Museums in Motion Today
Understanding and Interpreting the American
Experience
in World War I
Leaning In to Teachable Moments
If You Are Slowly Improving Citizens,
You Get a Better City
Why Historical Societies Need Experts,
Even When It Hurts
TRANSFORM AND EXPAND THE WAY YOUR HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS ARE VIEWED, ACCESSED AND UTILIZED. AND LET YOUR HISTORY INFORM THE FUTURE.
www.historyit.com
Contents
PAGE
19
SUMMER 2017 VOLUME 72, #3
PAGE
24
PAGE
7 Departments 3 On Doing Local History By Carol Kammen
5 The Whole is Greater
Features
By Ken Turino and Bob Stewart
35 AASLH News
The Little Compton Historical Society uses a misidentified portrait to help visitors understand issues of curation
7 Understanding and Interpreting the American Experience in World War I Jennifer D. Keene
12 Steve Lubar Ruins Everything: Why Historical Societies Need Experts, Even When It Hurts
and authenticity.
By Marjory O’Toole
19 If You Are Slowly Improving Citizens, You Get a Better City By Heidi Legg and Marieke Van Damme
By Ashley Bouknight
33 Book Reviews
ON THE COVER
24 Museums in Motion Today By Juilee Decker
28 Leaning In to Teachable Moments
Photo Bart Brownell
INSIDE: TECHNICAL LEAFLET
Students and Community Organizations: Creating Productive Partnerships By Anne Lindsay
By Dina A. Bailey
History News is a publication of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). History News exists to foster publication, scholarly research, and an open forum for discussion of best practices, applicable theories, and professional experiences pertinent to the field of state and local history. THE MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY
EDITOR Bob Beatty | MANAGING EDITOR Aja Bain | ADVERTISING Darah Fogarty DESIGN Go Design, LLC: Gerri Winchell Findley, Suzanne Pfeil
History News (ISSN0363-7492) is published quarterly by American Association for State and Local History, 2021 21st Avenue S., Suite 320, Nashville, TN 37212. Periodicals Postage Paid at Nashville, Tennessee. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to History News, 2021 21st Avenue S., Suite 320, Nashville, TN 37212. Article manuscripts dealing with all aspects of public history are welcome, including current trends, timely issues, and best practices for professional development and the overall improvement of the history field, particularly articles that give a fresh perspective to traditional theories, in-depth case studies that reveal applicable and relevant concepts, and subject matter that has the ability to resonate throughout all levels of the field. For information on article submissions and review, see about.aaslh.org/history-news. Single copies are $10. Postmaster, send form 3579 to History News, AASLH, 2021 21st Avenue S., Suite 320, Nashville, TN 37212. Periodical postage paid in Nashville, Tennessee. Entire contents copyrighted ©2017 by the American Association for State and Local History. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the American Association for State and Local History.
2021 21st Avenue S., Suite 320 Nashville, Tennessee 37212 615-320-3203 Fax 615-327-9013 membership@aaslh.org advertising@aaslh.org www.aaslh.org
From the Editor
n his best-selling book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, Tom Nichols decries what he views as one of the salient issues facing our nation—a disdain for expertise. Experts, he writes, are “people who know considerably more on a subject than the rest of us, and are those to whom we turn when we need advice, education, or solutions in a particular area of human knowledge.” They are, he argues, “More often right than wrong, especially on essential matters of fact.”1 The authors in this issue of History News implore us to listen closely to experts in our own work. Carol Kammen cites experts who study community building and suggests an intentional move to develop into Third Places for our citizens. Marieke Van Damme has turned the Cambridge Historical Society into such a place, helping her community learn to think like historians. Jennifer Keene, a historian of World War I, suggests how a deeper examination of the Great War provides much context for today’s America and the world. Juilee Decker excerpts one of the canonical texts of the museum profession, Museums in Motion—adding the insight of today’s museum professionals to that of Ed Alexander’s original book. Dina A. Bailey shares her experience and expertise in facilitating a potentially volatile conversation, urging us all to focus on empathy. Marjory O’Toole most directly addresses expertise. In her article, O’Toole recounts how experts (in this case
historians) have dispelled some of the most valued myths of her organization and its collections. But in doing so, she notes, these experts have improved her organization for the better. In his book, Tom Nichols cites many reasons for what he dubs an active resentment of experts. Democracies themselves, he maintains, are prone to challenges to established knowledge. This relentless questioning of orthodoxy is what makes them democratic. Yet, Nichols argues, this unrelenting skepticism can be dangerous when it leads to a rejection of all expertise. This is where history organizations come in. As O’Toole notes in her article, “Experts…doubt. They investigate. They choose words carefully. They respectfully disagree. And they actively seek those elusive bits of evidence that may lead the field closer to the truth.” We are in the business of expertise. We should claim the expert’s space in community dialogue and we should teach our communities to do likewise. This is a noble goal, one I believe we are well positioned to reach.
AASLH
I
Bob Beatty 1 Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 23, 28.
Editor’s Note: “A National Civics Lesson,” Carol Kammen’s “On Doing Local History” column in the Spring History News, struck a chord with our readers, and we are including some of those responses here.
Dear Ms. Kammen, I read your “A National Civics Lesson” article in AASLH’s History News and just had to write to you to tell you how much I enjoyed it. My team at the Old State House and I could not agree more that most Americans know little about history and civics/government, and that we as museums must be stronger advocates and teachers of both. I appreciated your analysis of 2016 Leadership in History Award recipients and how their projects could be tweaked to focus on teaching both history and civics. In 2015, my colleagues and I launched Connecticut’s Kid Governor, a statewide civics program for fifth graders that features the annual election of a youth governor. Timed to coincide with Election Day in November, the program offers each school in Connecticut the opportunity to enter one student candidate into a statewide election that other fifth graders vote in. Classes can vote in the election, nominate a classmate to run for office, or both. Toolkits of inclass lessons guide teachers and students through the program. We are very proud of how this program marries civics, history, and an inspiration for civic action among kids.
2
SUMMER 2017
Program participation quadrupled between our 2015-16 pilot year and this past year, and we look forward to growing the program this fall. In fact, we are now preparing to pilot Kid Governor in other states with the hope of having a nationwide program with affiliates in all fifty states in the coming years. Hopefully we can pilot the program in New York in the future! Thanks for being such a strong advocate for civics and history! —BRIAN COFRANCESCO, HARTFORD, CT
Hi Carol! I wanted to tell you that your most recent column in History News really resonated with me. I can think of several exhibits I did in the past that could have very naturally incorporated constitutional principles, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. I think I probably got bogged down in the details. I’m especially thinking of one I did about the 225th anniversary of when Congress (in its early incarnation) met in Princeton for a few months. Incorporating civics concepts is such a simple and effective way to demonstrate relevance to today. Anyway, great column!
—ANNE GOSSEN, ITHACA, NY
Carol and Bob: Last week I finally had a chance to dive into the Spring 2017 issue of History News starting with “From the Editor” and “On Doing Local History: A National Civics Lesson.” I just wanted to let you know that the idea that historical institutions “engage in a national civics lesson” while exploring history narrative truly resonates for me. And Carol, I love, absolutely love, that you tested your theory on 2016 Leadership in History Award winners and found some interesting examples. I’ve scheduled time this week to draft my final “From the Chair” missive for the 2017 Leadership in History Awards program. This year as I think about the annual meeting theme I Am History, I keep mulling over a phrase I’ve used for a long time: “Telling compelling stories about enduring issues.” As happens often when I think about AASLH and the Awards Program, I think of you two and how your words and actions inspire me in my work. Thank you for all you do to stretch our colleagues’ and my brains and provide grounding for exploring compelling stories, enduring issues, and meaningful connections with history. —TRINA NELSON THOMAS, ORANGE, TX
On Doing Local History
By Carol Kammen
History Organizations as a Third Place
W
hat should a twenty-firstcentury history organization be? What should it look like? What should it do? These are important questions. These days, many history organizations are reconsidering their missions. Some are closing. Some are facing financial challenges. Some are rethinking what they do and how to go about it. Some are changing their names to “center” or “museum”—backing slightly away from the words “history” and “society.” All are in need of adapting to current conditions and expectations because there is little point in recreating something that suited the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. We should consider and discuss what might be a new model or models—or goals for the organizations we work for and love. This is a discussion to hold with the community, not just in an executive director’s office or boardroom or only with those who have supported the organization. The audience for a historical organization is the community in all its varying forms. People come to local history in a variety of ways, and from what I have observed, there is a decided uptick in interest in local history (although not all these people are coming to local history by way of historical societies). Many approach through genealogy, community issues, a local investigation: such as buying a new house or finally attempting to figure out what the stone memorial at the end of the road commemorates and who put it there. In my community, the local preservation society has done an excellent job of incorporating local historians into their communities by means of sessions called “Walk and Talk,” in which knowledgeable people speak about the history to be found when walking about our home places. This feeds a number of needs: that of sharing information by those who gather it and that of discovering the treasures underfoot by long-term residents and newcomers. There has always been an activism (boots on the ground, shoulders to the wheel, hands dirtied) associated with preservationists that his-
torians should emulate. Preservationists have managed to maintain high standards of research, provide accurate information, and involve persons in physical activities that have meaning and results. Even if a building is lost, local understanding of the built landscape rises amid the rubble. A historical organization needs to be regarded by the community as fair, open,
We should be the community coffee house, that place of discussion and inquiry and enjoyment of each other.
accessible, friendly, and welcoming. It is my belief that historical societies should be a significant third place in our communities and in our lives. In The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg discusses our need for a place other than home and office. Leo W. Jeffres and his colleagues consider these third places as, “Community centers, senior centers, coffee shops and cafes, bars and pubs, restaurants, shopping centers, stores, malls, markets, hair salons, barber and beauty shops, recreation centers, YM/WCA, pools, movie theaters, churches, schools, colleges and universities, clubs and organizations, libraries, parks and other places allowing for outdoor recreation, streets, neighbors’ yards, homes and apartments, and events like neighborhood parties, block parties, cookouts, barbecues, town meetings, bingo, and various media (online, newsletters, newspapers, phone, bulletin boards).”1 Did you notice anything missing? Unless you consider a historical organization a “club,” and I don’t, historical societies are not on the list! Yet they should be. We should be! The historical society is the community’s (curated]) attic; it should also
be the community kitchen table where conversation ensues, discussion happens, questions are asked, answers stabbed at and then researched (someone will pull out a cell phone to do so), and all this with coffee and friendship and engagement. So the big question for us is this: why are historical societies not on the list? And what do we do to be sure that the next similar list does contain us? We should be the community coffee house, that place of discussion and inquiry and enjoyment of each other. Oldenburg believes that a third place needs to be free or inexpensive. Many of the places listed above are not free, although most are open to anyone. I would amend “free and open” to say a place to which we contribute not only our bodies and skills but also support to the best of our ability. So perhaps Oldenburg and I disagree somewhat on this. Oldenburg would like to see the third place welcoming to all but peopled with regulars. Inclusive and comfortable. Yes. A third place should be neutral ground where inquiry and debate are welcomed, facts (whatever they turn out to be) are respected, and experts are listened to respectfully and challenged by knowledge known or empirically discovered. It should be a place of talk and debate. Jeffres and his colleagues would like the third place to be wholesome, a word that today sounds rather traditional, but by which they mean offering activities with meaning, with some sort of personal commitment or engagement to an ongoing connection—good for the organization and good for the individual. And here is the key: “Activities with meaning.” Isn’t that what a history organization should do, something many historical societies already are? And if they are, why is this not recognized? To circle back: is this the way historical societies are regarded? Shouldn’t we be? What other considerations are there for a local history organization? We need, obviously, to think about how to incorporate the virtual world. We walk about with phones in our hands, come directly to our mail when returning HISTORY NEWS
3
On Doing Local History > home, and talk incessantly. Virtual connotes a connection from place to place and person to person. A local historical society must also be educational—in writing this word I hear the thud of all those people who said they didn’t like history in school. They might not have liked it and that generalized dislike seems to be echoed in the short shrift history is being given in the school systems of this country. But I’ve found that those same people actually like local history. They like hearing familiar street names, they read local history in newspapers and online, they appreciate the efforts that turn local history documents into scripts for dramas, and they like knowing who lived there and there and there. Education is not a dirty word. We are the lucky ones who educate locally, where education becomes tangible and fun. “Almost like entertainment,” I hear myself saying. Our job is not really to entertain, though we do so inadvertently. Rather, it is to aid communities to see and appreciate the past, and to educate and engage individuals in the local past—questioning it, thinking about it, researching it, and then communicating it. And from there, our job is to teach others to use history to inform the present and to give us a foundation for considering future pathways. Every local historical society should have a program to educate people to become local historians who can serve, in turn, as guides to others.
A local historical society needs to be collaborative. A historical society cannot stand alone. It needs to link with other area institutions for joint promotions and programs that complement each other, leading the public from one place to another so that knowledge is expanded and is considered cumulative rather than sporadic.
…neutral ground…inquiry and debate are welcomed…facts are respected… experts are listened to respectfully… challenged by knowledge…
Local historical societies also need to collaborate regionally and within a state. Peter Feinman, who writes a local history blog, just sent notice of MASH—the Massachusetts History Alliance—which aims to advocate for public history in the state. This effort links a variety of local organizations: Mass Humanities; some faculty in the University of Massachusetts
Amherst public history program; and archivists and record keepers. It is a smart effort whose last conference theme was Igniting a Passion for History. Would that every state see this as a good model for promotion, advocacy, and collaboration. Shouldn’t we think of ourselves as an example of a Third Place? Shouldn’t others? We fit the definition. Local history is about knowledge of place and knowledge of self in place. A twenty-first-century local history organization should be an interpreted reflection of the community—a reminder of how things developed, of chances taken and those roads not trod upon; of attractions of place and of the ways it gathered people in and spewed them out. A local history organization as a third place should stand as a focal point between home and work, at the crossroads of the past and present, so that people can understand their own history in time and space. That knowledge promotes a sense of belonging, a sense of responsibility, and a sense of purpose. This is something we all need in these unsettled times. Don’t you think so? t “On Doing Local History” is intended to encourage dialogue on the essential issues of local history. Carol Kammen can be reached at ckk6@cornell.edu. 1 Leo W. Jeffres, Cheryl C. Bracken, Guowei Jian, and Mary F. Casey, “The Impact of Third Places on Community Quality of Life,” Applied Research in the Quality of Life, 4, no. 4: 333–345.
T H E A M E R I C A N A S S O C I AT I O N f o r S TAT E a n d L O C A L H I S T O R Y Acknowledges and appreciates these Endowment Donors for their extraordinary support:
Dr. William T. Alderson Society
AASLH President’s Society
Friends of the Endowment Society
Mr. Leslie H. Fishel*
$10,000 – $49,999
$5,000 – $9,999
Madison, WI
National Heritage Museum
$50,000+
Ms. Sylvia Alderson
Mr. Edward P. Alexander*
Atlanta History Center
Ms. Barbara Franco Harrisburg, PA
Nebraska State Historical Society
Atlanta, GA
Anonymous Mr. John Frisbee*
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Mr. Rick Beard
Mr. James B. Gardner
Harrisburg, PA
Washington, DC
Concord, NH
Williamsburg, VA
Mr. & Mrs. Salvatore Cilella
National Endowment for the Humanities
The J. Paul Getty Trust
Historic Annapolis Foundation
Ms. Laura Roberts & Mr. Edward Belove
Atlanta, GA
Annapolis, MD
Los Angeles, CA
Mr. & Mrs. Charles F. Bryan Jr.
