ABSTRACT
Ideas and approaches in museums during the Second World War were strikingly similar to current innovative practices. Museum history receives little attention in professional training, but if these connections were recognised, then museums could draw on previous practice and perhaps find inspiration in earlier innovations. The National Gallery and the National Museum of Wales continued to open, however, and their popularity demonstrated public demand for cultural services. For the duration of the war, regional museums received funding to provide recreational and educational activities for war workers and local communities. They were able to offer many innovative services to the wartime public, including initially the controversial display of government 'war-time publicity', or propaganda, in galleries, expanded educational services and numerous temporary exhibitions. Museum practice in wartime continued to influence government cultural policy in the immediate post-war years, but, when the Arts Council was established to replace CEMA in 1946, museums were not part of its remit.
