The Craftsmanship Aesthetic: Showing Making at the American Museum of Natural History, 1910–45

Abstract

The rise of large corporations and unskilled labor in the early twentieth century conspired to separate many Americans from knowledge of and pleasure in their work, and the bewildering specialization of production methods and professional knowledge only intensified this sense of alienation. This article argues that a new popular aesthetic, which celebrated skilled craftsmen laboring within the exotic provinces of specialized production, emerged as a result. This aesthetic of craftsmanship was simultaneously diverting and reassuring, providing viewers with the visual entertainment associated with tourism and consumption while connecting them to craftsmen absorbed in meaningful work. This essay explains how and why this “craftsmanship aesthetic” flourished, using the example of photographs of exhibit making at the American Museum of Natural History between the 1910s and the 1940s. It examines the part this aesthetic played in the museum's public relations campaigns and institutional politics, and explores the ways that the museum's image makers used it to improve their standing within and beyond the museum's halls.