Indiana Historical Society
Mr. Dennis & Ms. Trudy O’Toole
Richmond, VA
Mr. David Crosson & Ms. Natalie Hala
Ms. Sandra Sageser Clark
Ms. Terry L. Davis
Baltimore, MD
HISTORY
Mr. John & Ms. Anita Durel
Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation
Mr. Stephen Elliott
Winston–Salem, NC
Washington, DC Monticello, NM
Washington, DC
Holt, MI
New York, NY Marshalltown, IA
San Francisco, CA Nashville, TN
Baltimore, MD St. Paul, MN
Mr. Dennis Fiori Boston, MA
4
SUMMER 2017
Indianapolis, IN
Maryland Historical Society Missouri History Museum St. Louis, MO
Ms. Candace Tangorra Matelic Pawleys Island, SC
Ms. Kathleen S. & Mr. James L. Mullins Grosse Pointe Shores, MI
Lexington, MA Lincoln, NE
Cambridge, MA
Rowman & Littlefield Lanham, MD
Ms. Ruby Rogers Cincinnati, OH
Mr. Jim & Ms. Janet Vaughan Washington, DC
Mr. George L. Vogt Portland, OR
Ms. Jeanne & Mr. Bill Watson* Orinda, CA *Deceased
The Whole is Greater
By Ashley Bouknight
Have You Eaten Today?
I
have a love/hate relationship with history. I wake up each morning knowing I have an opportunity to tell the stories of those forgotten—a privilege I don’t take lightly. While my mission as a historian and curator is to provide unbiased interpretation to the masses, I can’t ignore the proverbial elephant in the room. I’m a black, queer woman who works at a former plantation. How do I work to preserve a collection in a mansion when individuals who looked like me were not even allowed in the front door? How many more smiles can I produce every time I’m vetted before I give a tour? Can I mask my anger when a visitor directs their curatorial questions to my white coworkers even though I’m the only one in the room with curator on her name tag?
How do I work to preserve a collection in a mansion when individuals who looked like me
were not even allowed in the front door? These questions represent the ugly truths for many advocates of inclusive history who are also members of marginalized groups. With long days and heavy workloads, we regularly need time to unpack these thoughts. Unfortunately, as a single mom of a toddler, I often don’t have time to tackle these issues every day. So, I learn to cope and learn to work while emotionally numb, lowering my veil from nine to five to preserve and protect the history I love. The emotional rollercoaster I experience daily is often beyond exhausting, but I press forward.
I press forward because the museum field lacks substantial inclusive representation in front of and behind exhibits. I press forward for first-generation college students who, like myself, must create from scratch their path to obtain higher education. I press forward to save the stories of dozens of grandparents that may never reach beyond sunset porch swings on a Sunday afternoon. I learned very early in my career that I am a steward of history and I must compartmentalize my emotions for the greater good to reach as many audiences as possible. Yet, no matter how determined I was to mask my emotions, I could no longer ignore my need for self-care. While I successfully finished my dissertation, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and held a full-time job, I simultaneously faced postpartum depression and severe anxiety. I was emotionally and mentally tapped out. I felt I had no energy to contribute to the history field since I had none to give to myself. Ironically, the field that wore me down was the same profession that saved my life. My colleagues in my graduate program as well as the chosen family I formed from social media platforms opened their arms to me, cried with me, and gave me a welcoming ear. I found such relief in talking to other historians about how they balanced their personal lives and careers. These relationships reminded me that connections formed in the profession don’t have to end on Friday at five o’clock. The more I interacted with these individuals, the more I wondered how we could work together to use our struggles and successes to help others. There are not enough words to express my appreciation for the support I found in several of my classmates. We gave each other critical feedback on research projects as well as celebrated major life milestones. One of my close classmates and friends was even at my bedside as I prepared to give birth to my first child. From latenight study sessions to therapeutic venting dinners, I developed a lifelong bond with people who share my love of history. Our connections and great conversations evolved into amazing conference panels
I press forward because the museum field lacks substantial inclusive representation in front of and behind exhibits.
I press forward for first-generation college students who, like myself, must create from scratch their path to obtain higher education. that connected history and social issues pertinent to our current society. In May 2016, I met professors at a local university who gave me great insight on how to manage the intersectionality of being black, queer, a woman, and a historian. We had lively discussions over hot chicken and discussed everything from trap music to transparency in community projects. I learned that I don’t have to minimize who I am to do good history and that the work benefits from walking in your truth. Our friendship led to working together on a community committee to create and promote African American history programs in Nashville. Their keen knowledge of black history in Nashville was essential in developing public programming that addressed religion, music, women, children, genealogy, and education. Each planning meeting was also an opportunity to check in with each other to make sure the work of the field didn’t weigh too heavily on our shoulders. From this committee, I also met a middle school museum curator who renewed my faith in history work. I met Lynn Edmondson during a tour of my historic site with a group of students and parents from the city’s museum magnet elementary school. While not a museum professional by training, her passion HISTORY NEWS
5
The Whole is Greater > for material culture and education was refreshing. She provided invaluable professional museum training to dozens of young students, most of them students of color. Mrs. Edmondson embodied so many of the qualities I found in the black women curators I researched while writing my dissertation. Although not classically trained in the field, these women used material culture to instill self-pride in their students. “Mrs. E” loved her students as if they were her own and taught them the importance of taking pride in themselves. I asked her to participate in the committee and was immediately glad that I made that decision. Mrs. Edmondson soon became not only a colleague but a friend and surrogate mother who loved me and challenged me to be my best self. As a member of the committee, she allowed her eighth-grade students to work with my curatorial staff to develop an online exhibit chronicling the history of the enslaved community at the Hermitage. Watching the students move effortlessly through museum methodol-
While the work we do as historians can be difficult,
remember that you are not alone in the process. ogy and curatorial theory was amazing. It was a beautiful process to witness. These moments made up for all the stress-filled days and long, sleepless nights. I saw the fire in my spirit rekindled. While the work we do as historians can be difficult, remember that you are not alone in the process. I found such
an abundance of love in this community from people who accept me just the way I am. Not only will they send a friendly reminder to stay on writing deadlines, but they call to ask, “Have you eaten today?” This simple gesture can make a world of difference after you’ve spent hours buried in books and manuscripts. During a conversation with Shannon Haltiwanger, a fellow member of the AASLH awards committee, she stated, “I spent so much time curating the lives of others that I realized I never curated my own.” Shannon’s ability to be vulnerable with a person she met only two days prior was powerful. Although she was the one venting, her words also gave me a sense of relief. Her moment of transparency was confirmation that, as historians, we need self-care, but we also need each other. t Dr. Ashley Bouknight is the Curator at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage and the Museum Instructional Designer at Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary School in Nashville. She can be reached on Twitter at @NicNat_artifakz.
™
The PerfectFit Kit…moving painting storage perfected. Meeting the evolving storage needs of today’s private and corporate collections, conservation labs, historic houses and art museums.
PerfectFit
PerfectFit™ is provided as an easy-to-assemble kit that fits perfectly into even small environments. Site-erectable by two individuals, collectors can now utilize space previously unusable. The PerfectFit™ kit requires no loading dock or freight elevator. And the legacy of CSI Moving Painting Storage systems is built into every facet of its aerospace aluminum design. TM
Painting Storage Systems
PerfectFit™ may be just the perfect kit for you. Contact us today.
Please Visit Us at the Annual Meeting in Detroit
6
SUMMER 2017
For More Information about PerfectFit, please visit www.csistorage.com
1401 Lincoln Avenue • Holbrook, New York 11741 USA Tel: 1-631-467-0090 • Fax: 1-631-467-0061 info@csistorage.com • www.csistorage.com
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
1919 poster advertising the YWCA division for foreign-born women.
Understanding and Interpreting the American Experience in World War I
By Jennifer D. Keene
D
espite a decade of intense scholarship devoted to the American experience of World War I, most Americans possess only a hazy understanding of the war or its significance for the United States. So why not leave it there? Why bother with this history lesson?
HISTORY NEWS
7
During these centennial years, public interest has increased, but curators cannot rely on visitors to arrive with the same baseline knowledge they have of the Civil War or World War II. Mentioning Gettysburg or Pearl Harbor will evoke knowing nods from visitors. Meuse-Argonne is likely to be met with a blank stare. What Americans do know about World War I often tends to reflect the British, rather than American experience—especially the image of stalemated trench warfare punctuated by mindless charges into withering machine-gun fire. Americans, in fact, fought along the Western Front in 1918 when a war of movement had resumed. American soldiers certainly spent time in the trenches, but there was no repeat of the 1916 Battles of the Somme or Verdun in the American experience of war. And even a limited understanding of the war has room for myths. The shorthand version is that in this brief war Americans put aside their differences and pulled together, won the war for the Allies at little cost, then quickly determined the war had been a mistake and forgot all about it. As recent scholarship reveals, these are oversimplifications that downplay the war’s importance to the United States and the generation of Americans who lived through it. The story is much richer, and museums and libraries have an opportunity to reveal both how the war impacted their communities and why this history remains relevant today. We not only live in an America shaped by World War I; we also face many of the same dilemmas. As the centennial of the war’s end approaches, interpreters and curators have a wonderful opportunity to share the Great War story with their communities in a variety of ways, and to bring history closer to home through objects, photographs, and stories that resonate. Here are four key concepts for understanding and interpreting the events of World War I in a local context, while highlighting these contemporary parallels and dispelling myths and misunderstandings.
8
SUMMER 2017
Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
S
imply put, there are striking parallels between the problems Americans faced in 1917-18 and the challenges we face now. How do we balance protecting national security with civil liberties? Is it appropriate for Americans to continue to debate a war once the fighting has begun? Are immigrants importing terrorism? Do Americans have a responsibility to participate in global humanitarianism? Can soldiers ever convey to those at home the reality of what they’ve encountered on the battlefield? Can they ever leave the war behind? Americans grappled with these issues in World War I, and these are once again relevant questions for a society at war.
1918 print of a family surrounded by patriotic symbols.
Americans’ First Response: Humanitarianism For years, standard accounts of the American experience dated U.S. involvement from the declaration of war on April 6, 1917. New investigations, however, reveal that from the opening days of the European war in 1914, Americans were involved in rendering humanitarian aid to the civilian victims of war.1 As a nation of immigrants, numerous communities immediately fixated on how their homelands were faring. The German invasions into Belgium, France, and Russia created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis as refugees fled advancing armies or lived under harsh military occupation regimes. Publicity over civilians’ plights generated widespread sympathy, and the Red Cross and Commission for Relief in Belgium organized massive relief missions to afflicted areas beginning in 1914. The tightening British blockade eventually caused near-starvation conditions in Germany, and German-American aid societies likewise undertook relief missions. Far from the diplomatic discussions that dominated discourse in Washington, D.C., Americans in rural, suburban, and urban communities organized to support these endeavors. Artifacts can poignantly evoke the financial and emotional involvement in the war that humanitarianism generated among everyday Americans. In 1915, Kansas state politicians praised residents for filling the hold of a ship headed
Civil Liberties and Coercive Volunteerism Not every story about World War I is so inspirational, however. Americans understood that there was an enormous difference between choosing to help Belgian civilians by sending flour while the nation was neutral, and supporting the national war effort once our country entered the fray. The decision to fight was controversial, and the government moved immediately to stamp out dissent with both the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918. These laws criminalized aiding the enemy, but also punished speaking out against the draft and the war. Americans wor-
ried about the assault on free speech, yet were also aware that during the period of neutrality, German saboteurs had planted bombs in American factories and ships to disrupt trade with Britain. In 1916, German agents blew up the Black Tom munitions depot on the Hudson River, the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until 9/11. The blast was so strong that shrapnel damaged the Statue of Liberty and windows shattered in lower Manhattan, close to the site of the future World Trade Center. Besides geographic proximity, Black Tom and 9/11 reveal similar struggles to balance civil liberties with the demands of national security. In the wake of 9/11, the surveillance power given to the government was deemed by many as a necessary evil to protect the nation. Many Americans expressed similar views of the Espionage and Sedition Acts when they were passed. To raise a mass army capable of fighting on the Western Front, the government turned to conscription rather than relying on volunteers. Several governmental agencies, however, relied on volunteerism to mobilize the homefront economy. Almost overnight, the visual landscape of American society changed, with government-sponsored propaganda posters entreating citizens to buy liberty bonds, report suspicious activities, conserve food, and knit socks. Propaganda posters tell this story quite effectively, but our tendency to display these posters as individual pictures fails to replicate the ways that Americans experienced them. They covered walls, billboards, storefronts; were placed in school rooms, offices, and churches; and were reproduced in newspapers, magazines, and advertising.3 In Cleveland, Ohio, for instance, a huge “Food Will Win the War” sign dwarfed an array of smaller propaganda posters pasted along the park’s perimeter. The urban landscape had become a canvas to decorate with symbols of patriotic sacrifice. Propaganda posters and patriotic images completely saturated public spaces, and today’s museums can consciously emulate this feeling of omnipresence by displaying posters en masse Propaganda takes over Public Square in Cleveland, Ohio. rather than in isolation. Americans actively participated in refashioning public and private spaces to demonstrate support for the war, and scholars have recently wondered whether “voluntary” correctly describes this phenomenon. Fostering a patriotic war culture meant much more than merely requiring dissenters to remain silent. Active and enthusiastic support was expected, cultivated, and, in many communities, policed by friends and neighbors. The Food Administration’s successful food pledge card campaign offers an instructive example. Women were asked to sign a pledge card agreeing to abide by Food Administration regulations to conserve certain foodstuffs, and in return, they received two placards. One was a list of HISTORY NEWS
National Archives
Kansas Historical Society
to Rotterdam with sacks of flour to feed starving Belgians. Months later, Belgian women sent the flour sacks back to Topeka. Rather than asking for more flour, Belgian woman had embroidered the sacks and returned them as gifts to thank the city for its generosity. They went on display in storefront windows, reminding residents that their aid was wanted and appreciated. The embroidered sack on this page bears the flags of Belgium, France, and the United States, and a ribbon with the words “Dieu bénisse nos Bienfaiteurs” (God Blesses Our Benefactors). Other communities received similarly ornate sacks, and news of their arrival generated newspaper stories from New York to San Francisco. Beyond flour sacks, many museum collections hold letter books of school children “God Blesses Our Benefactors.” exchanging letters with their “adopted” European orphans; pins or medals worn by civilians who donated to relief efforts in Belgium and France; articles in local newspapers about community aid campaigns; and maps advertising which localities were the most generous givers. These artifacts of aid and charity challenge the notion of the war as a brief, relatively unimportant overseas adventure for Americans by beginning the story in 1914 rather than 1917. As John Branden Little points out, nearly $6 billion in relief traveled from the U.S. to Europe from 1914 to 1924, and this unprecedented humanitarian campaign popularized the idea that Americans should engage in private overseas philanthropy to fulfill their duties as global citizens. It is a trend that continues to this day, with private donations for overseas aid far outpacing governmental aid, according to the Almanac of American Philanthropy. This was the moment that Americans came to accept that donating to relief efforts enhanced the international reputation of the United States, and drawing these connections in interpretation underscores the relevancy of World War I’s legacy of giving.2
9
SUMMER 2017
Statistics convey the monumental scale of human involvement in the First World War. The German army numbered 11 million, with 1.7 million killed; the British Empire raised 8.9 million troops and registered 1.3 million dead; France and the French Empire put 8.4 million men in uniform and 1.3 million were gone by the end of the war. In comparison, the American effort seems much smaller and less costly. Overall, 4.3 million Americans served in the war and 116,000 died from both the deadly 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic and six fierce months of combat. For all that, compared to Europe, the United States seems barely bloodied. Yet it is a mistake to discount the combat experience of American soldiers in World War Investing in victory with I. In a war that lasted a year and Liberty Bonds. a half for the United States, the nation suffered more casualties than in Korea and Vietnam, both much longer wars. Few Americans know that the United States fought the bloodiest battle in its history, the Meuse-Argonne offensive, during World War I. This battle raged from September 29 to November 11, 1918, involved 1.2 million American soldiers, and left 26,000 killed and nearly 100,000 wounded. In this battle, American soldiers left the trenches and advanced nearly thirty miles against heavily defended German lines. The high casualty rate reflected the hilly, wooded terrain along the twenty-fourmile front flanked by the Meuse River and the Argonne forest. The quick pace of developments in the fall of 1918 also required Americans to fight a major offensive well before their commander, General John J. Pershing, had expected. Consequently, the Americans’ inexperience in logistics, combined arms, and troop maneuvers made the eventual victory costly. Much recent scholarship investigates this battle history, and the multitude of personal artifacts that American soldiers brought home from the battlefield offer a chance to remind the public of this significant moment in American military history.5 For the soldiers living through the war, high or low numbers fail to convey the intensity and life-changing aspects of their experience. Artillery and gas were two of the mainstays of the soldiers’ experience along the Western Front. Chemical weapons never delivered on their initial promise to end trench deadlock. Instead, gas became another weapon used to hold the line that made an already miserable situation even worse. Numerous artifacts illuminate what gas warfare meant for American soldiers, including trench rattles, gas masks, instruction booklets, and photographs. Trench rattles produced a loud clacking sound, alerting soldiers to don their gas masks. Hopefully the men had read the distributed booklets on gas defense, which told them
National Archives
Fighting the War
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University
versity Library, Cornell Uni Collections, Kroch and Manuscript Division of Rare
10
foods to conserve and suggestions for how to make do with less, while the second was a sign to hang in the window to advertise one’s participation to passersby. Millions of women signed these pledges and displayed these cards, but did they do so entirely voluntarily? If they refused, they could expect a visit from a local woman’s committee and certainly questions from their neighbors about their decision to opt out. A guarantee that the meals cooked inside the home complied with government rules. The signs were everywhere, but consumption of meat (meant to be conserved) went up, not down, during the war, the result of workers making higher wages in a wartime economy operating at full capacity.4 Buying a liberty bond was also a public, rather than private, act. One poster hinted at the potential social ostracizing of those who refused to buy liberty bonds as Uncle Sam collared a man to demand, “Where’s Your ‘Liberty Bond’ Button?” If peer pressure failed, violence was an alternative tactic. A wave of forced “flag kissings” swept the country, whereby reluctant liberty bond purchasers or those suspected of pro-German feelings (often men whose last names sounded Germanic) were dragged out into public and made to kiss the flag and sing a patriotic song. tration’s Food The Food Adminis Yet one generalization should not Pledge. replace another. While enthusiasm for the war was often more cultivated than spontaneous, Americans had many other reasons to support the war besides just a desire to avoid the scorn of their neighbors. Liberty bonds were good investments, community events were fun, and seeing soldiers march off to war was exciting in towns where not much happened. Having a son in the service was reason enough to hang a service flag with a blue star in the window. The government urged families to change the blue star to gold if their relative Where’s Your “Liberty Bond” died, forgoing the traditional button? Your Money Must Win ritual of draping windows the War. and doors with black crepe. Expecting the death toll to be high, government officials worried about declining civilian morale if a walk down the street meant passing house after house swathed in black rather than patriotic trimmings.
