Leonardo’s Tomb: Exhibitions of Early Flight Technology at the Deutsches Museum, Science Museum and Smithsonian, 1903 – 2003

Abstract

This thesis is an account of the aeronautical collections of three museums, the Science Museum, the Deutsches Museum and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, as they were developed and displayed between 1903 and 2003. This thesis is arranged into four main chapters, each with a series of subsections. The themes of the chapters are: the aesthetics of flight displays, priority disputes within the museums, the modernist political moment and its impact on flight culture and museums, and the legacy of war in the collections of the three museums. Throughout the work, I attempt to draw together the political, cultural and technical histories of both aviation and the institutions of the museums, to provide a longue durée analysis of the museological representation of flight. In doing so, I rely heavily on archival material from the museums themselves, as well as secondary historical and theoretical literature and first-person accounts of my experiences as a researcher in these institutions. The work was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and supported by further grants from the University of Cambridge, St John’s College Cambridge and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst.