Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era

Ezra Shales

jun 2010 · Rutgers University Press

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What does it mean to turn the public library or museum into a civic forum? Made in Newark describes a turbulent industrial city at the dawn of the twentieth century and the ways it inspired the library's outspoken director, John Cotton Dana, to collaborate with industrialists, social workers, educators, and New Women.

This is the story of experimental exhibitions in the library and the founding of the Newark Museum Associationùa project in which cultural literacy was intertwined with civics and consumption. Local artisans demonstrated crafts, connecting the cultural institution to the department store, school, and factory, all of which invoked the ideal of municipal patriotism. Today, as cultural institutions reappraise their relevance, Made in Newark explores precedents for contemporary debates over the ways the library and museum engage communities, define heritage in a multicultural era, and add value to the economy.

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EZRA SHALES teaches at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He has worked as a museum educator at the Brooklyn Museum and the Katonah Museum of Art.