20 Museums You've Never Heard Of

Last year Professor Patrick D. Hazard embarked on a marathon journey across the country to seek out unknown museums. He discovered twenty that particularly delighted him, although Hazard claims that he has never met a museum that he didn't like. He sent his story to Horizon with unabated praise for the "neglected museum, undervalued collection, unrecognized riches" he stumbled upon.

Hazard writes: "I've come to the conclusion that there's no guessing what goodies lie in store for the eye roving around America's 'minor' museums. As an English teacher, I want to extend W. H. Auden's paean of praise for minor poets to those thousands of institutions which can't mount mega shows.

"In fact this whole 'thing' I've begun to have for the under-publicized museum came to a head with King Tut. God bless the boy king so neglected in his own time, so intercontinentally trumpeted in our own. But media blitzes do present a problem to those who don't have PR power to flex. These headline-dominating barrages eclipse the reticent, or the understaffed, or the precariously financed."

Hazard concludes: "The overall story is this: There may be a hell of a lot wrong with America at its present juncture--with all our worlds in turmoil, but very little of it (except inflation) is wrong with its museums. They're booming. They're beautiful. They're what we came from."

Reprinted from Horizon, January 1981