"Seeing Through Things: Material Burma, the Missionary Exhibit and Its Object Lessons, 1900–2008" by Erin Hasinoff

Erin Hasinoff

Deposited 2008

Abstract
This dissertation examines how ethnological collections instantiate ideas about the places from which they were gathered, and how they connect social worlds. My argument grows out of an analysis of the American Museum of Natural History Missionary Exhibit, and its Burmese component in particular. The discussion of the history of the Exhibit extends beyond the object lessons about missions the collection offered to domestic audiences; it also considers how the artifacts were later augmented and the ties they have maintained to their source communities.
This material ethnography, grounded in museum research and a history of ideas, is divided into three parts. Part I focuses on the Missionary Exhibit's collection and exhibition and its relevance to the revival of material culture studies in anthropology. The potential that the Burmese objects offered the Museum is exposed, both in terms of how objects filled in a region otherwise beyond the institution's collecting initiatives and of the missionaries whom Franz Boas established connections to in order to expand the Museum's holdings.
Part II looks at how the Missionary Exhibit put Burma, among other foreign geographies, in reach of audiences at the Museum and missionary expositions, specifically The World in Boston (1911), where the collection later traveled. The object world of the exposition is seen as grafting together a worldview of missions and reinforcing a community of Protestant supporters. An analysis of the Boston venue provides an introduction to missionary expositions, which have been little explored in the vast literature on world's fairs, industrial exhibitions and museums.
Part III shifts to George Geis' Kachin and Frederick Lehman's Chin collections, accessioned by the AMNH in 1908 and 1958 respectively. The Museum acquired both collections to augment the Missionary Exhibit, and to materialize a broader vision of Burma. They are seen as shedding light on and stimulating museum projects today in Kachin and Chin States. This dissertation therefore demonstrates how ethnological collections have profound consequences, both in terms of how places are imagined and also how they are objectified and preserved.