Essays exploring the relationship between museums and biographies, with worldwide examples and from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Museums and biographies both tell the stories of lives. This innovative collection examines for the first time biography - of individuals, objects and institutions - in relationship to the museum, casting new light on the many facets of museum history and theory, from the lives of prominent curators, to the context of museums of biography and autobiography. Separate sections cover individual biography and museum history, problematising individual biographies, institutional biographies, object biographies, and museums as biographies/autobiographies. These articles offer new ways of thinking about museums and museum history, exploring how biography in and of the museum enrichesmuseum stories by stressing the inter-related nature of lives of people, objects and institutions as part of a dense web of relationships. Through their widely ranging research, the contributors demonstrate the value of thinkingabout the stories told in and by museums, and the relationships which make up museums; and suggest new ways of undertaking and understanding museum biographies. Dr Kate Hill is Principal Lecturer in History at the University of Lincoln. Contributors: Jeffrey Abt, Felicity Bodenstein, Alison Booth, Stuart Burch, Lucie Carreau, Elizabeth Crooke, Steffi de Jong, Mark Elliott, Sophie Forgan, Mariana Francozo, Laura Gray, Kate Hill, Suzanne MacLeod, Wallis Miller, Belinda Nemec, Donald Preziosi, Helen Rees Leahy, Linda Sandino, Julie Sheldon, Alexandra Stara, Louise Tythacott, Chris Whitehead, Anne Whitelaw

Essays exploring the relationship between museums and biographies, with worldwide examples and from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Museums and biographies both tell the stories of lives. This innovative collection examines for the first time biography - of individuals, objects and institutions - in relationship to the museum, casting new light on the many facets of museum history and theory, from the lives of prominent curators, to the context of museums of biography and autobiography. Separate sections cover individual biography and museum history, problematising individual biographies, institutional biographies, object biographies, and museums as biographies/autobiographies. These articles offer new ways of thinking about museums and museum history, exploring how biography in and of the museum enrichesmuseum stories by stressing the inter-related nature of lives of people, objects and institutions as part of a dense web of relationships. Through their widely ranging research, the contributors demonstrate the value of thinkingabout the stories told in and by museums, and the relationships which make up museums; and suggest new ways of undertaking and understanding museum biographies. Dr Kate Hill is Principal Lecturer in History at the University of Lincoln. Contributors: Jeffrey Abt, Felicity Bodenstein, Alison Booth, Stuart Burch, Lucie Carreau, Elizabeth Crooke, Steffi de Jong, Mark Elliott, Sophie Forgan, Mariana Francozo, Laura Gray, Kate Hill, Suzanne MacLeod, Wallis Miller, Belinda Nemec, Donald Preziosi, Helen Rees Leahy, Linda Sandino, Julie Sheldon, Alexandra Stara, Louise Tythacott, Chris Whitehead, Anne Whitelaw

Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America explores how close, collaborative looking can discern the traces of contact, exchange, and movement of objects and give them a life and political power in complex cross-cultural histories. Red River coats, prints of colonial places and peoples, Indigenous-made dolls, and an Englishwoman's collection provide case studies of art and material culture that correct and give nuance to global and imperial histories. The result of a collaborative research process involving Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors, this book looks closely at the circumstances of making, use, and circulation of these objects: things that supported and defined both Indigenous resistance and colonial and imperial purposes. Contributors re-envision the histories of northern North America by focusing on the lives of things flowing to and from this vast region between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries, showing how material culture is a critical link that tied this diverse landscape to the wider world. An original perspective on the history of northern North American peoples grounded in things, Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America provides a key analytical and methodological lens that exposes the complexity of cultural encounters and connections between local and global communities.