The Social Museum Collection

Introduction
In the words of its founder, Francis Greenwood Peabody, Harvard’s Plummer Professor of Christian Morals from 1886 to 1913, the Social Museum of Harvard University was established “to promote investigations of modern social conditions and to direct the amelioration of industrial and social life” [1]. The extant collection comprises over forty-five hundred images made by professional and amateur photographers and such pioneering documentarians as Lewis Hine and Frances Benjamin Johnston, as well as more than fifteen hundred related diagrams, albums, blueprints, plans, booklets, handwritten items, and handcrafted objects. Most of the photographs focus on the services, activities, constituents, and associated buildings of social reform organizations and institutions in the United States and western Europe, but countries such as Japan, New Zealand, and the Philippines are also represented. Touted as the first attempt in a university to “collect the social experience of the world as material for university teaching” [2], the Social Museum served during the first three decades of the twentieth century as an academic and public tool to promote the study of social conditions and institutions in America and abroad. The museum’s classification and didactic presentation of materials also aligned with other social betterment projects of the time, reflecting an increasing systematization of display techniques by the reform movement.
This website provides a searchable database that makes available images and text information relating to the more than six thousand Progressive-Era photographs and graphic illustrations that survive from the Social Museum of Harvard University. It also provides a short essay contextualizing the photographs in the collection; information on a related exhibition, symposium, and publication, and a selected bibliography; and descriptive summaries, accompanied by slide shows of related images, of some of the major social reform subjects and institutions represented in the collection.
In the early 1960s, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts assumed stewardship of the Social Museum Collection. It was transferred to the Harvard Art Museums in 2002.
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1. Francis G. Peabody, The Social Museum as an Instrument of University Teaching. Publications of the Department of Social Ethics in Harvard University, no. 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1911), 2.
2. Ibid., 4.
Continue ReadingThe Social Museum Collection
- Anarchism
- Charity, Aged
- Charity, Children
- Charity, Hospitals
- Charity, Organizations
- Charity, Public
- Charity, Soldiers and Sailors
- Charity, Tuberculosis
- Crime, Children
- Crime, Identification
- Crime, Prisons
- Crime, Women
- Defectives, Blind
- Defectives, Epileptics
- Defectives, Feeble-minded
- Defectives, Insane
- Education
- Government
- Health
- Housing, Conditions
- Housing, Improved
- Industrial Problems, Types of Working People
- Industrial Problems, Unemployed
- Industrial Problems, Welfare Work
- Liquor Problem
- Races, Immigration
- Races, Indians
- Races, Jews
- Races, Negroes
- Recreation, Outings
- Recreation, Parks and Playgrounds
- Religious Agencies
- Social Ethics, Theory
- Social Revolution
- Social Settlements
- Socialism
- War
- East Asia
-
Europe
- All Europe
- Austria More
- Belgium More
- Bulgaria More
- France More
- Germany
More
- Aue
- Augsburg
- Berlin
- Bernburg
- Bielefeld
- Brandenburg
- Braunschweig
- Bremen
- Cologne
- Danzig-Neuschottland
- Darmstadt
- Dortmund
- Dresden
- Düsseldorf
- Essen
- Finsterwalde
- Frankfurt
- Halle
- Hamburg
- Hannover
- Hellerau
- Jena
- Kempen
- Königsberg
- Leipzig
- Mannheim
- Marienberg
- Meissen
- Munich
- Munich-Perlach
- Mülhausen
- Nüremberg
- Oberhausen
- Pforzheim
- Ratingen
- Reutlingen
- Rostock
- Solingen
- Ulm
- Zschopau
- Zwickau
- Ireland
- Italy More
- Netherlands More
- Russia More
- Spain More
- Switzerland More
- United Kingdom More
-
North America
- All North America
- Canada More
- United States
More
- Alabama More
- California More
- Colorado More
