Musée social
| Established | 1894 |
|---|---|
| Location | Paris, France |
| Coordinates | 48°51′29″N 2°19′19″E / 48.858068°N 2.321866°ECoordinates: 48°51′29″N 2°19′19″E / 48.858068°N 2.321866°E |
| Address | 5, rue Las Cases - 75007 Paris |
| Website | cediasbibli |
| Dissolved | 1963 |
The Musée social was a private French institution founded in 1894. In the early twentieth century it became an important center of research into topics such as city planning, social housing and labor organization. For many years it played an important role in influencing government policy.
The original purpose of the Musée social was to preserve documents from the Social Economy pavilion of the Exposition Universelle (1889). This exposition, one hundred years after the French Revolution, had recorded the many changes in thought about the organization of society that had followed. The project to create the museum came from a meeting of Jules Siegfried, Léon Say and Émile Cheysson with count Joseph Dominique Aldebert de Chambrun in 1894. The count decided to devote his fortune to the foundation, which was officially inaugurated in March 1895. Although called a museum, in fact it became a research institute.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century there were many non-governmental organizations interested in reform. The Musée social tried to coordinate the efforts of the groups working on "the social question." The Musée social brought together followers of Frédéric Le Play and others who were interested in improving the well-being of the masses while promoting private initiative, going beyond the timid reforms being considered by the government. Many historians consider that the French welfare state originated in the work done at the Musée social.
Robert Pinot was appointed the first administrative director of the Musée social in 1894, with the mandate of overseeing its "sound and rapid organization." He resigned from this position in 1897 due to a disagreement with Aldebert de Chambrun and the Musée board. He felt that the institution had not maintained its goals of being purely scientific and outside politics. Perhaps more to the point, he also resented his lack of autonomy.
The Musée social was well-funded, and followed an innovative model. It had several sections of study and research with the goal of documenting new topics for debate, possible changes to legislation, and development of new ideas. The institute paid researchers, whose reports were presented at conferences and published in the institute's journals or in collections of work that it published. One section, for example, was headed by Léon de Seilhac and studied contemporary labor movements. Another covered the major strikes during the third republic. Other sections covered topics such as urban and rural sanitation, agriculture, social insurance and employer institutions. All the material was held in the library, and made available to the public.
...
Wikipedia