Jennifer Keene
to wait until the all-clear signal before removing them. Unfortunately, photographs of men with bandaged eyes awaiting transport to the rear-area hospitals indicate that these preventative measures often failed. Artillery bombardments comprised the other enduring characteristic of warfare along the Western Front, ranging from annoying daily harassment in quiet sectors to unending shelling in active sectors. Steel helmets, the essential part of every American soldier’s kit, convey the dangers artillery posed. In 2015, I curated an exhibit with my students at Chapman University entitled To Arms: The Western Front, 1914-1918, and we struggled with how to portray the experience of the trenches. Unlike major museums, we couldn’t recreate an actual trench, and the placement of our display cases made sound recordings impossible. Instead, we arranged the helmets from different nations in a line alongside a periscope To Arms: The Western Front, 1914-1918. to represent the top of the trench. We placed a photo of No Man’s Land above and another image of helmeted men scurrying along a trench below to convey the scene within and outside the trenches. The letters soldiers wrote home also offer insights into the experiences of combatants. Officials considered letter writing essential to maintaining morale within the ranks and on the home front, but censorship limited what soldiers could discuss. Besides letters, the scores of postcards sent home offer visual records of soldiers’ travels within the U.S. and overseas. Postcards with pre-printed messages were quite popular, helping busy or semi-literate soldiers stay in touch with worried relatives. Soldiers likewise drew tremendous comfort and reassurance from the letters they received, happy to hear that they were loved and missed. The volume of letters and packages traversing the globe during the war was truly staggering. The U.S. Post Office alone handled nearly thirty-five million letters and fifteen million parcels addressed to soldiers, who in turn sent over fifteen million letters home.6 Often the letters written after November 11, 1918, offer the most detailed descriptions of combat. With the announcement of the Armistice, censorship was lifted and soldiers could share openly what they had seen, felt, and done. The public was thirsty for this information, and many of these letters were published in local newspapers. Writing to a Pennsylvania newspaper, one American soldier warned his neighbors of the changes they would see in men who had endured artillery barrages on the Western Front. “Some men who went through the big barrage still show the effects of it. Let a door slam, and a big healthy man will jump as if stung.” Many men, he suggested, would bring the war home with them.7
Remembering the War World War I is often called the forgotten war for the United States, but forgetting is a recent phenomenon. In the immediate aftermath, Americans rushed to commemorate what they expected to be the most significant event of their lifetimes. Across the nation, towns erected monuments, but also dedicated “living” memorials to the memory of the war, including stadiums, meeting halls, libraries, schools, parks, streets, and bridges. World War I is a war lost in plain sight. Many of these locally funded memorials remain and are just waiting for their communities to uncover the sustained efforts devoted to remembering the war in the 1920s and 1930s. Efforts on the federal level mirrored local endeavors. The government erected the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery to honor those who went missing in action. Nearly 70 percent of families chose to have the bodies of the identified dead returned home for burial in local cemeteries. The rest were interred in eight national cemeteries, and government-funded pilgrimages allowed the mothers of the fallen to visit their graves in the early 1930s. The willingness of the government to pay for these trips at the height of the Great Depression illustrates the ongoing importance of the war to Americans in the interwar period. After 1941, bigger and more controversial wars pushed World War I into the background. Americans today struggle to understand our place in a war that we often think of as a European or British affair, or that our nation was only briefly involved in, one with had no long-lasting effects on our culture. A deeper comprehension of the war is necessary if we are going to responsibly and sensitively interpret it, and properly take advantage of the centennial to demonstrate how the concerns of the World War I era are remarkably close to ones we face in our own time. t Jennifer D. Keene is a specialist in American military experience during World War I. She is currently President of the Society of Military History. She is also a general editor for the 1914-1918-online, peer-reviewed online encyclopedia, www.1914-1918-online.net. She can be reached at keene@chapman.edu. 1 John Branden Little, “Band of Crusaders: American Humanitarians, the Great War, and the Remaking of the World,” (Ph.D. diss. University of California, Berkley, 2009); Julia F. Irwin, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 2 “Statistics,” Almanac of American Philanthropy, www.philanthropyroundtable. org/almanac/statistics/#a. 3 Pearl James, “Citizen-Consumers in the American Iconosphere During World War I,” in World War I and American Art, ed. Robert Cozzolino, Anne Classen Knutson, and David M. Lubin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). 4 Christopher Capozzola, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 5 Mark E. Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Edward G. Lengel, To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2008). 6 “Special Passport for a Postal Employee,” Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution, postalmuseum.si.edu/collections/object-spotlight/special-passport.html. 7 Pennsylvanian Voices of the Great War: Letters, Stories, and Oral Histories of World War I, ed. J. Stuart Richards (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2002).
HISTORY NEWS
11
e v e t S r a : b g u n i L eryth v E s uin
s e i t y Wh l Socie a , c s i t r r o e Hist ed Exp Ne en
h W n s t e r v u E It H
T
B y M a r j o r y O ’ To o l e
he first thing Steven Lubar, Professor of American Studies, History, and History of Art and Architecture at Brown University, ruined for the Little Compton Historical Society was Benjamin Church’s sword. Benjamin Church’s son Thomas wrote that his father was the first and only Englishman to build a house in Little Compton in 1675, and we believe that to be true. Benjamin Church was a key figure in King Philip’s War, and both local and university historians have written a great deal about him. Church descendants have lived in Little Compton (once part of Massachusetts and now Rhode Island) for generations, right up until today. Decades ago, a group of descendants gave the historical society a sword they believed was Benjamin’s. A list of their names is included in the object file, and a volunteer wrote a note that has stayed with the sword ever since 1978: “This sword is presented to the Little Compton Historical Society by the direct descendants of Benjamin Church and their spouses.”
12
SUMMER 2017
If you read the note carefully, it doesn’t actually say the sword was Benjamin’s, but the historical society accepted the gift, its provenance, and its implied ownership at face value. For years, we were very happy to have Benjamin Church’s sword in our collection and displayed it on numerous occasions. Enter Steve Lubar. Steve lives in Little Compton. For more than a decade, he has been a wonderful volunteer for the historical society, sometimes advising on our most important research projects, sometimes setting up tents, whatever was needed at the moment. One day in 2011, I mentioned that we had Benjamin Church’s sword, and Steve didn’t believe me. He sent a photo of the sword to his colleague Robert Woosnam-Savage, Curator of European Edged Weapons at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, England. Within a few days we received this response: The sword, going by the accompanying image, appears to be of “early” American manufacture and is of a type which has been described as an “American Cutlass.” The hilt is of typical simple hand-forged construction, with a wooden cylindrical grip, round guard of iron, and flat, thin knuckle-guard, which seems to spread to form an integral “pommelcap.” The straight blade appears to have a simple fuller running for most of its length.
Bart Brownell
R
Left:
Steve Lubar examines a late-eighteenthcentury sword previously misidentified as belonging to seventeenth-century military leader Benjamin Church. Right:
Bart Brownell
Lubar examines shackles misidentified as slave shackles by the descendants of an abolitionist.
I
t’s Steve Lubar’s fault that this new scholarship concerning the sword came to us, because we would never have sought it out on our own. Quite frankly, we were happier with the Benjamin Church legend, and no one at the historical society would have thought to ask a curator in Great Britain for help. This is where university historians and other experts—curators and specialists, for example—excel, not just in adding their personal expertise, but in questioning assumptions, challenging legends, and, when their own knowledge and experience is not enough, knowing where to look for answers (even globally!). This is where we, a small historical society with the equivalent of one and a half employees and many great volunteers, have trouble keeping up. The Little Compton Historical Society is eighty years old this year. Our headquarters, the 227-year-old Wilbor House, is the town’s only museum. Located at the end of a small peninsula, Little Compton managed to escape aggressive development and still appears today much like one expects a New England village to look, complete with a white church on the commons. Our former executive director, Carlton Brownell, used to say that we had more Mayflower descendants than Plymouth. Though small, the organization has a long history of modest successes: a fine historic house museum, a well-kept collection, a series of local history publications, popular special exhibitions, and a loyal membership that makes sure the lights stay on and the roof gets shingled when necessary. One reason for these successes is that we are not shy about asking for help from the community, especially from individuals with expertise: graphic artists, carpenters, accountants, and, on occasion, historians. When we learned that Steve Lubar had recently moved to Little Compton, we invited him to visit, and he did. He kept visiting, and pretty soon he ruined the sword. The sword isn’t the only thing he has ruined for us. Most recently, he ruined a set of slave shackles. Last year, our special exhibition told the story of local enslavement and freedom. We had some wonderful, well researched stories to tell, but we didn’t have very many objects to display. The South County Museum in Narragansett, Rhode Island, generously offered to lend us a set of shackles, labeled “Slave Shackles,” from their collection. Excellent documentation accompanied them. Sarah Burleigh had given the shackles to the South County Museum in the 1940s. She reported that they had been taken out of a warehouse in Providence many years before and given to her father-in-law George
Such swords would appear to have been quite common aboard European and American ships during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, until about 1785, and were used to counter enemies, pirates, or mutiny. Therefore, I am afraid to say that it would be extremely unlikely, if not impossible, for a sword of this type to have been carried by Benjamin Church, Massachusetts Indian fighter, during the 1670s! Of course, you may still wish to exhibit the sword, but pointing out how “mythical” accretions often become associated with various historical items. Please do bear in mind that the above comments are based solely upon the attached image, as I stated above.
The sword was ruined, or at least the story of the sword was ruined, and it was really the story that had made the sword a treasured object for our organization. Losing that story hurt more than just a little, but now we were smarter, and a little closer to understanding the truth—always good things. As Dr. Woosn am-Savage suggested, now we could tell a different, better story about the ways local myths and legends can and should be set aside whenever new scholarship is available.
HISTORY NEWS
13
Bart Brownell
happy to believe we had Benjamin Church’s sword, we were very happy to believe we had John Simmons’s childhood portrait. I deeply regret not documenting this specialist’s visit more carefully, my only excuse being that I was still fairly new at my job, and someone other than I arranged her visit. Though I did not record her name, I remember her conclusions very well. The expert studied the clothing of the child in the painting and the pleats on the arm of the sofa on which he sat, and within a few minutes said, “Sorry, not John Simmons.” The presumed date of the painting, based on clothing and furniture styles, and John’s birth date just didn’t match. That hurt, too. Through the years, our tour guides have told thousands of visitors that the painting was of John Simmons, one of Little Compton’s favorite sons, and in less than five minutes an expert ruined that story. In hindsight, it made perfect sense. How could a working-class family (John’s father was a shipbuilder who had lost an arm in the Revolution) with seven children pay to have portraits done, and more importantly, why would the painting of their only famous child be the one to survive and make its way to the local historical society? It was too good to be true, and it was. Of course, we have stopped telling people that the painting is of John Simmons, but we still have the opportunity to talk about Simmons and his accomplishments when we tell visitors the even more interesting story of how we learned we were wrong, and how details in paintings can hold clues to more authentic histories. In some cases, we are not quite ready to give up on a story completely, but experts have opened our eyes to the need for further study. Jane Kamensky, Professor of History and the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, has almost ruined my belief in the wonderful local theory that Newport gravestone carver John Stevens dramatically changed his carving style when he was in his seventies. Kamensky shared with me that colonial artisans rarely changed their styles late in life, and that it is much more likely that one or more apprentices in Stevens’s shop was responsible for the change. She may very well be right, but having read Vincent Luti’s excellent book on the Stevens shop, I’m still not ready to discount his far more interesting story of an elderly father apprenticing and learning new skills alongside his eldest son. It would really hurt to give up that theory. Luti put an enormous amount of research into developing it, and the Rhode Island
Above:
The 1876 patent date on the shackles prove that they were not slave shackles, but the story of their misidentification helps illustrate how slavery was misremembered in the North.
