Musueum Cureator

The 1800’s were a very wild time, with so many different things happening around the world. In France, the French revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte’s crusade was taking place. In Britain and America, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, starting with the mills and coal.

 A curator is some who looks after an exhibit.it is important for someone knowledgeable about the subject to curate to make sure the exhibit is correct and is told factually. Our Exhibit title was "Products Of A Dark Time". We named it this because our subject was about the cotton production and how it affected slavery and child working conditions. Cotton was a large piece of American and English economy. One of our sources was a map of the British cotton trade in 1850. This is important to use because the cotton trade was so large and it went all around the world, including the 2 large ports of China and India. I hope the person seeing my exhibit will learn just how large the cotton trade was. Also, they will learn that the cotton produced came with a price, with slaves and child workers.

 The first exhibit I saw was the one about the impact that Industrialization had on the families and how it started. The biggest thing I learned was how big London grew from 1800-1900. The population went from 800,000 to over 6 million. That is crazy. The next exhibit was about steam engines. I saw a map of the canals built at the time and I also saw a timeline of the transportation. I learned that the Steam Engine first started in 1804 and it was called the Middlesex Canal. The next exhibit was all about the filth and overall dirty quality of the streets and towns of Britain. I saw the picture that Dudley drew of all the kids sitting on the ground, covered in dirt. I learned of the magnitude of how many coal mines there were. The final exhibit I saw was about the child labor. The most powerful and thought provoking picture was of the kids underground in the mine tunnels. It is sad just to think about that they had to go down in those conditions. I learned that when the cotton mills first started, the population of workers under 10 was 49%. After the act that made limits on how long the kids could work, that number went down to just under 4%.

 During the curating process I learned more than I would have by just taking notes. It was a perfect time period, the Industrial Revolution, because of just how many things happened and the widespread impact hat it had on today.