Developing the Museum Experience: Retailing in American Museums 1945–91
Abstract Museum shops in America were created immediately after World War II (WWII) from what previously were termed museum sales or information desks. Museum retail occurred as a response to increased museum attendance and consumer spending by Americans in the post-war economy. Distinct changes such as mass consumption, the rise of individualism and cultural pluralism, and the modern consumer’s search for novelty, nostalgia, and later high culture, all affected museum responses to visitor needs and museum shop development. As a result, shops were popular and successful throughout the era even in times of general decline in the national economy. Museums, however, did not focus on shops as revenue generators until the 1980s when public support and governmental funding for museums retracted. The manner in which shops contributed to the total museum experience was an important component of museum development.
The Struggle for Influence
The most frequent characterization of the relationship between the political leadership of the Soviet Union and Soviet science is one of dominance and submissiveness, respectively. Most authors have emphasized Communist Party control of scientists’ careers, their access to foreign scientific publications, and interaction with their foreign colleagues in the Soviet Union and the ability of scientists to travel abroad.1 Additionally, the granting of residence permits and the selection of talented personnel by institutes were also determined in small or large part by party functionaries. In some cases, the Party even determined the direction of a particular science and its research priorities. For example, the Party claimed that Soviet science in the fields of biology, physics, and cybernetics was unique and thus different from Western bourgeois science. This ‘difference’ between Western and Soviet science meant that Soviet scientists had to engage in philosophical debates over the validity of Western science and its usefulness for Soviet science. Using philosophical arguments, the Party intruded into the realm of scientific disagreements and ultimately supported a particular viewpoint for philosophical or political reasons rather than supporting a particular conclusion based on the analysis of scientific data. Probably the most infamous philosophical debate occurred when Trofim D. Lysenko and his ‘false-science’ attacked Mendelian genetics as non-Marxist. Supported by the Party, Lysenko’s triumph led to the curtailment of the fields of biology and genetics in the Soviet Union for some twenty years.2
Lupin alkaloids from teratogenic and nonteratogenic lupins. II. Identification of the major alkaloids by tandem gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in plants producing crooked calf disease.
The major alkaloids of lupin plants producing crooked calf disease were identified by tandem gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and infrared analysis. The gas chromatography peak invariably present in teratogenic plants proved to be anagyrine. A minor but irregular contaminant of the peak was α-isolupanine. Other alkaloids present but apparently not associated with crooked calf disease were lupanine and two others that were probably epimethoxylupanine and 5,6-dehydrolupanine.