Description

Book Synopsis
A piece of Plymouth Rock. A lock of George Washington's hair. Wood from the cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born. Kept in museum collections across the US, such objects are the touchstones of our popular engagement with history. This book explores the history of private collections of items like these, illuminating how Americans view the past.

Trade Review
"Teresa Barnett is interested in the survival of public things and personal and what they meant to people. Drawing selectively but constructively upon the evidence, episodes, and theories, Sacred Relics is a very sophisticated and polished piece of work, offering the reader a clear sense of change over time in the realm of reliquaries and their keepers. There is no single work like it in US historiography. It will be a must-read in the fields of cultural, intellectual, and social history." (Michael Kammen, Cornell University)"

Sacred Relics Pieces of the Past in

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    A Hardback by Teresa Barnett

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      Book details

      Publisher The University of Chicago Press
      Published 19 September 2013
      ISBN-13 9780226059600
      978-0226059600
      ISBN-10 022605960X
      Also in:
      Museology and heritage studies Orality / Oral transmission

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      A piece of Plymouth Rock. A lock of George Washington's hair. Wood from the cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born. Kept in museum collections across the US, such objects are the touchstones of our popular engagement with history. This book explores the history of private collections of items like these, illuminating how Americans view the past.

      Trade Review
      "Teresa Barnett is interested in the survival of public things and personal and what they meant to people. Drawing selectively but constructively upon the evidence, episodes, and theories, Sacred Relics is a very sophisticated and polished piece of work, offering the reader a clear sense of change over time in the realm of reliquaries and their keepers. There is no single work like it in US historiography. It will be a must-read in the fields of cultural, intellectual, and social history." (Michael Kammen, Cornell University)"

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