Burleigh, an abolitionist poet. This was a remarkable coincidence. Narragansett is more than an hour away from Little Compton, but Sarah and George Burleigh were Little Compton people. I knew their histories well. Now, rather than displaying an object from another community as a visceral reminder of Below: the horrors of slavery, I could use the This unique gravestone object to make an authentic connection carving may represent a transitional moment to our local community. from John Stevens’s Steve was curious about the shackles. “Hanging-Tooth Skull” I showed them to him shortly after design to his “Pointytheir arrival in Little Compton, and in Chinned Angel.” about thirty seconds he found a patent date of 1876. They were not slave shackles. That ruined my plans to display them as a symbolic gift given to Little Compton’s bestknown abolitionist, but it opened the door to something much more meaningful, a display in the exhibit that helped people understand how we have misremembered northern slavery and have created false legends around objects like these shackles. Having been a student of Steve’s and other university historians for the last few years, I like to think that I’ve learned from them the value of questioning things, and even without his prompting, would have been a little suspicious of the shackles, suspicious enough to check them out. They looked awfully new, carefully manufactured, and quite different from the well-documented, colonial-era slave shackles I had recently seen on display at Brown University. But to check them out, I would have still needed an expert. Other people like Steve have also been ruining things for the historical society during the last decade. In 2008, a specialist on New England’s itinerant painters came to the Wilbor House to look at our portrait of a young John Simmons, the founder of Simmons College in Boston. Simmons was born in Little Compton. He died here, too, in the home of his sister, Comfort Sisson. A past president of the historical society had bought the painting from a local woman whose aunt was a Simmons, and just as we were
14
SUMMER 2017
Bart Brownell
Historic Cemetery Commission’s extensive database is based (at least in part) on it.1 So as I cling to the hope that it is true, and that someone will find some indisputable evidence soon, Kamensky has done me and the historical society a great service by firmly planting a seed of doubt. Now, whenever I work with the hundreds of Little Compton gravestones produced by the Stevens shop, I’m going to think more critically and be The Betty Alden Spoon more precise in what I write, is on permanent display more like an academic historian. in the Wilbor House Experts like Kamensky doubt. Museum. It was found They investigate. They choose under a hearthstone in the 1880s and words carefully. They respectis believed to have fully disagree. And they actively belonged to the first seek those elusive bits of evidence white girl born in New that may lead the field closer to England. the truth. It is rare that we at historical societies, who need to wear a variety of hats in our small organizations, can achieve a level of expertise in anything but our local histories, but many of these good academic practices are within our reach. We can be more skeptical, more cautious, more evidence driven, but sometimes it takes an outside expert to prompt us to be so. Each of these “ruinous” events took a valued object or idea away from the Little Compton Historical Society and, in turn, from our audience. We lost Ben Church’s sword, John Simmons’s portrait, and the authenticity of the slave shackles. We also lost the firmness of our belief about our local gravestone carver. It’s nice to have treasured objects related to famous men and women or important historical events, but the treasures have no value if their stories cannot hold up to expert scrutiny and, of course, if they’re not true. The stories we’re left with as the result of this scrutiny may not be as interesting as our original local legends, but they are more important because they are true. When we share them with our audiences, we can also share the challenges and complications of doing, and redoing, local history. Opening our organizations up to experts, inviting them in, asking for their help, showing them our work and our collection, warts and all, has hurt a little bit, because we haven’t always gotten things right. Experts notice that and ask us to do better, but once those little wounds heal, we are stronger and smarter. The experts I have mentioned received little or nothing in return for working with us, only our thanks. I hope this is not always the case. As historical societies become more comfortable exposing their work to expert scrutiny and Marjory O’Toole
produce more and more authentic histories, I hope experts will become more open to incorporating our work into theirs. I think that my historical society, and others, can offer many things of value to experts: fascinating objects, undiscovered collections, a place to send graduate students for practica, a source for local examples to support their arguments, a guided tour of a landscape integral to their work, or even a review of their article before publication to ensure they have navigated the minutiae of small town histories without error. Who but a local would know that there were once seven different Thomas Churches in Little Compton? The Little Compton Historical Society recently invited Steve Lubar to join our board of directors, and he accepted. We like having a professor of history, a professional curator, and a public humanitarian working among us. (Steve is also quite tall, so he is very good at setting up tents!) But we wonder what he’ll ruin next. I’m thinking about showing him Betty Alden’s spoon, and I think I already know what he is going to say.2 t Marjory O’Toole has been the full-time Managing Director of the Little Compton Historical Society for a little over a decade. She is also a master’s candidate in the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities at Brown University. She can be reached at lchistory@littlecompton.org. 1 See Vincent Luti, Mallet & Chisel: Gravestone Carvers of Newport, Rhode Island in the Eighteenth Century (Boston: New England Historic and Genealogical Society, 2002). 2 Elizabeth Alden Pabodie is believed to be the first white girl born in New England. After King Philip’s War, she, her husband William Pabodie, and several of their adult children moved to Little Compton and established neighboring households. A nineteenth-century owner of William Pabodie Jr.’s home found what we believe to be a seventeenth-century, Dutch-style pewter spoon underneath the hearthstone. His daughter’s estate donated the spoon to the Little Compton Historical Society as “Betty Alden’s Spoon.” Betty lived in a different house during most of her time in Little Compton, but may have moved in with William Jr. and his family at the end of her life.
HISTORY NEWS
15
AASLH acknowledges and appreciates these Institutional Partners and Patrons for their extraordinary support! Institutional Partners
Alabama Department of Archives and History
Arizona Historical Society
Belle Meade Plantation
Billings Farm & Museum
Tucson, AZ
Nashville, TN
Woodstock, VT
Bullock Texas State History Museum
Cincinnati Museum Center
California Historical Society
Conner Prairie
Austin, TX
Cincinnati, OH
San Francisco, CA
Fishers, IN
First Division Museum at Cantigny
Florida Division of Historical Resources
Hagley Museum & Library
Historic Ford Estates
Wheaton, IL
Tallahassee, FL
Wilmington, DE
Grosse Pointe Shores, MI
Historic House Trust of New York City
Historic New England
HISTORY
History Colorado
New York, NY
Boston, MA
New York, NY
Denver, CO
Idaho State Historical Society
Indiana Historical Society Indianapolis, IN
Indiana State Museum & Historic Sites Corporation
Kentucky Historical Society
Boise, ID
Montgomery, AL
Frankfort, KY
Indianapolis, IN
16
Massachusetts Historical Society
Michigan Historical Center
Minnesota Historical Society
Missouri History Museum
Boston, MA
Lansing, MI
St. Paul, MN
St. Louis, MO
SUMMER 2017
Institutional Partners cont’d
Museum of History and Industry
Nantucket Historical Association
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Nebraska State Historical Society
Seattle, WA
Nantucket, MA
Washington, DC
Lincoln, NE
North Carolina Office of Archives and History
Ohio History Connection Columbus, OH
Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library
Raleigh, NC
Lexington, MA
Harrisburg, PA
Senator John Heinz History Center
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
Strawbery Banke Museum
Tennessee State Museum
Pittsburgh, PA
Dallas, TX
Portsmouth, NH
Nashville, TN
Virginia Historical Society
William J. Clinton Foundation
Wisconsin Historical Society
Richmond, VA
Little Rock, AR
Madison, WI
Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources Cheyenne, WY
Thank you for your contributions as we continue to grow!
Patron Members Ellsworth Brown
John Herbst
Thomas A. Mason
Bev Tyler
Georgianna Contiguglia
Lynne Ireland
Thomas McGowan
Tobi Voigt
John R. Dichtl
David Janssen
Rebecca Merwin
Robert Wolz
Stephen Elliott
Trevor Jones
Jean Svandlenak
Karen Goering
Katherine Kane
Richard E. Turley
Madison, WI Denver, CO
Nashville, TN St. Paul, MN
St. Louis, MO
Indianapolis, IN Lincoln, NE
Cedar Rapids, IA Lincoln, NE
Hartford, CT
Indianapolis, IN Fairview, OH St. Croix, VI
Setauket, NY Detroit, MI
Key West, FL
Kansas City, MO
Salt Lake City, UT
Leigh A. Grinstead Denver, CO
HISTORY NEWS
17
WHAT’S YOUR PERSPECTIVE? The Detroit Historical Society is pleased to announce a major exhibition opening June 24, 2017. The Detroit 67 exhibit, Perspectives, brings together diverse voices and communities around the effects of an historic crisis to find their place in the present and inspire the future.
A STORY THIS BIG TAKES ALL OF US. WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR MANY COMMUNITY PARTNERS AND THE RENOWNED GROUP OF HISTORIANS AND CIVIC LEADERS WHO JOINED US TO MAKE THIS IMPORTANT WORK HAPPEN.
18
SUMMER 2017
Get
a Better
t i C
y
Y
ou
If You Are Slowly Improving Citizens,
Cambridge Historical Society
May 2016 History Café.
By Heidi Legg and Marieke Van Damme Editor’s Note: The interview here is adapted from what originally appeared on TheEditorial.com, a site that publishes interviews around emerging ideas that change the ways we look at the world and how we live in it. Heidi Legg and her team believe there is power in putting the poet next to the scientist and the industrialist next to the artist and the philanthropist next to the techie; they call it the Power of the Weave.
A
s we scoured the city for Gen X voices bringing forward emerging ideas, Marieke Van Damme’s name kept popping up as a change maker. The irony is that she is the director of the Cambridge Historical Society, headquartered on fabled Brattle Street, but a few houses away from the poet Henry Longfellow’s house, where our first president, George Washington, camped out during the Revolution. The Hooper-Lee-Nichols House, where we met for this interview, is a place one might think would be draped in old Cambridge. Aesthetically speaking, it is—I swear I see an old cat up in the top window when I pass by on my way
into the square—but for Van Damme, the historic homes are only the launch pad. She is stirring things up by bringing this vintage society into modernity with annual themes that have sparked conversations around the housing crisis, the changing face and development in Harvard Square, and the emergence of Kendall as the poster child for change, all with a historical context of what it means for city-building and culture. She understands the power of competing for dollars and attention in a digital world, and we discuss new models of funding to give cities the pillars that create vibrancy and civil connection.
Many people think of Cambridge as one big permanent historical commission. It’s just one giant historical society. That’s all we are—one important historical place. [laughs] It’s great to have you at Hooper-Lee-Nichols House.
What is the Cambridge Historical Society’s role in the city and how are you funded? The Cambridge Historical Society is a different kind of historical society. We like to say it’s one that you would never have experienced before, because our goal is to talk HISTORY NEWS
19
not only West Cambridge. Once I was hired, there was a whole strategic plan done that said, “We need to be for all of Cambridge and not just West Cambridge.” That’s a huge perception to overcome. Instead of just having events here at our headquarters in a beautiful building, in a place we love, we need to do more things out in the neighborhood so people know that we exist.
Hooper-Lee-Nichols House, headquarters of the Cambridge Historical Society.
about contemporary issues affecting the city today and offer historical perspective. We don’t think that history equals nostalgia. It’s about how history is still affecting our lives today, and that’s how we hope to educate people.
Did you bring this attitude with you to this role as the new director, or was it here before you arrived? When I was hired, the organization really wanted to have a change. It saw that old models of historic house museums and historical societies are in many ways no longer sustainable. Cambridge has a lot of history—the history’s not the problem. It’s the competition. It’s the perception. Many historical societies across the country suffer from having a lack of funds that never allow them to professionalize.
What type of competition are you facing? Ways for people to spend their time. It’s a crowded marketplace. We are not a historical society in a small town in upstate New York where I’m from, for example. We are a historical society in a city that everyone in the world knows about. We’re a fifteen- to twenty-minute walk from Harvard University, and not only do we compete within Cambridge, but we’re a fifteen-minute Red Line train away from Boston.
What did you see here on Brattle Street that you wanted to disrupt? I was given a mandate by the historical society to modernize. The society grew out of West Cambridge in 1905 by a group of historians who lived in the neighborhood. It was like a historian book club. They met in Harvard buildings and in their houses, and they collected some objects, but they never had a place. It wasn’t until this house was given to the society in 1957 that they had a place and a mission. It was to share and reminisce about the history of Cambridge, but it was also to interpret this building. These are two different missions. So many historical societies suffer from this. It’s very confusing because you think of the society as being the building, but that’s not who we are, and we’re
20
SUMMER 2017
Cambridge Historical Society
What and where are the events you are now curating? When we decided that we were going to be talking about contemporary issues, I knew we had to be extremely focused, as we only have two full-time staff and a few other part-time folks. So we chose one theme a year. Everything relates to the theme. Last year our theme was Are We Home? and we talked about housing all year. It really resonated with a lot of people. It was the number one thing that people talked about when I came to Cambridge. Housing was the biggest issue. We like to phrase the theme as a question because that gives people the opportunity to give feedback and participate instead of us being the mighty historical society that says, “We know everything about history. We’re going to tell you this year’s theme is housing. Sit back and listen.” That is not our approach. We are more of an engaging institution and trying to get the experience of all Cambridgians to feed into our shared history. Housing was such a pressing and big issue. It feeds into everything, and people are just dying to find a way to solve the problem. We didn’t solve it, and it was hard. But we had people saying to us, “Thank you for raising this issue and allowing a place for discussion. Now what do we do?”
How else do you bring people together to talk about things in a non-political way? We’re pretty proud of our approach and we always talk about our humanities focus. We think like historians, and we think critically. We think about the reasons people make decisions, and we’re always talking about empathy, which is not something you would expect a historical society to talk about, but that’s the personality that I bring to an institution. We got here because people made decisions, so let’s talk about that because we are now at a point where we have to make new decisions.
This year’s theme is What Does Cambridge Make? So, what is Cambridge making? We decided that the arc of the year is to see a past/present/future. At our annual meeting in late March, historian Sean Nichols talked about the manufacturing history of Cambridge and what it was like to be a worker here, which was fascinating. There were so many factories here. This was a city that made stuff—hardcore. It’s just fascinating to think about it. We’ve romanticized manufacturing in this country: “There was a time we made things and wasn’t that wonderful and people were put to work, etc., etc.” There’s this nostalgia around it. It was hard for people back then and that was their lives.
What did we make here? Oh, we were making lots of things! Candy is a popular thing that we made. We have Squirrel Nut Zippers and Necco Wafers. We actually held our second live event at Novartis in the old Necco Factory, and as our sponsor, they gave out Necco candy. It was fun to think about what the space symbolized, as our event was “The Great Rewire: Cancer, Genetics, and Urbanism.” Do you like Neccos? I like to do a poll about whether people like Necco Wafers and most people say, “No, they’re kind of gross, but I appreciate them.” I love them. I could eat them all day. In Cambridge, we also made glass. Cars— there used to be a Ford factory. We made rubber hoses, collars, and soap. We also had a gentleman named Ed Childs come. He is a dining services worker at Harvard who organized some protests and some union activity, and it was really interesting to think about what it was like for workers back then. They didn’t have great worker rights and their quality of life was different.
You had Childs in to speak? That’s such a great call. We thought that was a little edgy, but that’s what we’re trying to do. And it was interesting because Nichols, who teaches at Harvard, was talking about someone in one of his classes who works in finance. He works like eighty hours a week, and Sean’s response was, “You should join a union,” which is so funny because it seems like a thing that’s over. It’s fascinating. It raised a lot of questions.
