Tucked away along one of Minneapolis' picturesque lakes, the Bakken Museum is a quirky celebration of human creativity and ingenuity with a backstory that's nearly as fascinating.
The museum is themed, quite loosely, around electricity. Exhibits include the history of electric-powered medical devices, such as prosthetics and pacemakers. Visitors can try out recreations of some of Ben Franklin's experiments with static electricity, though do heed warnings about how to avoid shocks.
That real-world science bleeds into fiction in the room featuring early experiments that likely helped inspire Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. A genuinely spooky theatrical presentation of the story is fully animatronic, fittingly including a creature brought to life by the power of electricity.
That the whole museum is contained within a gorgeous Gothic/Tudor mansion surrounded by gardens only adds to its charm, as does the story of how the Bakken came to be. Since its construction in 1930, the house has had several owners, including Richard Cornelius, the inventor of the beer tap. Earl Bakken, who invented the world's first wearable pacemaker, bought the place in 1976 and began using it to display his collection of early electro-medical artifacts.
Unorthodox and memorable, the Bakken Museum celebrates the spark of imagination that brings new ideas to life, whether in a lab or on the page.
The post Review: Ben Franklin, Frankenstein, and the Wonders of Electricity appeared first on Reason Magazine.
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