Visitor Behavior in Museums: Some Early Research in Environmental Design

Abstract

In 1930-32 Arthur W. Melton was a research associate of the American Association of Museums. The first part of what follows is a slightly edited portion of the summary chapter of the monograph he wrote to describe experiments at the Pennsylvania Museum of Art in Philadelphia. The research, directed by E. S. Robinson of Yale, was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Melton received his Ph.D. at Yale in 1932, and in the following two years as a research assistant there he supervised a training program for research in several museums. The second part of what follows is a somewhat shortened version of an article he wrote about studies at the Museum of Science and Industry in New York City. The permission of Melton and the American Association of Museums to reproduce this pioneering work on environmental design is gratefully acknowledged.