Book, The Making of a Modern Museum, 1919

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It has been able to spend time at the museum on loan from Cooper Union Library.

In 1919, Eleanor was invited to speak about The Cooper Union Museum before the Wednesday Afternoon Club, a women’s literary and social club. She recounted anecdotes about how “two little girls with pigtails” envisioned an educational museum and the building of its collection. The speech, subsequently published as The Making of a Modern Museum, described the philosophy and practice of their museum as a “modern” space of use, in contrast to traditional museum experiences of quiet, static galleries.