‘THEY GO TO SEE A SHOW’

Abstract

Nineteenth‐century museums of science and industry were public spaces where visitors could encounter unique modes of visual spectacle celebrating machines in motion as emblems of the Industrial Revolution. A diverse set of visitors traversed the halls of the South Kensington and Patent Museums in London in pursuit of information about the latest inventions as well as a hefty dose of visual spectacle and an opportunity to mingle with family and friends. Contemporaneous debates in parliamentary circles and the popular press suggest some of the anxieties generated by new spectacularized and interactive display techniques introduced in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article argues that public museums used interactive display methods long before the concept became a museum buzzword in the 1990s, and situates the emergence of the London Science Museum within a broader context of science education and entertainment, including discussion of experiments at the Royal Institution in London and the popular Mechanics Institutes. Many of the anxieties first voiced in the nineteenth century about the conflict between spectacle and popular appeal versus science and education have been echoed in recent controversies over contemporary hands‐on science centres and museums.