The Reuben Bliss bedchamber at the Brooklyn Museum of Art - A case study in the history of museum period room installations

Early in the twentieth century, antiquarian collectors began installing displays of early American period rooms in art museums. Over the course of the century, improved scholarship into early American life allowed curators to reinterpret these displays, usually with increasing accuracy. Nonetheless, conceptions of early America were invested with shifting ideological connotations that resonated deeply at crucial moments in the twentieth century, influencing curatorial interpretations. The following article provides a historiographic overview of museum period room interpretations, using one room as a case study.