100-yr.-old Museum heads into antiquity

Standing at the corner of 33rd and Spruce streets, the 100-year-old University Museum is perhaps best known for its rich archaeological collections that span the course of human civilization. But unbeknownst to many, the historic building is also the unlikely home of an elaborate story that parallels the rise of the University from a quiet commuter school to an institution with national recognition. Next Monday, the Victorian landmark will celebrate its centennial as one of the most recognizable and unique buildings on campus -- a repository of invaluable items chronicling human culture from the prehistoric era to the present. The First 100 Years Founded in 1887 and first housed in College Hall, the Museum opened on campus at a time when Penn was a small school attended only by local residents -- remaining largely unknown outside of the city. Having recently moved to West Philadelphia, the University and its disparate schools occupied a total of less than 16 acres of mostly empty ground. Assuming office in 1881, Provost William Pepper began the process of transforming a University dominated by its Medical School into an institution with a world-renowned reputation for research. According to Museum Reference Archivist Alex Pezzati, Pepper was a dynamic leader and always on the lookout for new ways to advance the University's interests. "As provost, he basically put the University of Pennsylvania on the map," Pezzati said. "By the time he died, he was considered a second Benjamin Franklin for the city of Philadelphia." Pepper's original intention was to create an intellectual hub centered around the University in West Philadelphia that would include a complex of museums. To that end, Pepper tried to convince the Academy of Natural Sciences to relocate to West Philadelphia in 1889, but his offer was rejected. It was at that point that the provost decided to build a museum of his own. Pepper, who later became president of the museum, envisioned an institution that would encompass a broad scope of art and science at a time when no such museum existed in Philadelphia. Although he dedicated the last years of his life to the completion of the Museum, Pepper died in 1898 -- one year before the Museum was finished. When the Museum finally did open in 1899, it was called the Free Museum of Art and Science in accordance with Pepper's vision and the Pepper Gallery itself was named after the provost. The original 1896 plan conceived by architect Wilson Eyre called for a sprawling structure in an eclectic Northern Italian Renaissance style that would be centered around three towering rotundas. However when the Museum relocated to its new home in 1899, the building represented only a quarter of Eyre's design -- in a section that currently houses the institution's main entrance and central staircase. Early photographs show gallery spaces lighted by skylights and crowded with glass cases filled with collections from around the world. The skylights were eventually tiled over in subsequent renovations and the number of displays reduced despite the Museum's growing collection. "The modern museum practice has moved away from the impact of quantity to explaining the objects that you have," Art History Professor and Interim Keeper of the Mediterranean Collection Ann Brownlee said. "Now we feel that the visitor is better served if you take a selection of things and explain them more fully," she added. Expeditions Abroad Besides numerous items that have been donated to its early collection, the Museum's impressive display of artifacts has been a century-long work-in-progress of expeditions, excursions and overseas adventures. In fact, the first American archaeological expedition to the Near East was led by a team from the University. In 1887, Hebrew Professor John Peters and several prominent Philadelphians approached the University about obtaining support for an expedition to the ancient city of Nippur, located in modern-day Iraq. Pepper convinced the University Trustees to join in funding the expedition under the condition that the finds would "become the property of the University of Pennsylvania, provided the said University furnish suitable accommodations in a fire-proof building." Although the dig started inauspiciously with the shooting death of an Arab worker by a Turkish guard and a feud between Peters and Assyriology Professor Hermann Hilprecht, it earned the University an extensive collection of cuneiform tablets. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, progress at the Museum had halted due to a rift between the Museum Board, headed by Sara York Stevenson, and the University, headed by Pepper's successor Charles Harrison. Pezzati described the relationship between the two as being "cold and formal," until it was further exacerbated by a conflict over funds and a controversy that arose over the Nippur funding. Indeed it was because of the strained relationship that the next section of the Museum's plan -- the form of the rotunda -- was not built until 1915. Eventually, only two more wings were built in accordance with the plan due to the prohibitive cost of adhering to Eyre's elaborate design. Ironically, Harrison became one of the Museum's most forceful supporters, serving as the board's chairperson after resigning from the provost's office. The only rotunda that was ever built according to the 1896 master plan would, in fact, later bear his name.

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