"Whose Museum is it, Anyway?": A Case Study of the Effects of Large Scale Funding on National Museums

While the need for national museums to secure large-scale funding is unavoidable, so are the controversies tied to this funding. This paper is a case study of the effects private donations and government funding can have towards major decision-making processes in national museums. Focusing on the The Price of Freedom and the Enola Gay exhibits at the Smithsonian Institute, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as a whole, this essay explores how factors such as location and time contribute to public opinion about these decisions. These national institutions find themselves in a balancing act to please private and government donors, as well as the public. While this essay does not ignore the fact that museums need money to operate and that they also have a duty to appease their donors, it argues that in this balancing act, one must consider the role and purpose of museums in society and that serving and challenging the public should remain, or become, a priority