This Day in Met History: The Opening of the Junior Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Junior Museum: Children's Craft Work (October 16–October 23, 1941); With people. Photographed October 1941. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. See slideshow

«In 1941 the Museum decided to consolidate staff charged with maintaining contact with schools, colleges, institutions of the city, and the Department of Education into one cohesive group, entitled the Department of Education and Museum Extension. This division would encompass general guide services, adult education and lecture programs, curatorial study rooms, circulating exhibitions and lending collections, visual materials (lantern slides, photographs), and the Junior Museum.»

The Junior Museum was dedicated to creating collection-related educational experiences for young children, including special exhibitions, publications, a library, and children's activities. Whereas the Museum's work with New York City school children was not a new initiative, there had never before been "proper facilities in the building for their welfare" (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 36, No. 9, Sept. 1941). This new division of the Museum "caused sufficient stir, even with war in Europe, to command many columns and at least one editorial in New York papers" (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 9, May 1958).

The Junior Museum opened to the public on Wednesday, October 16, 1941. It occupied "five rooms in the southwest corner of the building adjacent to the Park Entrance," which refers to Wing B, or the Weston Wing—the area that now comprises galleries 522–529 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 36, No. 10, Oct. 1941). At the opening, three special exhibitions were mounted based on the new museum's governing philosophy "to exhibit both the work of children and material that is related to children's interests" (Ibid.): Greek Athletics and A Colonial Newspaper (arranged by the seventh grade of Public School 6, Manhattan); Children's Craft Work (from playgrounds of the New York City Department of Parks); and One Hundred Best Children's Books (selected by the American Institute of Graphic Arts).

Greek Athletics (October 16–December 21, 1941), related closely to the public schools' seventh-grade curriculum focusing on the Olympic Games. A Colonial Newspaper (October 16–November 16, 1941), as it was named by the students of P.S. 6, "imagined the actual news items and advertisements [which] recapture the spirit of life in America from the time of early settlement to about 1763." In addition to objects from the Museum's collection, the installation included a mural painted by the children. Children's Craft Work (October 16–October 23, 1941), was exactly that—various works of art created in various media by children in the New York City Parks Department's playgrounds (Ibid.).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Junior Museum (Wing B, Gallery 38): One Hundred Best Children's Books (October 29–November 16, 1941); View of the Junior Library, coat check, and sales desk, looking northwest. Photographed October 1941. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Junior Museum also contained the Junior Library, which strove to choose books that were "particularly related to the Museum's collections and activities, not merely those which [were] interesting to children and which [were] suitable to an art museum" (Ibid.). The opening of the Junior Library on October 30, 1941, roughly coincided with Children's Book Week, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts selected about one hundred books—based on criteria for excellence of typography and format—for the exhibition One Hundred Best Children's Books (October 29–November 16, 1941). Coincidentally, this was the first time the Institute had considered children's books in a separate category.

Alfred Busselle Jr., supervisor of the Junior Museum, expressed his hopes for this new venture: "The Junior Museum will spread a wider knowledge of the Metropolitan's collections and that young Americans will thereby gain increased appreciation of their artistic heritage" (Ibid.).

The Museum's dedication to creating a unique, engaging, and playful experience continues today in the many publications and interactive resources produced by both the Department of Education and the Digital Media Department's Digital Learning team.

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