Established in 1871, the Jenks Museum at Brown University once displayed more than 50,000 objects, ranging from walrus and giraffe taxidermy to anthropological specimens from around the world. But within a few decades of its founding, the social and scientific climate around the museum shifted, prompting Brown to dismantle it and truck the bulk of the collection to a riverside dump. More recently, a group at Brown recreated the Jenks Museum through an exhibition, The Lost Museum, that merged the modes of historical display and contemporary art installation. The story of the Jenks Museum illuminates the ways in which past paradigms of knowledge have shaped campus collections -- and offers an example of how we might reconsider these objects today.

Kathrinne Duffy is a historian living in Burlington, Vermont. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Brown University and co-curated The Lost Museum exhibition.