What are the demographics of your audience? Different people show up to different events. We have this series that we call History Café, which I blatantly stole from Science Café. I thought it was a great idea. Regular scientists came and tried to communicate to the public what they’re working on and breaking down the barriers of science communication. I thought, “Why don’t we do this for history?” So, we have History Cafés that take place in bars and in various locations around the city that are third spaces, welcoming spaces, similar to the cafés of the past. We’re talking about squares and taverns, that kind of thing.
different generations talking, and it’s so great because where else do you get that? People interact and you get to know the other people in your group and it’s so wonderful because of course cafes are set up non-theater style. You’re naturally going to ask, “Oh, is this seat open?” and then you start talking to people, and I love it. It’s great.
So the city of Cambridge does not fund you at all? Nope. Not for operations. For special projects we apply for funding like anyone, but that’s grant funding.
Is most of your funding individual or grant? It is individuals. Philanthropy makes up the bulk of our operating support, and it’s primarily individuals.
How would you encourage readers to be involved? We like to think the programs that we do for the people who live in the city make people more empathetic and people think more about their neighbors in a way that they haven’t before, and you don’t get that anywhere else. You can’t go to a city hall meeting and suddenly feel a connection with another person.
My experience is that people are stressed out there—at least in front of the city’s historical commission, which is different than you. People are totally stressed out, and we like to think that our events are a “stop-and-think” and “pause-to-discuss” and there is a conversation that you don’t get at other places. You have people thinking in a different way—in an empathetic way—and in that, they become better citizens. If you are slowly improving citizens, you get a better city. We like to think that’s our end goal.
Historic Necco factory in Cambridge.
We have different ages. Our membership is an older group, typically over fifty, white, very well educated, have lived in Cambridge more than five years or so. A lot of them show up, but we’ve been getting a lot of younger folks, too. For us, younger is late twenties and up. This is what I love about History Café, the mixture of people of
Cambridge Historical Society
Who is the audience?
HISTORY NEWS
21
As you know, this interview is part of our Gen X series, and we were interested that you’re taking on a lot for a historical society. Gen Xers seem to like tension and texture. Do you seek that out as you revitalize the society?
audience or vice-versa. I see the library doing that, as well, and also bringing in people who have different perspectives that you wouldn’t think of as the typical historical society speaker or library speaker. The library is not only bringing in authors. We’re not just bringing in historians.
I don’t look for tension. I think that this is an obvious thing that we should be doing. There’s a growing field of public history, in which you can now get a degree, and there are some great programs in the area using history. It’s not a thing that’s static and out there. You have to use it, and that makes so much sense to me. As a Gen X person, I’ve been in between the generations in my roles and it’s fascinating. It’s totally fascinating. There are older people who think of history in a certain way and that’s fine, but I’ve run into so many of our members who are just energized by what we’re doing and say, “Yes, finally someone gets it. We’re on board.”
The Cambridge Public Library recently invited TheEditorial to bring in some of our interviews and it was great. I think the mashup of hyper-local historians, writers, and media is essential and I can see all of these Gen X-led initiatives bubbling to the surface in a very dynamic way.
Yes. And Gen Xers also have to really be able to communicate between generations, which means you have to be thoughtful. I have someone who’s a Millennial involved with our organization. She’s like, “I just can’t come to meetings, especially if there’s any Boomers there.” I get it. I go to a lot of those meetings.
But as Gen Xers, we have to work with the Boomers, as they are the demographic that precedes us. We don’t have that luxury to dismiss them, nor does that make a lot of sense. Yes. I said, “But I have to go and I have to communicate with them and share what younger people want.” I sit at meetings and tell them, “A lot of people get their information digitally.” Everyone was like, “What?” Here I am as the youngest person saying that. This is ridiculous. How do I speak for young people?
Will historical institutions die off? No. I think that the young and emerging museum professionals get it. They totally understand it. They’re natural connectors. They’re all on Twitter. They’re all connected digitally. They go to Meetups. Meetups didn’t exist when I was in museum school. I think that it is so key to getting things done to be able to communicate with a lot of people.
What characteristics—diplomat, communicator, for example—do people trying to revive your field share? Technology has made the world smaller, and when you see that happening, you want to make connections with other places and collaborate, and I think collaboration is a huge part of this. We try to have a collaborator for all of our events and other institutions where we can tap into their
22
SUMMER 2017
It’s so hard because the competition is fierce, and there’s a lot of discussion about getting rid of incentives for people to give money, especially the wealthy, which is just crazy. We rely on people of all philanthropic levels. There are folks who send us $35 a year, and that’s a sacrifice for them. We like to have people give so that it shows that there’s real commitment, and that is all under threat today. I was really concerned after the election that a lot of our funding would go toward more pressing social issues. Maybe instead of us, they’re going to give to the ACLU, etc. There is a lot of competition. Those are all so important. But historical societies are in it for the long haul, and I like to think that we’ve gotten to this position because historical societies were focused on other things. We were not necessarily having discussions like we should have been, holding and not analyzing the past as hard as we should have been. We were putting up plaques and monuments, which were, yes, very important physical reminders of our history, but you have to bring people together. You have to create understanding and empathy and concern and all of these emotions about the place where you live, about the place you care about, or else what’s the point? Now we have this historical amnesia about what’s happened in our cities and what’s happened in our country. It’s just bonkers. Fall 2016 Housing for All symposium.
Cambridge Historical Society
What is it about Gen X that makes us unique and seekers of startups and disruption? Maybe it’s technology driven?
I’m going to take liberty to go off here, but how can the nonprofit category sustain so many of these pillars of a society: history, journalism, libraries, housing? And need they all be not-forprofit? When does a society hit a tipping point to realize these initiatives need funding models to stay alive?
History teaches critical thinking and when funding for those essential skills gets cut, we see ourselves in a position like we’re in now in America. On this, I speak for myself. I don’t speak for the historical society.
Cambridge Historical Society
We know people want to live in vibrant places. How do we reinforce that these types of institutions and initiatives deliver that?
What is coming up? We have a few History Cafés coming up. We had a great one on craftivism about a group of young women organizing around craft during and after the Civil War. For our next event we’re partnering with the Cambridge Arts Council, a city agency, for their latest project on the Cambridge Common called Common Ground. We have a History Café coming up at the Hong Kong [Restaurant] in June with a couple of the artists, where we will look back at the historical use of the Common. In July we had a walking tour of North Cambridge where we talked about clay. It’s a fascinating place where bricks were made. There was a community of Irish brick workers and then it turned into a dump. Danehy Park was literally a dump; now it’s a beautiful park. We asked what all that means for a neighborhood and what’s the future? We began with the walking tour and then had a discussion at Jose’s Mexican Grill.
The Hong Kong in Harvard Square and Jose’s Mexican in North Cambridge! Those are legends. We are hitting all the good spots. Then in September, we have a few History Cafés that are going to help us warm up for the fall symposium, which will be about biotech and Kendall and the future of making in Cambridge. We’ve all seen incredible change in Kendall Square and we’re trying to make sense of it. So come on the walking tour. Also in September, we have a History Café called “Apothecary Now.” It will be a conversation with a research scientist from Alnylam and a third-generation Cambridge pharmacist.
Does one have to be a member? They don’t have to be a member, but we sure love our members. They get extra special attention and maybe a few extra Necco Wafers. You can go to the website. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for all of our events.
Do you see other historical societies around the country doing things you admire? There are a lot of organizations that are trying to be more progressive with their thinking, and they’re usually larger humanities councils or libraries, but as a small local historical society, we’re pretty unique.
Whom do you go to for inspiration in your field? We’re spoiled in New England to have a lot of great museum thinkers. There are so many wonderful museum people who are educated and progressive, and there’s something about being here in Boston—a place that is not progressive in many ways.
June 2016 History Café.
If there are progressive museum thinkers in Boston, why haven’t they changed much yet? Sometimes you just need to be in the right place. I was brought on with the mandate of, “We want change.” On my interview for this job, I said, “We live in Cambridge. It’s a very interesting and diverse place with a lot of great history. If I wanted to put on an exhibit or a program around how the Boston Bombers were from Cambridge, how would you handle that?” I saw some raised eyebrows but for the most part, everyone said, “Yeah, we’d be open to discussing that.” So I thought, “All right. I have a place that can embrace my ideas,” and they’re all pretty progressive too. It’s so funny to think that you’re going to be disrupting the historical society. You’re going to be talking about stuff that’s happening today. People aren’t going to react well to that. You know what? People love it. I get so many comments like, “People always think history ends with the Revolution around here,” and instead people want to talk about the 1960s in Cambridge. Look at Harvard Square today and what’s happening: buildings are under attack and our historical nature is being threatened, and what does all that mean? People love it, and so we’re talking about it and people are embracing it. Heidi Legg is the founder of TheEditorial.com where she interviews people along the Harvard, MIT. and Kendall Square Corridor around emerging ideas. From here, she gathers these visionaries together for live events to discuss ideas around disruption, new eras, realities, and utopias. She can be reached at heidilegg@gmail.com. Marieke Van Damme, mvandamme@cambridgehistory. org, has worked in nonprofits for more than fifteen years, starting as an Americorps VISTA volunteer in Alaska. Her museum career began in collections and evolved into historic site management and administration/fundraising. She is currently the Executive Director of the Cambridge Historical Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and serves proudly on the board of the New England Museum Association. In 2014, Marieke launched Joyful Museums, a project studying workplace culture. She tweets from @joyfulmuseums and co-hosts the podcast Museum People. HISTORY NEWS
23
Museums in Motion
TODAY By Juilee Decker
Editor’s Note: This is a modified excerpt from the third edition of Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums. All quotes derive from Museums In Motion unless otherwise specified.
I
remember the first time I picked up Edward P. Alexander’s Museums in Motion. I had just entered a graduate program based in an art history department that offered a concentration in museum studies. The lenses of this program were curatorial, registration, and education practices centered on art museums; yet, I was drawn to the broader range of institutions—art museums as well as natural history, science, botanical gardens and zoos, and history museums. Thankfully, Alexander’s first edition delivered in the areas where content from courses and practica fell short. Desiring to understand the complexity of museums and their histories, I found myself poring over the pages and wondering if and how museums were changing. The year of this encounter was 1991, a dozen years after the publication of Alexander’s seminal tome. It was also the year that the Andy Warhol Museum had been established in Pittsburgh as a hometown memorial to the pop artist and designer even as Skansen, the outdoor history museum overlooking Stockholm harbor established by Arthur Hazelius, was celebrating its centenary. As different as these environments seemed, they shared a purpose. Each institution functioned as a museum—whether traditionally constructed within four walls and bestowing an abundance of artist ephemera, manuscript materials, and collectibles or extending beyond the surfaced interiors and offering openair spaces as sites for costumed interpreters to contextualize the culture, traditions, and life of the former inhabitants. Museums were (and remain) as varied as these two examples, and they were likewise varied in their approaches. Percolating within the walls of museums were critiques of exhibition practices. Ivan Karp, for instance, posed questions about exhibitions, culture, and representation (what do exhibitions represent and how do they do so?) even as AASLH called for an inquiry-driven approach where traditional museum practice of collections management and conservation share a stage with curation and public exhibition.1 While Alexander’s book could not have foretold the changes afoot in museums, the second edition, authored by Ed’s daughter Mary Alexander in 2007, sought to explore the
24
SUMMER 2017
complexity and changing nature of museums with definitions that had expanded drastically from those articulated earlier and that pointed, chiefly, to the work of Elaine Heumann Gurian, who acknowledged a blurring of boundaries among libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions such as memorials, shopping malls, and performance halls. No longer a graduate student, I found myself reading this update and considered my role as a faculty member in a liberal arts environment attuned to the empathetic approach of Gurian and others who had articulated the changes afield.2 Now, a decade later, I write about museums with attention toward moving beyond singular approaches to the history and function of museums. I work with undergraduate museum studies students while also engaging with scholars and professionals with whom I collaborate as a journal editor. Part of what we—as practitioners, scholars, and those otherwise engaged in the field—do when we approach a topic is to define it. For to define is to pull back the curtain on how we construct knowledge; to define museums is to dissect them— to lay bare their histories and functions and to understand their past and to engage in the act of knowing and becoming their future. Thus, the challenge (and frankly, the daunting yet humbling task) of updating Museums in Motion is to reposition museums yet again and to open up multiple discourses about their pasts, present, and futures. To me, a book on the history and functions of museums should address museum origins and the middle years that demonstrate the importance of collections (both their keeping and their viewing) before turning to the crossover of research and scholarship with education, interpretation, and recent activity of museums before hypothesizing their futures.3 My revision of Museums in Motion seeks to undertake such a task. Like the previous two editions, I divided the book into two halves: history and functions. For reasons of time and space, the volume is constrained by a number of variables: an interest in covering a broad swath of chronology without being too granular in attempt; a reasonable number of chapters keyed to the length of a semester or other educational construction of time; and the primary geographic emphasis of the United States and Europe, particularly
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
England, France, and Scandinavia. On occasion, examples from other countries are included, though it should be noted that museums have long histories and demonstrated successes throughout the world. In looking at any of these museums—art and design, natural history and anthropology, science, history and its complement museums, gardens and zoos, and children’s museums—their emergence has existed alongside a grander (usually national) narrative. The construction of museums lays bare a sense of belonging. Narratives of unbelonging are also part of this construction in both form and word. Consider Gretchen Sorin who in 2000 wrote about her experience curating Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews. She writes, “The contents of most history museum storage rooms do not reflect the full record of the nation’s past. History museums need to go further to identify artifacts related to groups whose history is not part of the written record.”4 In the United States, we have seen this attention to a more inclusive narrative most recently with the grand opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the newest Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall, which opened in September 2016 as the only museum “devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture.” The artifacts and exhibits chronicle slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws, civil rights, and cultural contributions. As such, the narratives also reflect the story of America, according to Lonnie G. Bunch, founding director of the museum. “This Museum [tells] the American story through the lens of African American history and culture. This is America’s Story and this museum is for all Americans.” Emphasizing the exclusivity and inclusivity of the narratives, Bunch encourages an expansion of reach that was absent in the early and middle years of museum making. “Instead of simply saying, ‘This is our story, period,’ we want to say,
Anchorage Museum
Polar Lab: Beachfront Silent Disco event at Anchorage Museum, 2016, with outdoor installation by Buck Walsky.
‘This is everybody’s story.’” It is in this same spirit that museums gain and foster agency, as Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg have noted, as instruments of “soft power.” The construction of museums has also led to the expansion of the market for objects, primarily art, which has, in turn, shifted away from patrons of the noble classes to circles of collectors from the United States and Europe as well as Latin America, China, and emerging Asian countries.5 In addition to the conception, construction, and emergence of new museums, research and scholarship bear witness to the ways in which individuals and institutions collect, conserve, exhibit, interpret, engage, serve, and act as part of the global museum community. What links global examples, in Batul Raaj Mehta’s reading of them, is the tie to place. To her, “Museums in the Indian subcontinent, as elsewhere, can be diplomatic tools, using their soft power to champion a spirit of place.” While only investigated briefly here, it is evident that the histories and functions of museums in China, India, and other parts of Asia as well as South America, and the broader reaches of the world, are an important part of the global museum narrative. This aforementioned “global museum narrative” might be expanded both geographically and conceptually to reveal a multiplicity of narratives on the part of the museum as an institution, its collections, and its audiences. Just as the objects comprising historic cabinets of curiosities constituted “representativeness of a larger body of knowledge,” so do our museums represent larger, and now more diverse and inclusive, bodies of knowledge.6 Throughout Museums in Motion, vignettes written by museum professionals throughout the field offer a tapestry of museum work today. These excerpts discuss museum histories and functions while engaging the notion of the museum as a multiplicity of entities: an institution, collections, and audiences. They include myriad voices and perspectives. Monica O. Montgomery, a Brooklyn-based cultural consultant, curator, and activist, writes about museums as tangible and intangible sites for and of empowerment. Tracey Berg-Fulton, as manager of @MuseumSwearJar, chronicles museum practices that are in need of critique, with the hope of effecting change.
