum and local schools in the 1930s and how visits to the museum gradually was included in the elementary school curriculum. The study cast new light on the reciprocal development of the two institutions in the interwar years and stresses the importance of local circumstances and individual actors’ initiatives when analyzing past teaching practices.