Crystal Fragments: Museum Methods at the Great Exhibition of 1851, in London Labour and the London Poor and in 1851

Abstract

This essay examines the ways in which the Great Exhibition of 1851 introduced the Victorian viewing public to methods associated with the museum such as catalogue and taxonomy. Drawing on the work of museum scholars like Tony Bennett and the work of Michel Foucault, it argues that methods associated with the museum moved out of the Crystal Palace and were used to classify individuals. Such methods also impacted the literature of the time and can be seen in Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor and his little-studied novel 1851. In the latter, the museum world created by the Great Exhibition is exaggerated and mocked and the museum begins to discipline individuals far more than museum visitors can discipline the contents of the museum. These works of literature (along with the guidebooks and literature created for the opening of the Crystal Palace) demonstrate the influence of the museum in the nineteenth century.