ABSTRACT
Several historians have charged that public museums, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were primarily instruments for displaying and reflecting the elitist aspirations of the urban aristocracy. The great achievement of American public art museums has been their ability to further public welfare while serving private desires. It could be that the establishment and growth of these institutions after 1870 was made possible as much by the sophistication of philanthropic techniques as by the accumulation of large private collections and increasing public interest in art. One of the major goals of nineteenth-century philanthropists was achieved by the mid-twentieth century: public museums had become significant arbiters of contemporary taste. Although the average family still purchased paintings and reproductions to match its carpets and curtains, museums had influenced taste in industrial design, architecture, advertising, and, through exhibitions and the sale of fine reproductions, private homes.
