Acquiring Antiquity: The Classical Collections at the University of Michigan and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, ca. 1850--1925

This dissertation explores the history of American museums and galleries' acquisitions of casts and ancient classical artifacts particularly from Italy. It focuses on two American institutions, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and examines their acquisitions from the founding of their collections in 1856 and 1870, respectively, until 1925.;This study analyzes why and how casts and ancient artifacts were acquired at the University and the MFA, and considers the distinct role of governance and staff in these acquisitions. These institutions' seemingly stark organizational differences --- the University was a state-funded institution and the MFA was a nonprofit entity that was supported primarily by private aid --- contrasted with their similar collecting behaviors that focused first on acquiring casts, and in the mid-1890s moved to amassing large collections of ancient objects. Although their general patterns of collecting were analogous, these institutions differed in the types of ancient objects that they acquired, how they collected material, and the motivations for their acquisitions.;The finding of this work is that acquisitions' decisions were shaped by a variety of factors in addition to museums or universities' educational purposes, including institutional prestige, administrative oversight, financial considerations, and ethical and legal pressures. Past research on the histories on acquisitions, however, tended to focus on a single factor to explain acquisitions behavior, tended to emphasize what objects were acquired rather than why and how material was collected, and tended to scrutinize the practices of nonprofit art museums, rather than state universities.;I argue that increased philanthropic donations beginning in the mid-1890s precipitated these institutions' shift from collecting casts to ancient artifacts, but that organizational structure, legal restrictions, and ethical concerns had varying effects on the University of Michigan's acquisition of specimens of daily life, and the MFA's collection of aesthetic materials.;This work consists of several parts and begins with a history of collecting casts and ancient artifacts in the United States, moves to a consideration of the specific acquisitions practices at the University and the MFA, and concludes with an examination of future directions for this research.