Museums and legal history

Legal history does get attention in some of the world’s general museums. However, worldwide a number of museums is devoted to subjects from legal history. In particular criminal law is well served. Some museums focus on a particular subjects, for example taxes, customs, courts, forensic medicine, police forces and barristers. Old prisons have been reopened as museums. In some cases legal historians collected papyri or even founded papyrological institutes, and thus I mention a number of digitized collections. Some museums are rarely open, others can be visited only on appointment. HistorIcal buildings and sites, objects and artefacts create a telling image of law and justice, and this influences also our contemporary perceptions.

Here museums have been categorized mainly alphabetically by country. When possible and sensible some museums have been grouped under a special subject heading. Whenever present online catalogues, virtual tours and digital collections have been noted. I have added links to a number of relevant associations and societies. The list is certainly not complete. Any adjustments or additions are welcome. At the end of this overview I point to a number of museal federations.

Argentina

  • Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA, Buenos Aires – the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada had become the torture centre of the Argentine military dictature

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Brazil

Canada

Chile

Colombia

Cuba

France

Germany

Greece

Hong Kong

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Japan

Malaysia

Netherlands

New Zealand

Paraquay

Rumania

South Africa

Spain

United Kingdom

United States of America

Switzerland

Custom and tax museums

Money and finance museums

At the portal Numismatik created by Benedikt Zäch many money museums are mentioned, and at Hendrik Maekeler’s website you will find even more. The former Dutch Geldmuseum in Utrecht had a central role in the International Numismatic Libraries Network (INNL). Its collection of coinage has been transferred to the National Numismatic Collection of the Dutch Central Bank in Amsterdam, with a searchable database. A number of German cultural institutions have digitized their historical monetary collections at the portal KENOM: Virtuelles Münzkabinett.

Banking museums

More can be found starting with the links of Roy Davies, Exeter

Insurance museums

Papyri

A selection of digitized collections, in alphabetical order by country

The Papyrological Institute in Leiden was founded in 1935 by three legal historians. It has a succinct list of links to the main papyrological portals, and also a virtual exhibit. You can find a very rich links collection at the website of the Association International des Papyrologues (Université Libre, Brussels). In particular Papyri.info gives quick access to editions and often images of papyri. The Trismegistos portal and its subdomains offer all its riches for subscribers, but there is plenty to find in open access. Multispectral imaging for papyri is shown at JSTOR in a digital collection created by the Brigham Young University

General information, portals and lists

The English Wikipedia features a list of jail and prison museums worldwide, with however mainly museums in the United Kingdom and North America. In the National Register of Historic Places, a website of the U.S. National Park Service, you can search for museums in historical buildings, including former court houses, jails and prisons.

The International Commission for University Museums and Collections of the International Council of Museums has a database in which you can find a number of museums for criminology, collections for the history of forensic medicine, and a number of former university prisons, in particular in Germany.

In the Federation of International Human Rights Museums a number of museums worldwide are represented which are dedicated to the history of human rights, the abolition of slavery and the memory of genocide. A number of similar institutions is to be found at the website of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (interface in four languages). The website Gedenkorte Europa 1939-1945 offers links to more places of memory in Europe concerning the Second World War. For Latin America and the Caribbean exists the Red de Sitios de Memoria Latinoamericanos y Caribeños. A number of memorials to dictatorial regimes can be traced at the website of then project After Dictatorship (Universität Würzburg).