Careers in Conservation students examine ecosystems and trace water flow in a Los Angeles Basin watershed.
HISTORY NEWS
25
On April 14 and 15, 2015, more than 8,000 people were on site while Ford’s Theatre remained open for thrity-six hours of continuous programming.
Courtney Allen, botanical education manager of the gardens at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, shares her work by telling how the institution, nearing its 100th anniversary, serves audiences throughout the life cycle, with particular attention paid to school-aged youth who may not feel included in the landscape of museums. Julie Decker of the Anchorage Museum writes of the institution as a northern museum “distinctly position[ed] to convey an authentic narrative for the region that reflects place in all of its complexities.” Vickie Stone, Terri Anderson, and Emily Houf address mindfulness in cataloging collections—using the National Museum of African American History and Culture as a case study—through examination of language, taxonomies, authorities, access, and other aspects of data management. Meghan Ferriter of the Smithsonian Institution Transcription Center connects collections management in consort with public engagement on a large scale and throughout the world. Paul R. Tetreault of Ford’s Theatre Society explains the range of digital and onsite initiatives launched in 2015 titled Ford’s 150, which marked the sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination while recognizing and commemorating Lincoln’s leadership principles, including courage, integrity, tolerance, equality, and creative expression. Rebeccca Shulman Herz, director of the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum, speaks of measurement and metrics as indicators of museum success, being mindful of the fact that some of the best indicators of success are unmeasureable. Joanne Heyler, founding director of The Broad, shares her perspective of creating a physical museum from scratch and bringing that museum—very personally—to meet the needs of visitors through the help of a corps of Visitor Services Associates. Rob Shumaker, director of the Indianapolis Zoo, shares how the Simon Skjodt International Orangutan Center strives for excellence in terms of animal welfare and the visitor experience. Dustin Growick of Museum Hack (the nontraditional museum tour company founded in New York) tells of sharing his love of museums by compelling storytelling and forging experiences among a group of participants on a shared adventure in a museum. Dan Hartman of the Glensheen Mansion on the shore of Lake Superior shares a range of quirky, copycat, and
26
SUMMER 2017
controversial ideas that have led to a range of programming and tour ideas, including the creation of a completely unnecessary but conversation-starting “Shark Watching Society” that doubles as an outlet for social engagement on the A camper builds with MagnaTiles lakeshore near the in the PlayHouse SciLab, while his counselor watches. museum. Catherine Hughes of Conner Prairie shares the range of programs at this two-hundred-acre site that engage visitors through powerful, emotional experiences and a range of interpretation opportunities that connect the past with our present human condition. Kaytee Smith tells of the programs and opportunities that the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences brings to learners of all ages that shape memories and empower them with twenty-first-century skills. Institutions have responsibilities to one another, their collections, and their audiences, as noted in other entries. Jane Milosch, Director of the Smithsonian Provenance Research Initiative, explains how this initiative promotes research among and between institutions throughout the United States and Europe while also demonstrating that museums need to examine and be conversant in the histories of their collections. Kathryn Murano Santos, Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits of the Rochester Museum and Science Center, tells her perspective on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act as a form of quiet activism that requires collaboration between institutions and groups to whom museum collections belong. Michael D. Lesperance, Chair of the AAM Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Alliance, describes his experiences reinterpreting a historic house museum and subsequent, related endeavors as part of a thread of activities that led to the publication of Welcoming Guidelines for Museums to foster sensitive inclusion of LGBTQ visitors and staff. Jennifer A. Scott of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum describes a project that enabled the institution to explore 120 years of social change and, in her discussion of Making the West Side: Community Conversations on Neighborhood Change, demonstrates how a history museum can use robust public programming with an eye keyed to acknowledgment and advocacy, and social change. Charlotte Martin, museum educator for access programs at Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, shares her approach of being ready for anything and anyone so as to ensure that the museum is physically, emotionally, and intellectually accessible to all audiences. Katherine Krieger from the Autry Museum of the American West, in her discussion of inclusion as a means of creating space for everyone, describes a program with incarcerated youth and calls upon museums to ask who needs them rather than whom the museum needs.
Nellie Photography, Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum
Gary Erskine,Ford’s Theatre
Juilee Decker
Sara Devine
Ryan Miller, The Broad
Institutions engage audiences through their collections, programming, and opportunities with and without technology. Zinnia Willits of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, tells of her experience planning and executing 10,000 works as well as facilitating the design of the new Opening of The Broad. Collections Storage Center—a showplace that is a touchstone enabling visitors to understand museum functions by virtue of seeing front-of-house and back-of-house operations. Kimberly Masteller of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art describes her experience creating exhibitions, collaborating with colleagues in conservation, education, and design who also reach members of the broader community who contribute to the planning and implementation of an exhibit or program. Andrea Jones from Accokeek Foundation in Maryland (now with Peak Experience Lab) writes about Eco-Explorers: Colonial Time Warp, an immersive program—sans technology—where students have a mission to save Earth and change the course of history. Nevertheless, Tim Hallman, as chair of the Public Relations and Marketing Professional Network of the American Alliance of Museums, tells how today’s media environment enables museum professionals to be more creative and can also tap the public in helping to shape and share narratives. Sara Devine of the Brooklyn Museum tells of ASK Brooklyn Museum, an app that serves as a digital engagement initiative aimed at leveraging technology to empower visitors to ask questions and receive answers in real time. The commentaries also address the future. From New Media Consortium, Alex Freeman and Samantha Becker share the process of developing NMC’s Horizon Report>Museum Edition as both field guide and road map designed to help policymakers, museum professionals, and educators learn about global technology trends and challenges while casting an eye toward the future with predictions and case studies that might inform the work of others. Elizabeth Merritt, writing for the Center for the Future of Museums of the American Alliance of Museums, observes that museums have to invent new economic equations that link mission to money, meaning that museum professionals will need to be able to forecast and, ostensibly, to be futurists. Kaywin Feldman, Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, shares her perspective on museum leadership with projections of a future in leadership that is more female and more diverse as well as more “agile, increasingly entrepreneurial, more connected, and less hierarchical.” Each of these commentaries provide rich food for thought throughout the entire volume. Their inclusion is intended to guide readers who want to think, more broadly, about museums, their histories, and their functions. The vignettes, “Museums in Motion Today,” could, and should, be gathered from museum professionals across the globe as part of the weaving together of this tapestry of museums today. For these kinds of conversations might enable us to continue to expand our definitions and blur the boundaries of museums such that the title of the fourth edition of this
volume might read Museums in Motion: An Introduction to Museums, Their Histories, and Their Functions so as not to privilege the history over a multiplicity of voices, as it seems to me that no book can do justice to—nor should attempt to write—the history of museums. t Juilee Decker, Ph.D., is an associate professor of museum studies at Rochester Institute of Technology, where she teaches courses focusing on technology and engagement relative to museums and historic sites. Decker serves on the board of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House and is a juror for the Education Committee of the American Alliance of Museums. Since 2008, Decker has served as editor of Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, a peer-reviewed journal published by Rowman & Littlefield. Her revision of Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums propels the field’s standards into the twenty-first century with closer consideration of the digital, empathy, advocacy, and the broader landscape of museums as educational institutions that foster community. She can be reached at jdgsh@rit.edu.
ASK puts visitors in touch with a team of art historians and educators to chat about art in real time during their visit. The app is very much about having an experience with art at the Brooklyn Museum and therefore only works inside the building.
1 Seminal texts interrogating museum practice include Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, eds., Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1991). The questions posed here come from Ivan Karp’s “Culture and Representation,” 11, and John Kuo Wei Tchen’s “Creating a Dialogic Museum,” 289-91. 2 See Elaine Heumann Gurian, “Blurring the Boundaries,” Curator 38:1 (1995): 31-39 which was presented in 1994 at the Education for Scientific Literacy Conference held at the Science Museum in London, England, in November 1994. 3 Since 2008, I have served as editor of the journal Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, a peer-reviewed publication of Rowman & Littlefield. 4 Gretchen Sullivan Sorin, “Why Museums Need to Continue the Discussion about Race in America,” History News 55, no. 4 (2000): 11. Bridges and Boundaries was organized in 1992 by The Jewish Museum, New York, in collaboration with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. A revisiting of the theme was undertaken in 1999 at UMass Amherst with Bridges and Boundaries Revisited: African Americans and American Jews. 5 National Museum of African American History and Culture, “About,” nmaahc. si.edu/about/museum; Vinson Cunningham, “Making a Home for Black History: The Vision and the Challenges Behind a New Museum on the National Mall,” New Yorker (August 29, 2016); Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg, eds., Cities, Museums and Soft Power (Washington, DC: AAM Press, 2015). 6 For instance, see “Focus Issue: Collections and Belonging,” guest edited by Jennifer Way and Elizabeth Weinfield, edited by Juilee Decker, Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals 12, no. 3 (2016). See also chapter 10 of Museums in Motion, 3rd ed; Batul Raaj Mehta, “Unearthing the Genius Loci of Museums in the Indian Subcontinent,” in Cities, Museums and Soft Power, ed. Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg (Washington, DC: AAM Press, 2015), 128. On documentation of knowledge about objects, see Ramesh Srinivasan, Katherine M. Becvar, Robin Boast, and Jim Enote, “Diverse Knowledges and Contact Zones with the Digital Museum,” Science, Technology, & Human Values 35, no. 5 (2010): 735–68. Quote appears on page 736, emphasis mine. While the focus of their article is on omissions to traditional museum documentation rather than the history of museums, the article is critical in its framing of narratives, objects, and documentation. In addition, the authors have included citations to the literature of this complex and important topic.
HISTORY NEWS
27
Leaning In to Teachable Moments BY DINA A. BAILEY
This is a personal reflection on the 2017 American Alliance of Museums conference. My views are my own and are meant to encourage further reflection by AASLH stakeholders.
W
hat are teachable moments, anyway? They are simply opportunities for learning something about a particular aspect of life. Thankfully, teachable moments aren’t restricted by age, race, gender, or anything else. And teachable moments are inherently personal. Even when we stand side by side in the same moment, we embrace a myriad of different perspectives. We bring to these moments our own personal and professional experiences that ultimately shade our understandings, actions, and reactions. We can either lean in to teachable moments and embrace a certain amount of healthy discomfort, or we can settle into our comfort zones and not grow. What else must we acknowledge in order to open ourselves up to teachable moments? First, we need to acknowl-
28
SUMMER 2017
edge intersectionalities. While important as a term that describes overlapping social identities that are interconnected and indivisible, intersectionality seems to be a word that often separates those in the know and those who aren’t. Intersectionality is often used in relation to critical theories involving power dynamics that form the crux of oppressive systems such as xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and racism. Sadly, I have watched individuals who are genuinely confused when intersectionality is referenced ask clarifying questions and be shamed for their lack of knowledge rather than embraced for their willingness to learn. I find this as disheartening as witnessing over and over the reality that we tend to fall back into explicit or implicit biases that don’t take into account the natural complexities of intersectionality.
Sean Kelley
A display of a slave auction at the 2017 American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting drew considerable controversy and a “teachable moment” opportunity for the field.
in choosing the theme—no matter the impact. It wasn’t a Second, we need to acknowledge the importance of valsurprise to me that reactions spanned a spectrum from optiidating feelings in our efforts to foster empathy. This is mism to disillusionment. These feelings are all valid, natural another trending phrase—fostering empathy—and one that reactions and understandable in light of myriad personal and I believe in deeply. However, many of us have gotten away professional temperaments and prior knowledge of DEAI. I from the essence of empathy; it is the ability to understand gave myself the space to feel whatever I wanted to feel, and and share the feelings of another. It is a skill that we talk then I used those feelings to think about what I was learning about often, but don’t spend a lot of time practicing. It about myself personally and what I wanted to focus on prois about vicariously experiencing someone else’s feelings, fessionally. If for no other reasons than these, I was finding thoughts, and attitudes, which can be personally uncomfortthe conference to be a resounding success. able. Perhaps most importantly, empathy includes making Then another opportunity presented itself. In the expo space for outrage, grief, and regrets, just as often as we make hall, a friend of mine and I happened to be in the bookstore space for grace, hope, and optimism. when we looked over the shelves and saw one of the vendor Finally, we need to acknowledge the important distinction displays. The display consisted of the figure of an enslaved between intention and impact. Individuals, organizations, black man shackled to a pole, standing on an auction block, and associations in our field can have the best of intentions; and a grey (white) auctioneer figure standing to the side however, let’s acknowledge that we can also have the worst with his arm raised as if accepting bids. Presumably because of intentions—at least in the views of those who have differof the logistics of keeping the figure upright, the shirtless ent philosophies and values from our own. That said, what enslaved man seemed to be leaning we plan or aim to have happen can over the white man aggressively. be completely different from what This is when teachable This immediately brought to my actually happens or what people take mind all of the legacies of slavery, all away from what happens. This is moments are most ripe, of the implications of racial power impact—the effect that some deciwhen we acknowledge dynamics, and all of the stereotypes sion or action has on other decisions of threatening, black masculine figor actions. And it ripples out expothe complexities of ures. As disturbing and gut-wrenchnentially. This is when teachable intersectionalities in ourselves ing as all of that was, it was the fact moments are most ripe, when we that (at that precise moment) there acknowledge the complexities of and others, when we was a white man grinning and taking intersectionalities in ourselves and acknowledge that emotions a selfie next to the black figure that others, when we acknowledge that hurt the most. I am no stranger to emotions are essential to empathy are essential to empathy ignorance and insensitivity; I accept building, and when we accept that building, and when we accept it as part of human reality. I spent six intentions and impact are different years at the National Underground and may be judged separately. that intentions and impact Railroad Freedom Center, another I have attended the AAM Annual are different and may be two supporting the opening of Meeting every year since 2009. the National Center for Civil and Once the American Association judged separately. Human Rights, and this past year as of Museums, now the American a diversity and inclusion consultant. Alliance of Museums, AAM has From working with visitors in these institutions, I know undergone transitions in its name, its leadership, and its that people often don’t intend ignorance or offense, but it strategic plan. With this has come an increased focus on happens anyway. I’ve learned to give a lot of grace over the diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. I attend the years—as I hope others give me grace when I unintentionconference because it provides me opportunities to grow, ally say or do ignorant or offensive things. share, and feel like I am a part of something bigger. I will fast-forward over a number of hours during which I am the Education Issues Chair for the AAM Education a Twitter hashtag (#AAM2017SlaveAuction) went viral and Committee (EdCom) and this year was responsible for I imagine a number of thoughts, discussions, and emotions chairing the amazing subcommittee that planned and implemade their way through conference attendees. During this mented the EdCom Marketplace of Ideas. Additionally, I time, unbeknownst to many of us, Laura L. Lott (President am honored to be a member of AAM’s Diversity, Equity, and CEO of AAM) and several staff members, board memAccessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) Working Group. This bers, and advisors were hard at work. I can hardly imagine the working group met twice during the early spring, and we moment Lott first became aware of the fact that the “inclusive were also scheduled to meet during the conference. So museum conference” that so many people had worked so perhaps more than any other year, I needed to be at AAM. hard on had become the focus of feelings of pain, anger, disAnd I particularly wanted to support the meeting’s theme: appointment, and confusion for many. Granted, not everyone Gateways to Understanding: Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and felt this way. As always, there was a spectrum of awareness Inclusion in Museums. Per usual, the first day set the tone for and understanding. Some never knew anything had happened the conference. It was clear to me that both expectations and until after the conference; others knew and didn’t get what the sensitivities would be higher than usual. The bar was set and fuss was about. Still others understood and acknowledged that I quietly applauded AAM for its courage and intentionality HISTORY NEWS
29
Dina Bailey facilitates a discussion between AAM Annual Meeting attendees and the CEO of LF Creative Group.
