Museum of the Peaceful Arts

Established at 24 West 40th St. around 1920, it was later relocated to the Daily News Building at 220 E. 42nd St.[1] It was later closed, and superseded by the New York Museum of Science and Industry.

The original charter shows the scope of the museum system: The Association for the Establishment and Maintenance FOR the People in the City of New York of Museums OF the Peaceful Arts: This instrument witnesseth That the Regents of the University of the State of New York have granted this charter for the purpose of forming a corporation to establish and maintain as a permanent and useful memorial of the century of peace and amity that has followed the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814, in the City of New York, and for the people thereof, and for the benefit of the citizens of the State of New York and of the United States generally, buildings which shall be devoted to the housing and proper exposition of permanent exhibits in the following branches, among others, of the industrial and peaceful arts: (a) Electricity (b) Steam (c) Astronomy and Navigation (d) Safety appliances (e) Aviation (f) Mechanical Arts (g) Agriculture (h) Mining (i) Labor (J) Efficiency (k) Historic Records (1) Health and Hygiene (m) Textiles (n) Ceramics and Clays (o) Architecture (P) Scenic Embellishment (q) Gardening (r) Roads and Road Building materials (s) Commerce and Trade (t) Printing and Books and with the further purpose and power to establish and to maintain a library building which shall contain books and periodicals giving information in respect of the subjects covered by the various museums; to erect and to maintain a building containing an auditorium for purposes of popular assembly, with contiguous rooms for committee meetings, lectures, and the various purposes incident to the operation of such a group of museums; to perform all the functions pertaining to the maintenance and operation of museums and concomitant institutions relating in any way to the development of the peaceful arts and progress in industrial education; and to open the museums, the library and the assembly rooms for the uses of the schools, the colleges and the universities of the City and State of New York, and, in particular, to bring about the creation of such a museum institution as shall be of greatest utility and advantage to the people of the City, State and Nation in the fostering and furtherance of commercial and industrial education.

As there are museums dedicated to science, war and industry, this would be one devoted to the study and exhibition of the peaceful arts.

The New Yorker had a discussion about it in 1929: "They have unusual machines: Under a microscope you can see how much you can bend a steel rail with the pressure of your finger, a movie shows air currents moving, etc.

For the last two years it has been in the present museum which is supported, largely, by a bequest of two and a half million dollars from the late Henry F.

Early in his career, Brown invented a device using selenium, which translated printed text into sound.

[5] Among the items owned by the Museum of the Peaceful Arts was America's first submarine: "Dr. Peter J. Gibbons and his son, Austin Flint Gibbons, who recently bought the old United States submarine boat Holland from junk dealers, yesterday presented the relic in perpetuity to the Association for the Establishment and Maintenance for the People of the City of New York of a Museum of the Peaceful Arts.

I have wanted the plane to go to an institution in America which has an historical and educational exhibit of aeronautics, and not to a museum where it would be merely a prominent curiosity.