Gallery Industries Inc history

In 1870 corporate lawyer Joseph H. Choate convinced the city of New York to finance the construction and operation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was to be governed by a board of 21 private members and civic office-holding trustees, including the mayor.

After the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia, many of the displays were donated to the Smithsonian, and some of the proceeds from the exposition were used to build a new museum building.

By the end of 1880, the roof had been completed and parts of the building were already in use by Smithsonian Institution staff.

The first event held in the new building, before the exhibits and a permanent floor were installed, was the inaugural ball of President James Abram Garfield and Vice President Chester A. Arthur on March 4, 1881.

The Roycroft started as a one-room print shop in 1897, when former salesman-turned author, Elbert Hubbard, attempted to write and publish his own stories.

The Arts and Industries Building was the first building to serve as the US National Museum. It was renamed the Arts and Industries Building in 1910.

Since 1913, the Roycroft Campus in East Aurora, NY and The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC have been inextricably linked.

In fact, Fred Seely furnished his home with Roycroft items, including custom chandeliers designed by Karl Kipp in 1918, which now hang in the Antique Car Museum at Grovewood Village.

At the end of World War II, the small collection of airplanes in the Arts and Industries Building and in the aircraft building in the South Yard received status as a separate museum, when the National Air Museum, now the National Air and Space Museum, was established on August 12, 1946.

About three-quarters of them were founded after 1950, and less than 5 percent have origins in the nineteenth century.

In 1964, the remaining historical collections in the Arts and Industries Building were moved to the new Museum of History and Technology, now the National Museum of American History, and the National Air Museum took over the rest of the building.

The Air Museum remained in the building until its own building opened in 1976.

In 1979, the Discovery Theater, aimed at a young audience, began production in the building.

Forty-nine million children attended a museum as part of a school group in 1988.

By 1989, that figure was up to 566 million visits.

Their 1991 publication, Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums, addressed the need for museums to continue their efforts at educating the museum-going public.

By 1996 it boasted more than 25 million visitors annually.

One attraction expected to attract an enormous crowd, opening at Chicago's Field Museum in the summer of 2000, was the exhibit of "Sue," the largest complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton.

Indeed, the Guggenheim raised admission to $15 in 2002, and the newly opened Museum of Sex in New York planned to charge $17, the highest general admission for a museum in New York.

—— "MoMA Hangs Its Hopes On Major Show in Queens; $20 Admission for 'Matisse Picasso' Highest Ever, Creates Controversy." Crain's New York Business, 27 January 2003.