- Connecticut More
- Delaware More
- District of Columbia More
- Florida More
- Georgia More
- Hawaii More
- Illinois More
- Indiana More
- Iowa More
- Kansas More
- Kentucky More
- Louisiana More
- Maine More
- Maryland More
- Massachusetts
More
- Beverly
- Boston
- Bridgewater
- Brockton
- Brookline
- Cambridge
- Charlestown
- Chelsea
- Clinton
- Danvers
- East Walpole
- Fall River
- Fitchburg
- Framingham
- Haverhill
- Holyoke
- Hopedale
- Lancaster
- Lawrence
- Lowell
- Ludlow
- Malden
- Maynard
- Medfield
- Nantasket Beach
- New Bedford
- Norfolk
- North Billerica
- North Chelmsford
- North Plymouth
- Northampton
- Norwood
- Oakdale
- Palmer
- Quincy
- Revere
- Revere Beach
- Roxbury
- Rutland
- Springfield
- Tewksbury
- Walpole
- Waltham
- Waverly
- Westborough
- Whitinsville
- Worcester
- Michigan More
- Minnesota More
- Missouri More
- New Hampshire More
- New Jersey More
- New York
More
- Albany
- Albion
- Amsterdam
- Angelica
- Argyle
- Auburn
- Ballston Spa
- Batavia
- Bath
- Bedford
- Binghamton
- Breesport
- Brooklyn
- Brookville
- Buffalo
- Cairo
- Canandaigua
- Canton
- Carmel
- Coldspring
- Cortland
- Delhi
- Dewittville
- East Beekmantown
- East View
- Eaton
- Forks
- Freeville
- Geneseo
- Genoa
- Ghent
- Gloversville
- Goshen
- Hempstead
- Hudson
- Iroquois
- Jacksonville
- Kingston
- Linden
- Lockport
- Long Island
- Lowville
- Lyons
- Machias
- Malone
- Mexico
- Middleburgh
- Middleville
- Mineville
- Monticello
- Mt. Lebanon
- New Paltz
- New York
- New York City
- Newark
- Newburgh
- Niagara Falls
- Oak Summit
- Ogdensburg
- Oswego
- Owego
- Oxford
- Penn Yan
- Phoenix Mills
- Pleasantville
- Poughkeepsie
- Preston
- Rochester
- Rome
- Schenectady
- Seneca Falls
- Sonyea
- Sprakers
- Syracuse
- Tarrytown
- Troy
- Varysburg
- Viola
- Warrensburg
- Watertown
- Whallonsburg
- Yaphank
- Yonkers
- New York ? More
- New York State More
- Ohio More
- Pennsylvania More
- Rhode Island More
- South Carolina More
- Tennessee More
- Texas More
- Virginia More
- Washington More
- Wisconsin More
- North America?
- Oceania
- South Asia
- Southeast Asia
- Adams, J. H.
- American Issue Publishing Co.
- Anderson, Siegfried
- Andrew B. Graham Co.
- Apeda Studio
- August R. Ohman & Co.
- Baillus
- Ballinger and Perrot Architects
- Bass Photo
- Beals, Jessie Tarbox
- Berkowitz, B.
- Birkhan, George
- Blake, George A.
- Blanchette, Frank
- Bolton, Louis
- Bouron, Herbert
- Boyette
- Byron Company
- Byron, Percy C.
- Carlson, Ragnor
- Carter, A. Scott
- Choloney, Nathan
- Collins
- Colusnovice, Morris
- Cooper
- Copelin
- Cordonnier, Edouard
- Detroit Publishing Co.
- Doherty, James
- Facey, William
- Flagg, Ernest
- Fournier, Henry
- Fratelli Alinari
- Freeman, W. G.
- Fritsch & Co.
- G. Koppmann & Co.
- Geo R. Lawrence Co.
- Goldbrown, Jacob
- Green, Floride
- Hanan, M.S. Ms.
- Haynes, Frances
- Hine, Lewis Wickes
- Hope, Herbert Dearden
- Hughes Co.
- Hunter, Estelle B.
- Ichida, S.
- Jankovich, Giovanni
- Johnston, Frances Benjamin
- Julius Bien & Co.
- Klutho, Henry John
- Langworthy, C. F.
- Lewis, Thomas
- Lewis, W.
- Lieberman, Jacob D.
- Lipman, Isaac
- Loughlin, James
- Lubin, Simon
- MacPherson & Co.
- Mahoney, John
- Malvaux, Jean
- McCarthy, Joseph
- McDonald, Frank
- Meade & Huey, Engineers
- Norris Peters Co.
- O'Connor, Chester
- Olmsted Brothers
- Parker, Edward J
- Parshley, F.E.
- Partridge Studios
- Pond & Pond
- Potter, Will S.
- Progin, Carl
- Remer, Henry
- Rompel, Franz
- Royal Photo Co.
- Ruh., H.
- Sampson & Murdock Co.
- Sealy, Bryers & Walker
- Seeley, Henry
- Shellenberger, E.
- Signal Press
- Simons, Adolph
- Smith, J. C.
- Smulyan, Marcus
- Standidge & Co.
- Stebbins, Nathaniel L.
- Stengel & Co.
- Stetson Press
- Stevens, Daniel
- Stevens, George
- Teunisson, John Norris
- Titzenthaler, Waldemar Franz Herman
- Trainor, Peter
- Tresling & Co., Lithographer
- Underhill, Irving I.
- Unidentified Artist
- Various Authors
- Wade, Charles
- Washburn, R. M.
- Webster, William A.
- Wehrli, A. G.
- Welch, Robert John
- West, James E.
- White, Thomas
- Whitten, M. E.
- Wolfson
- Woodhead Studio
- Woodward, George Dr.
- Wright Studio
- Wurts Bros.
- Wylands