Commerce and Industry Museums as a Means of Boosting Trade: Global and National Experience (Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries)

Abstract

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to revive exports and boost trade between countries, business circles began founding special institutions – museums of commerce and industry, export museums, or museums of samples. The creation of such institutions, the functional purpose of their main structural components, and their principal activities can be studied using the vast body of current and analytical data from early 20th-century periodicals and documents of business unions and government and business organizations established to aid foreign trade (the Russian Export Chamber in St. Petersburg; Southern Russia mining industry congresses in Kharkiv; Kharkiv Exchange Committee, and others). The article analyzes commerce and industry museums as tools designed to help achieve the economic goals of groups of entrepreneurs and states as a whole. It is emphasized that these institutions contributed to the intensification of trade between countries and promoted the sharing of the latest developments and methods in this sphere (such as those that had to do with concluding and servicing commercial agreements, creating a broad information base and providing reference information, maintaining contacts between producers and consumers, implementing new practices in the packing and shipping of goods, etc.). The article proposes different versions of the classification of export-oriented museums – by location (in the country of production, in the country of possible export) or by main purpose (export, brand promotion). Comparative analysis of the activities of Western European export museums and sample museums in the Russian Empire leads the author to conclude that Russia lagged significantly behind in establishing institutional forms for aiding foreign trade; such museums remained rare across the empire and did not adequately represent the available range of export goods.