Exploring the role of museums, galleries and curators during the
upheaval of the Second World War, this book challenges the accepted view
of a hiatus in museum services during the conflict and its immediate
aftermath. Instead it argues that new thinking in the 1930s was realised
in a number of promising initiatives during the war only to fail during
the fragmented post-war recovery. Based on new research including
interviews with retired museum staff, letters, diaries, museum archives
and government records, this study reveals a complex picture of both
innovation and inertia.
At the outbreak of war precious objects were stored away and staff
numbers reduced, but although many museums were closed, others
successfully campaigned to remain open. By providing innovative modern
exhibitions and education initiatives they became popular and valued
venues for the public. After the war, however, museums returned to their
more traditional, collections-centred approach and failed to negotiate
the public funding needed for reconstruction based on this narrower view
of their role. Hence, in the longer term, the destruction and economic
and social consequences of the conflict served to delay aspirations for
reconstruction until the 1960s. Through this lens, the history of the
museum in the mid-twentieth century appears as one shaped by the effects
of war but equally determined by the input of curators, audiences and
the state. The museum thus emerges not as an isolated institution
concerned only with presenting the past but as a product of the changing
conflicts and cultures within society.