everyone makes mistakes. Within twenty-four hours, AAM had had a lengthy discussion with the vendor CEO, fabricated a white board for attendees to leave their thoughts, changed pre-planned diversity and inclusion sessions in order to provide a space for debriefing (with Nicole Ivy as the facilitator), made efforts to speak with the conference venue staff, and distributed a public statement. As a result of the conversation with the vendor CEO, AAM secured a commitment that the CEO would drive from Cincinnati to St. Louis the next morning to be at the vendor booth to answer any questions or concerns of conference attendees. An additional result of this call was that the figure of the enslaved man was covered by a black cloth while the white auctioneer was left uncovered. Without making assumptions about intention, the impact of this “cover up” only led to more trauma and criticism. The next morning, again unbeknownst to many of us, the vendor CEO arrived early enough to attend one of the final morning sessions of the conference; it was a session about the opportunities and challenges of presenting difficult history. Then he came down to the expo hall where approximately thirty people stood waiting for him. As a member of the DEAI working group, I intended to simply bear witness to the discussion. My first (admittedly superficial and slightly skeptical) impression of the vendor CEO was of a glad-handing white man who confidently sat down behind his high vendor table and smilingly beckoned the (mostly white) crowd of onlookers to come closer. He then, to my mind, began setting forth a number of rationalizations as the crowd grew increasingly more agitated. I recognized that the conversation had lost all potential of productivity when he said that he hadn’t driven six hours to St. Louis to do damage control. At this point, approximately fifty people had gathered on one side of the desk with the vendor CEO on the other. Each side was growing more defensive and less able to listen, and there seemed to be no staff person from AAM in sight. (Now I know this wasn’t quite true. Feeling an absence and there being an absence are two different things—similar to intention and impact.)
30
SUMMER 2017
As I stood next to one of my friends, a man came up to us and began talking softly to my friend. Without naming this individual, he said that someone needed to step in and facilitate, but that it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to do it as he was on staff at AAM. Similarly, my friend said that she probably shouldn’t do it either as she is an AAM board member. Then, she turned to me and asked if I would facilitate. Could I do it? Yes, I have the confidence to say that I knew I could step up and facilitate a discussion that had gone a little haywire. But did I want to do it? Remember (although it pains me to admit now), I originally just wanted to be a witness, a bystander. And it’s a little terrifying to step into a clearly volatile situation. Did I step up? Yes. Did I pray for some courage and the right words? Definitely. And, let’s note, that for me and those involved in me stepping up, there was no discussion of me needing to facilitate primarily because I am a woman of color. I will not make light of the turning point or the productive dialogue that followed. It took work—and it took work from everyone. Initially, I wanted to create some breathing space for everyone there. Then I wanted to create a safer space for people to voice their personal truths, their valid feelings. I also wanted to change the conversation toward the lessons we might individually and collectively learn. I wanted to foster empathy. After a half-hour of further dialogue, I looked around with pride for what we all had accomplished. I counted over a hundred people who were participating in an impromptu dialogue during the final hours of the expo and the final hours of the conference. We had done this together; we had made this work together. It was time for final affirmations. I acknowledged and commended the CEO for coming. He didn’t have to drive six hours to be there. He didn’t have to stay and face an angry crowd. He didn’t have to listen and ultimately accept responsibility for mistakes made. Let’s admit that all of this took courage and that not a lot of people would have stepped up. I acknowledged and commended AAM. They did listen to their members; and, even more, they acted on what they heard. Let’s admit that most
AAM Statement sent Wednesday , May 10, 2017
A teaching moment from this yea r’s Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo
Sean Kelley
Dear AAM 2017 Community, On behalf of the American Alliance of Museums board, staff and volu nteers, it’s been a pleasure and an you to St. Louis for the 2017 AAM honor to welcome Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo . Over 4,000 attendees traveled from countries, coming together to addr every state and 40 ess the bold and important theme, “Gateways for Understanding: Dive and Inclusion in Museums.” In prep rsity, Equity, Accessibility, aring for this conference, we all antic ipated the learning opportunities themselves. that would present This week has been filled with hund reds of learning opportunities on a wide range of topics. Throughout featured speakers delivered the cont the meeting, you and our ent and perspectives that spotlight how the Alliance is comprised of changing our field in impactful and thought leaders who are far-reaching ways. As we near the end of the meeting and an intense with excitement, inspiration, and week, I am overcome emotion, knowing that we have com pleted one conference, but are truly our understanding of diversity, equi just beginning to stretch ty, accessibility and inclusion in mus eums. In my opening remarks, I asked ever yone to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable as we took this collective journey. Parts of that journ individual and ey have been more difficult than others. Today, I want to take a mom the meeting that made me—and ent to address a part of many of you—uncomfortable. Actu ally, a better word for many of us would be outraged. Early Tuesday morning, it was brou ght to my attention that there was a disp lay in the Expo hall depicting the enslaved person; and, that this disp auction of an lay had understandably triggered strong reactions in many who had More than any other aspect of my seen or heard about it. job, I value feedback on ways that AAM is exceeding, meeting, or fallin expectations. Per usual, you didn g short of your needs and ’t let me down. Our team at AAM takes this very seriously, and we immediately bega n working together with advisors from create space for discussion about our Working Group to this issue within the morning “Op en Forum on Diversity, Equity, Acce and throughout the day. Attendee ssibility, and Inclusion”— s, representing a broad cross-section of our field, shared their perspect pain, humiliation, and shame that ives, including the shock, the display provoked for them, in part , because it was on a sales floor in context with no educational narrative a purely commercial or historical reference. AAM strives to create safe and resp ectful spaces. Although not all atten dees had the same response, it was an appropriate display for many. clear that this was not Please know that the AAM board and staff have heard you, and we are committed to using this event addition to making several times as a teachable moment. In available during Tuesday for guid ed discussion, reflection and reco these additional actions in the last mmendations, we have taken 24 hours: • We contacted the CEO of the exhi biting company, Rodney Heiligma nn, who determined to partially cove plans to join us at the conference r the exhibit and who today. He will be at Booth 1537 start ing approximately 11 a.m. • We met with convention center staff to acknowledge their feelings, to accept responsibility for the unin may have caused them, and to com tentional pain the display mit to continuing to keep them infor med regarding next steps. • We updated the #MuseumInclu sion Discussion Boards in the Conv ention Center so that you can shar reactions from which we can all learn e your thoughts and . • We communicated at various poin ts throughout the day via social med ia. AAM remains committed to diversity , equity, accessibility, and inclusion , and that requires difficult conversa teaching moments. We look forward tions and embracing to continuing these conversations with you today—and in the days and we all take inspiration from Bryan weeks to come. May Stevenson’s remarks Monday that , as cultural institutions, we have world. To change the world, we mus the power to change the t start with our Alliance community. Thank you for your support, loyalty, and the leadership you provide to our field. Gratefully, Laura L. Lott President and CEO, American Allia nce of Museums
HISTORY NEWS
31
never know all of the actions that have organizations would not have been rippled out from this shared moment. able to pull off what they did in the For example, I have been in contact amount of time they did it (calls, white with the vendor CEO, and I know the board, debriefing spaces, statement, deep, genuine, and concerted actions talking to conference venue staff, etc.). We are all responsible he and his staff have taken following Within one day, how many of our for how we engage with the conference. organizations would still be mired in In debriefing with his staff, the veninternal discussions about wording, and react to dor CEO and his staff have acknowlliability, board approval, and what any particular moment. edged their future displays should actions to take? I acknowledged and more consciously contribute to the commended the dialogue participants. message of inclusion and healing and that decontextualized A positive turn would not have worked without people who display figures actually have a new context when they are were open and willing, people who cared enough to be there taken from the exhibition space to a place like the vendor during those final hours. And finally, I acknowledged and hall. And the CEO has realized a number of points for furcommended those who weren’t physically present. Many ther investigation within his own organization regarding people had already left (or were never in St. Louis) and were how and when staff members speak up, how open their open following the situation on Twitter. I wanted to make sure door policy is, where there are communication boundaries, that they were not invisible, just as the convention center’s etc. staff were not invisible. Everyone’s feelings were valid; I know that AAM has debriefed as well. Some of the areas everyone’s feelings were important. And what we did with of reflection included: how they could have flagged the disthose feelings mattered. play earlier, how they can better collaborate with corporate The moment didn’t end there—nor should it have. This partners, and how to share more of the behind-the-scenes is all my personal perspective of the moment as I saw it. For reflections about AAM’s process during those forty-eight my part, I went about my day and had lunch with a friend hours. AAM should be proud of the infrastructure that has and dessert with more friends before heading off to the grown in the past few years that has enabled them to engage airport. I didn’t go back and review mentions on Twitter AAM’s membership during the conference. I am a part of or bask in my fifteen minutes of fame. It’s not that I wasn’t this infrastructure, and I was willing to step into a risky situsufficiently proud of my part in the dialogue; it’s just that ation because I believe in how sincere AAM is about its work I believe that, for positive impact, the thoughts that came (especially in terms of diversity and inclusion) and its intenout of that moment led to words that have to (now) lead to tion to continue to grow as an alliance. action. We aren’t at the end of the story, yet and I don’t see I want to recognize that, even at a conference with a focus myself as the heroine. I also want to return briefly to the on inclusion, when we were faced with a challenge, many of idea of intersectionality. While I am a biracial woman who us reverted to us vs. them attitudes and placed blame rather had particular feelings about seeing the display, I am also a than recognizing that each of us still has work to do. We trained facilitator, an educator (by degree), and a member of can’t be truly inclusive if we are constantly calling people out AAM. All of my past experiences, my current perspectives, and excluding them by saying, “White people need to…” and my current actions must take into account that I am or “The vendor should have…” or “Why didn’t AAM…?” ultimately unique in where I stand (as is each of us). And so or “Of course it was a woman of color who.…” I hope that the lessons that we learn will also be unique. we become more aware and more sensitive to triggers and What lessons did I, and I hope others, learn from this how we may unwittingly traumatize and retraumatize peoteachable moment? And what do I hope the field will take ple even when we have the best intentions. We each have away? I hope that others see, as I have, that the entire the potential for growth and we all will make mistakes. We experience of the 2017 AAM conference should be seen should give each other grace and actively practice empathy, as a whole and should not be defined by a relatively few having faith that we aren’t intentionally bruising each other, moments at an expo booth (as impactful as those moments that we have to be patient and have genuine conversations, were). I have reaffirmed my faith in people, that in giving and that we must actively listen to each other in order to people grace we can acknowledge that we all have made move forward. I want us all to recognize that context matmistakes along the way, that we will make more mistakes ters; that even when something is seen as being decontextuin the future, and that we are all responsible for how we alized, it has actually been placed into a new context and that engage with and react to any particular moment. I recognize this new context will have a different, but just as relevant, that I only have my perspective, which may be completely impact. And I want us as a field to step up and courageously different from the perspective of the person standing right have difficult conversations that make us uncomfortable in next to me, and that the story as I know it can only ever be order to embrace more teachable moments. t partial. I don’t know all of the thoughts and actions of AAM staff or the vendor CEO or any of the people tweeting or those there in person. In just reading the Twitter thread Dina A. Bailey is the CEO of Mountain Top Vision. She or in just being at the impromptu dialogue, we can never is the 2017 AASLH Annual Meeting Program Chair and know the whole story and we can never understand all of the a member of AASLH Council. Dina can be reached at nuances and complexities of the moment. Further, we will dina@mountaintopvisionllc.com and @DinaABailey.
32
SUMMER 2017
Book Reviews > Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom By Linda Young (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), xxiv + 422 pp. Reviewed by Ken Turino
I
n her invaluable and comprehensive work, Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom, Australian historian and curator Linda Young undertakes the task of describing the history of house museums in the United States, England, and Australia and the varied processes of their museumization. Young sees historic houses as embodying “an agenda of exemplary politics” (1), arguing that “national identity frames and shapes the genre of house museums in a number of idiosyncratic expressions” (24). Ultimately, she posits, “House museums make the abstractions of nation personal, material, visible, and visitable in the familiar form of home” (2). A particular strength of this book is the multiple perspectives from which she looks at historic house museums, including the meaning of heritage, national identity, communing with relics, and joining the present to the glorious past. She also weaves in architectural history, archeology, and folklore, as well as the psychology of collecting, to show how these have influenced the historic house over time. Young utilizes a classification system for historic houses. She describes six “species” of historic houses, the most common being “Heroes’ Houses,” to which she devotes two chapters that investigate “the nature and history of commemorating and celebrating the great by preserving their houses” (31). Both chapters use multiple case studies—some well known, others less so—to illustrate her point (think Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford in Scotland or George Washington’s Mount Vernon). The second of these chapters examines the homes of authors, including Laura Ingalls Wilder and Scottish poet Robert Burns. Young also includes local heroes—the birthplace of astronomer Maria Mitchell on Nantucket, for exam-
ple—and the homes of heroes of popular culture, including Elvis Presley’s Graceland. Young relates “Artwork Houses” to national aesthetics and architecture. Here she provides a concise history of the National Trust in Great Britain and a discussion on its shift from saving high-style houses to preserving the vernacular. In another chapter, she finds “Collectors’ Houses” (such as Sir John Soane’s Museum in London or Hearst Castle in San Simian, California) to be smaller in number but “disproportionately celebrated” (114). Additional chapters delve into the English country house and social history house museums. The latter is a highlight of the book. Young discusses the folklore/ folklife and industrial/historical archaeology as the forerunners of the New Social History. Along the way she explores the influence of Colonial Williamsburg in light of the shift away from preserving only hero houses to those of “Everyman” as an “ideal of representational patriotism” (153). She also describes how the National Park Service’s approach to cultural resource management developed and informs the preservation and interpretation of historic houses. Young acknowledges the important role AASLH played in promoting social history, the growing focus on interpretive stories, and the interest in telling the stories of women and those of servants and the enslaved. This shift has resulted in more and more houses with such stories becoming museums. The sheer volume of her research is impressive. Not every subject can be covered in great depth and some areas, such as gender politics, receive short shrift. And while Young maintains that historic houses make up 10 to 15 percent of museums, data I find indicate this is a gross underestimation (in fact, house museums constitute the largest segment of museums). And given the scope of her book, I am surprised Young missed some essential resources. Books
such as Seth Bruggeman’s Born in the U.S.A.: Birth, Commemoration, and American Public Memory and Franklin Vagnone and Deborah Ryan’s Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums have enlivened the discussion on the future of historic house museums and warrant inclusion. Despite this, Young’s book is one that anyone interested in history museums and sites will want to read. It will also be an invaluable resource for anyone teaching in museum studies departments. t Ken Turino (Kturino@ historinewengland.org) is Manager of Community Engagement and Exhibitions at Historic New England. He teaches courses in exhibitions and historic house museums at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Along with Max van Balgooy he is working on the book Reimagining the Historic House Museum: Catalysts for Change for Rowman & Littlefield to be published in 2018. He is also a member of AASLH’s Council. .....................................
