I’m pleased to announce a new timeline of museum history. The timeline starts in the 17^th century, with the 1628  Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest and Ole Worm’s 1655 Museum Wormianum, and comes up to the present day (Decolonize this Museum! and the Museums Change Lives campaign). It includes  175 entries about exhibits, collections, museum philosophy, and more.

The timeline is a complement to my new book, Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present, and is organized in the same way, color-coded to indicate images and stories about collecting, preserving, displaying, and using art, artifacts, and specimens.

The timeline is pretty self-explanatory. Some hints:

Navigate the timeline by clicking on any date or dragging the viewfinder at the bottom.

Click the “More –>” button for more information. Then click the “Find out more” button for links to original sources.

Stories are color-coded. Museums collect (green), preserve (purple), display (gray), and use artifacts in other ways (blue). Stories in red provide context for the timeline.

Navigate the timeline by scrolling, clicking on a date, or dragging the viewfinder.

Click on “Find out more” for links to original sources.

Click on “About this timeline” in the upper right corner for more information.

The timeline builds on research from the book, and two related projects: my Pinterest site on the history of museum exhibitions (348 pins!) and the museum history primary-source twitter project.

My thanks to Emily Esten for her help throughout this project.

Take a look.