Caplan, Aaron

A museum featuring "ten thousand Chinese things," Nathan Dunn's Chinese Museum informed and entertained Philadelphians from 1838-1841. Filled with artifacts, paintings, life-size mannequins, and recreations of Chinese shops and drawing rooms, the museum gave Americans a brief glimpse of a country that most never would see.

Founded in 1838 by merchant and philanthropist Nathan Dunn (1782-1844), the museum shared its home at Ninth and George (now Sansom) Streets in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Museum, the descendant of Charles Willson Peale's museum of portraits and natural history. During his time in the China trade, Dunn had acquired a large collection of artifacts in Canton between 1818 and 1831 and presumably housed them at his New Jersey summer home, known as the "Chinese Cottage," until the late 1830s, when he decided to bring his collection to the public. He joined the Philadelphia Museum company and spearheaded the campaign to raise funds for the building that would house both the Philadelphia Museum and his own Chinese Collection. By most measures, the partnership was a success. An estimated 100,000 people visited Dunn's Chinese Museum during its short life, purchasing 50,000 copies of its catalogue, and although it did not present any new ideas about China, the Museum did play a major role in shaping American perceptions of China.

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