Shot in Alabama: A History of Photography, 1839-1941, and a List of Photographers By Frances Osborn Robb (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2016), Xxxvii + 552 pp. Reviewed by Bob Stewart
F
rances Robb has spent the greater part of her professional career— more than twenty-five years—in archives, government repositories, newspaper offices, and private homes to compile a complete history of photography in Alabama, from the first experiments with daguerreotypes in 1839 up to America’s entry into World War II. The result of her meticulous and indefatigable quest is a book that is impressive in detail, eminently readable, and—to the best of my knowledge—unprecedented in its use of photography as the means to trace a sinHISTORY NEWS
33
Book Reviews > gle state’s history. Indeed it is a valuable model for any state’s social history or cultural studies. There are three reasons for this. The first is Robb’s organizational design for such an ambitious topic: a chronological survey, with extensive footnotes, followed by a list of 1,400 Alabama photographers, employees, and photographic businesses. Within each chapter are short treatments, a few paragraphs or pages in length, of individual photographers, specialized topics, and broad historical themes. For example, within the chapter on “Outdoor Photography, 1880-Early 1900s” are subchapters including “Scientific Photography and the Geological Survey of Alabama” and “Factors Involved in Stereotypes.” The result is a scholarly, encyclopedic text, which a reader can expinlore randomly as subtitles or images catch her eye. It’s not unlike a museum visitor touring through galleries, stopping to study individual works or to read interpretive labels. This is just the sort of experiential learning a
history museum strives to create. To find it in book form is innovative. An art historian by training, Robb was naturally drawn to visual interpretation and works by notable photographers. She discusses major photographers who worked in the state, such as Frances Benjamin Johnston, Walker Evans, and Arthur Rothstein of the Farm Security
DORFMAN MUSEUM FIGURES, INC. Realistic Figures since 1957.
Conservation Forms since 1996.
Dorfman Conservation Forms created exclusively with Ethafoam® brand inert polyethylene foam.
www.museumfigures.com 34
SUMMER 2017
800-634-4873
Administration; Tuskegee’s P.H. Polk,one of America’s most distinguished African American photographers; and Mary Morgan Keipp of Selma, whose turn-of-the-century works were exhibited nationally. What’s more surprising about her research than its art historical content, and another reason her book is a resource for historians elsewhere, is the thread of business history that courses throughout. The economic ups and downs of most Alabama photographers paralleled the state’s booms and busts, including its larger cities of Mobile and Birmingham, as well as its small towns and rural areas. Their fortunes as entrepreneurs trace the outlines of war, business cycles, and technological advancements found throughout the nation, despite the state’s relative poverty and isolation. Are there professions or businesses in your community that map its history? Lastly, state and local historians working in historic houses and museums will appreciate Robb’s gift for packing loads of information into succinct, well-crafted text. Lines like this appear throughout: “Hine considered himself an artist, although his specific, authoritative images resemble vernacular yard pictures more than art photographs. They reflect the idea that art is a heightened form of ordinary experience, an idea central to the philosophy of John Dewey, a professor at the University of Chicago when Hine studied there in 1900-1901” (151). When museum curators and educators present similarly lively and informative writing in their exhibition labels, catalogs, and brochures, they reward their visitors as much as Frances Robb does her readers. So, as a model for interpretive organization, concepts, and language, her book is a worthwhile read no matter where your museum or historic site is located or how significant photography is to your mission. t Bob Stewart served as Executive Director of the Alabama Humanities Foundation from 1987-2012. He previously held positions in art and history museums in Massachusetts, Florida, and Alabama. He holds a B.A. from Amherst College, M.A. in American Studies from Boston University, and an MBA from Emory University. He is now retired and resides in Nashville. He can be reached at rcs1565@yahoo.com.
AASLH News Master Local Historians Program
AASLH is proud to announce that we are in the piloting stage for our newest program, Master Local Historians. This project is a training program that highlights the relevance of historical inquiry for the general public and provides people with an opportunity to hone their historical research, writing, and interpretation skills. Participants will learn the basic tools and methods of the craft of history to better understand, and even explain, the world around them. By the end of the course, they will have a greater appreciation for the work of public history and be better able to assist history organizations in a variety of ways. This project is funded by a grant from Humanities Tennessee, an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in-kind matching support from AASLH. In the beginning stages of this project, AASLH has pulled together a team of national and Tennessee humanities scholars and advisors to review existing materials from similar programs and map a framework for our program. This includes a curriculum that focuses on the basics of the historical profession, with three of those basics being piloted by partner organizations in our home state of Tennessee. Upon completion of the piloting period, AASLH
AASLH OFFICERS
2016–2018 Katherine Kane, Chair
Harriet Beecher Stowe Center John Fleming, Vice Chair National Museum of African American Music Julie Rose, Immediate Past Chair Homewood Museum Norman Burns, II, Treasurer Conner Prairie Linnea Grim, Secretary Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Erin Carlson Mast, Council’s Representative President Lincoln’s Cottage
STAFF Aja Bain, Program and Publications Coordinator Bob Beatty, History News and Publications Editor Cherie Cook, Senior Program Manager John R. Dichtl, President and CEO Darah Fogarty, Marketing Coordinator Bethany L. Hawkins, Chief of Operations Terry Jackson, Membership and Database Coordinator John Garrison Marks, External Relations Coordinator Amber Mitchell, Education and Services Coordinator
plans to seek funding to launch the Master Local Historians program nationally. History—both knowledge of the past and the practice of researching and making sense of what happened in the past—is crucially important to the well-being of individuals, communities, and the future of our nation. On a state-by-state, community-by-community basis, people are figuring out what history means in the context of today. AASLH continually evaluates the opportunities history organizations have to employ history’s essential role in nurturing personal identity, teaching critical skills, helping to provide vital places to live and work, stimulating economic development, fostering engaged citizens, inspiring leadership, and providing a legacy. The Master Local Historians program is one such opportunity.
AASLH Welcomes Two New Staff Members
The AASLH staff is growing! Two new staff members joined us this summer: External Relations Coordinator John Marks and Marketing Coordinator Darah Fogarty. John was formerly the Program Coordinator for Saving Hallowed Ground in Devon, Pennsylvania. He has a B.A. in History and Spanish from Lynchburg College (Virginia), and an M.A. and Ph.D.
COUNCIL Bill Adair, Class of 2018
Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Melanie Adams, Class of 2020 Minnesota Historical Society Dina A. Bailey, Class of 2018 Mountain Top Vision, LLC Marian Carpenter, Class of 2019 John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Kim Fortney, Class of 2020 National History Day Janet Gallimore, Class of 2017 Idaho State Historical Society Leigh A. Grinstead, Class of 2018 LYRASIS Jennifer Kilmer, Class of 2019 Washington State Historical Society Jane Lindsey, Class of 2017 Juneau-Douglas City Museum Nicola Longford, Class of 2018 The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Kyle McKoy, Class of 2020 Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle Sarah Pharaon, Class of 2019 International Coalition of Sites of Conscience Ken Turino, Class of 2017 Historic New England Tobi Voigt, Class of 2017 Michigan History Center Scott Wands, Class of 2020 Connecticut Humanties
in History from Rice University. John will work with the History Relevance Campaign and other advocacy efforts in the field. Darah was formerly a Multimedia Specialist with Hagadone Digital Montana in Kalispell, Montana. She has a B.A. in Communication StudiesOrganizational Communications and an MBA from the University of Montana. She also has experience as a museum assistant/tour guide at the Museum of the Yellowstone. Darah will handle our marketing efforts, advertising and exhibit hall, and social media platforms.
StEPs Enhancement Project Underway
Seven years ago, AASLH introduced the Standards and Excellence Program for History Organizations (StEPs) to its members and to history organizations nationwide. More than 800 organizations across the country are currently using the self-study StEPs program to assess policies and practices and make improvements. AASLH is now embarking on a project to review and update the program. We are contacting current program participants, members of the Field Services Alliance, and others to request their recommendations for topics that deserve more attention in the workbook.
AASLH thanks the following individuals for their leadership as members of the AASLH Legacy Society. The Legacy Society provides AASLH members an opportunity to donate to the endowment via estate planning. Ms. Sylvia Alderson
Mr. John A. Herbst
Anonymous Mr. Bob & Ms. Candy Beatty
Mr. H. G. Jones
Mr. Robert M. & Ms. Claudia H. Brown
West Hartford, CT
Mr. & Mrs. Charles F. Bryan Jr.
Grosse Pointe Shores, MI
Ms. Linda Caldwell
Monticello, NM
Ms. Mary Case & Mr. Will Lowe
Cincinnati, OH
Ms. Terry L. Davis
Ontario, Canada
Nashville, TN
Mr. Will Ticknor
Mr. Stephen & Ms. Diane Elliott
Las Cruces, NM
Mr. Jim & Ms. Janet Vaughan
Mr. John Frisbee*
Mr. George L. Vogt
Winston–Salem, NC
Franklin, TN
Missoula, MT
Richmond, VA Etowah, TN
Washington, DC
St. Paul, MN
Concord, NH
Mr. J. Kevin Graffagnino Barre, VT
Indianapolis, IN Chapel Hill, NC
Ms. Katherine Kane Ms. Kathleen S. & Mr. James L. Mullins Mr. Dennis A. O’Toole Ms. Ruby Rogers Mr. David J. Russo
Washington, DC Portland, OR *Deceased
HISTORY NEWS
35
Undoubtedly, organizations enrolled in StEPs will want to know how an updated version of the workbook will affect their work in the program. The current plan is to allow those already enrolled in StEPs to continue using the original version of the workbook for twelve to eighteen months after the new version is published in early 2019. This means two workbook versions would be in use until at least early 2020. We will welcome input from members on this plan as we move further into the Enhancement Project. AASLH looks forward to involving as many people as possible in the Enhancement Project, just as we did with the initial grassroots effort to create StEPs in 2005-2009. For more information, contact Cherie Cook at cook@aaslh.org.
human rights, etc.? Can our field compete for skilled staff while earning potential remains so low, particularly in the education and interpretation sectors? — EDUCATORS AND INTERPRETERS AFFINITY GROUP
How do we collect and use data in a responsible way? This has ramifications for privacy, ethics, and legal issues. How can we use data to create better interpretive content and more meaningful and relevant programs? — EDITORIAL BOARD
We are seeing a cultural shift in trust of facts and institutional gravitas. It would be valuable to redo the Rosenzweig and Thelen study from their book The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (1998), which established that the public has greater trust in getting history from museums than it does from academia. — FIELD SERVICES ALLIANCE
MEMBERS RESPOND::
What Are the Most Important Issues and Questions You’re Facing in Your History Work? To what extent do we stay apolitical? To what extent do we take a political stance on things like the Black Lives Matter movement, religious freedom and tolerance, environmental issues, international relations,
We must try to get communities to understand that museums are active and vital parts of the landscape and part of what makes living in a town great. We have to create exhibits and programming that provide historical context for contemporary issues— the main thing that history museums can do that no one else can. — SMALL MUSEUMS AFFINITY GROUP
In the institutions that have the resources, the commemoration of World War I seems to have been largely successful in raising the profile of the Great War in the public eye. But the uncertainty of federal funding for the humanities and flat budgets for the heritage organizations of all of the branches of the armed services continues to be a source of worry. — MILITARY HISTORY AFFINITY GROUP The Information Age has changed the way professionals describe and share their collections, and Nomenclature needs to keep up and adopt new models, such as open-source, to remain current and meet the needs of emerging professionals. — NOMENCLATURE TASK FORCE
Public history professionals in government institutions need help and support navigating the yawning gap between rapidly changing developments in social media inhabited by younger members of the public (especially K-12 students and teachers) and decision makers in government bureaucracies, who tend to be slow to adapt to change and fearful of risk. It’s often difficult to persuade the powers that be of the necessity of using social media to stay relevant and reach out to audiences. — COURT AND LEGAL HISTORY AFFINITY GROUP
access outstanding history resources
Become an OAH member today! Utilize the OAH’s robust research tool—Recent Scholarship Online
ecent cholarship nline • Explore history citations of 1,000s of articles, books, and dissertations. • Easily create multiple bibliographies. • Set up monthly email alerts to receive new citations.
Keep up to date with the most recent scholarship in the Journal of American History and The American Historian
Explore all member benefits at oah.org/benefits
Additional benefits include: • Discounted Annual Meeting registration • Discounted JPASS subscriptions • Update—OAH’s electronic newsletter
OAH memberships start at $60 per year. Sign up at oah.org/join or call us at 812 855 7311 36
SUMMER 2017
ESSENTIAL NEW BOOKS FROM YOUR PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION
“Registration Methods for the Small Museum is a classic covering everything staff in a small museum needs to know about proper record keeping…. This edition is an indispensable companion for every museum professional.” —Angela Kipp, collections manager, TECHNOSEUM, Mannheim, Germany, and co-founder and administrator of Registrar Trek
“Kevin Levin has edited a collection that will inform and inspire public historians who are committed to interpreting the Civil War in all its complexity…. This volume will be welcomed by public historians and museum professionals who want to connect the Civil War-era with urgent issues in contemporary life. ”—Modupe Labode, associate professor, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
158 pages 978-1-4422-7712-0 • $39.00 • Paper 978-1-4422-7711-3 • $90.00 • Cloth 978-1-4422-7713-7 • $37.00 • eBook
120 pages 978-1-4422-7369-6 • $30.00 • Paper 978-1-4422-7368-9 • $68.00 • Cloth 978-1-4422-7370-2 • $28.00 • eBook
“A must for every public historian’s library…. Here is a useful volume with common-sense, tested solutions plus new questions about the practice and sustainability of the public history field.” —Carroll Van West, director, Middle Tennessee State University Center for Historic Preservation
“This practical guide is a must for anyone charged with a costume collection whether a novice or a seasoned curator.” —Catherine Fields, director, Litchfield Historical Society
250 pages 978-1-4422-6414-4 • $40.00 • Paper 978-1-4422-6413-7 • $90.00 • Cloth 978-1-4422-6415-1 • $37.99 • eBook
“Introduction to Public History will quickly become an essential book for undergraduate and some graduate courses, but it will also be valuable for interns and new practitioners.”—Ann McCleary, coordinator, public history and museum studies programs, University of West Georgia 200 pages 978-1-4422-7222-4 • $39.00 • Paper 978-1-4422-7221-7 • $78.00 • Cloth 978-1-4422-7223-1 • $37.00 • eBook
334 pages 978-1-5381-0592-4 • $49.00 • Paper 978-1-5381-0591-7 • $95.00 • Cloth 978-1-5381-0593-1 • $46.00 • eBook
“This new edition of Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings is the go-to resource for anyone beginning the restoration of a historic landscape.” —Patrick Larkin, senior vice president of gardens, Cheekwood, Nashville 184 pages 978-1-4422-6077-1 • $49.00 • Paper 978-1-4422-6076-4 • $95.00 • Cloth 978-1-4422-6078-8 • $46.00 • eBook
AASLH members always get 20% off when ordering AASLH Book Series* titles. Use this promotional code at checkout: AASLHBR20 when calling Rowman & Littlefield Customer Service at 1-800-462-6420 or at rowman.com. *When ebooks are available, the discount applies.
www.rowman.com
2017-585-AASLH History Fall Ad.indd 1
8/16/17 11:33 AM
2021 21st Avenue S., Suite 320 Nashville, TN 37212
PERIODICAL