When Science Was the Best Show in America | Nautilus Magazine

“From the time Peale’s Museum had opened its doors in 1786, annual attendance had averaged more than 10,000 people. Born both of science and art, it was the first true museum in the fledgling United States and the first must-see attraction not only for Philadelphians but for visitors from around the U.S. and the world. The museum’s creator, Charles Willson Peale, saw the museum as a national good.”

Read the Article | Nautilus Magazine | Lee Alan Dugatkin

Charles Willson Peale, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Exhuming the First American Mastodon.

“Charles Willson Peale’s Exhumation of the Mastodon , executed between 1806 and 1808, has long been interpreted as a successful blending of genre painting, portraiture, and history painting.Peale used this work to document his extraction of mastodon bones from John Masten’s farm in upstate New York, an enterprise that utilized an ingenious pulley system of his own devising to drain the bog and expose the fossils.” But there is more to this painting …

Founding Landscape: Charles Willson Peale’s Exhumation of the Mastodon by Eleanor J. Harvey, University of Chicago Press, American Art