The American Diorama – Yale Peabody Museum – New Haven, CT
Thursday, March 26th, 2009 | The American Diorama
Check out these pics from amazing & beautiful YALE Peabody Museum in New Haven, CT.
The museum is operated by Yale University and the Natural History exhibits and dioramas can serve as a looking glass into the history of the ivy league institution and the nature of power in the United States in general.
Simply put, it was the rich, powerful WASPs that could afford to depart on Indian Jones style safaris, traveling the world and pillaging it’s riches and collecting exotic species on display at the Peabody Museum. Of course its a double edge sword because we owe our modern “civilized” society to the scientific innovation that resulted from this aggressive knowledge gathering.
Yale University owes its name to Elihu Yale, the school’s first benefactor. Elihu worked with East India Company and amassed a fortune through illegal profiteering in colonial India. Evidently Elihu made a lot of money in the trade of precious gems and much of his collection of rare specimens are on display at the Peabody Museum’s hall of minerals. It seems to me that Yale University was founded on the 17th Century equivalent of blood diamonds.
-Tonky
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