When the Western Museum Society set out to collect objects and raise funds for their museum in 1818 they were very successful. They were able to raise $4,500 by 1820 when they opened the museum and their collecting efforts had been richly rewarded. They were able to forge a relationship with the new college and found a room for their museum in their building. Their efforts to setup the museum were noted and commended in journals around the country and their correspondence spanned the globe.
However, in two years the museum was struggling. Patronage from the general public was poor, money had run out, and the society was breaking up. Daniel Drake, the museums most vocal supporter, had had a falling out with the administration of the college resulting in his departure for Transylvania University. Robert Best, curator of the museum and the man who kept the doors open followed Drake to Lexington to pursue new opportunities as a professor of chemistry at Transylvania University while getting a medical degree.
This left the museum with an uncertain future. In an attempt to ensure the museum would be able to continue in operation, the directors of the Western Museum Society decided to give the museum and its contents to a recently arrived naturalist, Joseph Dorfeuille. Dorfeuille had traveled up river from New Orleans with his own collections and arrived in 1822. It's unclear how he became involved with the Western Museum, but he seems to have fairly quickly joined Best in maintaining the museum and combined his collections that he had brought with him up river with those of the museum. Dorfeuille was the best candidate to continue the dream the Western Museum Society had in 1818. Still, it would be an uphill battle.
The museum had to move to a new location around this same time, likely as a result of a break-down in relations between Drake and some of the other college directors. There was also the issue that attendance was far too low to sustain the museum and that a move might be the final straw. It had survived the first two years by the good will of the members but now the society was effectively disolved and the museum would need the good will of Cincinnatians and its visitors to keep the doors open. The admission price would remain the same as it had been since it opened, 25 cents per adult and half price for children. Former members of the Western Museum Society and their families were given free attendance as part of the deal in transferring the museum to Dorfeuille.
But 25 cents was expensive for what was regarded as an amusements and it wasn't an easy sell. Dorfeuille maintained a pretty active schedule, lecturing in the museum, writing pieces for local papers, buying new artifacts, and writing to many different people around the world. This was much the same as what the Western Museum Society had done although Dorfeuille was better at advertising it. Unfortunately the situation failed to change and Dorfeuille had to provide a lure to get them in the door where if all went well, they would take an interest in collections.
This shift away from the pure pursuit of the ideals set forth by the Western Museum Society in 1818 has generally been regarded as the beginning of the end for the museum. I would argue the contrary. Dorfeuille was still a man of science and would continue to maintain and grow the collection and give lectures and correspond on scientific topics. Dorfeuille recognized that to keep the doors open he had to get widespread support and interest in the community, that the interests of the scientific minded were simply not enough.
Certainly, his ideas were sensational and he frequently brought in items that were of questionable taste (like the hand of a murderer, preserved in spirits). These items had no scientific value but they brought people in in droves. There is a question of how much decisions like this compromised the permanent collections of the museum. Some items, like the famed Fiji Mermaid were pseudo-science, things created to fool the general population, that are generally associated with side-show acts. Passing items like this off as genuine raise questions about Dorfeuille's qualifications as a man of science and are difficult to reconcile.
Dorfeuille left little in the way of personal writings or correspondence but what does survive doesn't indicate that he actually believed these things were real. He realized that these things had value. They could be relied upon to bring people through the door and that was what he needed. The Infernal Regions exhibit would do this exceptionally and I think it's worth pointing out that after the success of this exhibit, Dorfeuille did not bring in many more of these unusual items. He no longer needed them.
As such, I'm not inclined to come down too hard on Dorfeuille. He was far from perfect, but I would contend that the museums long path to failure began after Dorfeuille. Dorfeuille sold the museum to Dr. William Wood who did little with it. It was open but rarely advertised and as far as can be determined no real changes were made. However, Wood was an amatuer scientist and was likely content with the museum as it stood. When Wood sold the museum to Frederick Franks, however, the decline can become more discernible. Franks was an artists and had run a museum of his own until it had burned down in 1841. Franks did not appear to have much interest in the core collections of the Western Museum and their decline can be more readily traced from this period forward.
More in Part II.
