Pastime with Good Company

Anniversary: The Sinking of the Titanic

2012-01-30T17:45:00.000-05:00

April 11th, 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's first full day at sea. It will be my birthday. It will also, controversially, be the day when over five thousand artefacts from the decaying ship will be put up for auction in New York.

I say controversially because these are not objects saved by passengers or rescuers in 1912. They are objects taken from the decaying ship by divers working for R.M.S. Titanic Inc. between 1987 and 2004. You can see many of them in this Guardian photo collection. The objects range from parts of the ship, including a telegraph, chandelier, dishes, a porthole, and even a portion of the hull, to more personal artefacts that remind us of the human tragedy, like men's clothing, a pair of glasses and a bracelet with the name 'Amy'.

R.M.S. Titanic Inc. clearly finds no fault with what they are doing. This New York Times blog article points out that the artefacts were taken from the debris field surrounding the ship, while the ship itself was treated as a "sacred object" and left untouched. There are multiple conditions on the sale, disallowing the collection to be broken up, and requiring the buyer to make the collection available "to present and future generations for public display and exhibition, historical review, scientific and scholarly research, and educational purposes."

The estimated financial worth of the collection is staggering. The collection was appraised at $189 million US in 2007, but the president of auction house Guernsey's points out that it is "virtually impossible to appraise". A court ruling was necessary to even allow the company to sell the collection. But that doesn't change the fact that R.M.S. Titanic Inc., its parent company Premier Exhibitions (who also created the 'Bodies' exhibit) and Guersney's stand to make a lot of money from the sale.

Many people are speaking out against this sale, and the dives as well. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald interviewed Lynn-Marie Richard, registrar for the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, who was unequivocal when it came to the museum's interest in these artefacts. As a member of the International Congress of Maritime Museums, she says, "We’re into preserving and documenting — not into pillaging." The Halifax museum has a large collection of Titanic artefacts, but she is clear that they were all donated or on loan, and were picked up by the sailors who went to the Titanic's aid in 1912. The newspaper also spoke to Steve Blasco, a scientist with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, NS. He visited the wreck in 1991, taking samples to study the site and helping with the IMAX film Titanica. He equates taking these artefacts from the ocean floor with grave-robbing, and calls upon his relationship with a now deceased Titanic survivor, Eva Hart, who saw the site as her father's grave site.

Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic's resting place in 1986 (and famously confirmed the ship did, indeed, split in two) has already publicly spoken out against tourist submarines causing irreparable damage to parts of the ship, and these same tourists taking objects from the debris field that were in no danger of deteriorating. Clearly there are scientists who are calling for more restriction to the site - but the lure of the wreckage seems to be proving stronger than the argument for historical preservation. In 2004 the site was extensively filmed and photographed to assess its condition, and in 2010 the complete site was mapped with 3-D technology. Shouldn't these records be enough to satisfy our curiosity?

The debate will continue, but it doesn't change the fact that these artefacts exist. Perhaps they shouldn't have been retrieved from what can be seen by many as a grave site, but the objects are here, above water, and people have become fascinated by them (see a previous post about dark tourism). It is unrealistic to think that they will be brought back down to the wreckage of the ship. I believe the company is truly doing the best they can in this situation. There are plenty of conditions on the sale, including making it available to the public. It just remains to be seen whether rich, responsible bidders exist, and are willing to follow the rules.

And, for my birthday, I think I will skip the Titanic memorial cruise, which is sold out anyway, and go relive the Hollywood magic of James Cameron's 1997 version of the sinking on the big screen with my 3-D glasses.

Picture of Titanic's bow is copyright Emory Kristof/National Geographic.

Historical Fiction: New York

2012-01-04T20:01:00.000-05:00

I read a lot, pretty much daily, and my love of history definitely creeps in to my book choices. I have already described my early love for young adult historical and time-travelling novels, and for a long time my favourite summer reading was anything about Henry VIII, his wives, and his descendants. Luckily my tastes have broadened since then and reached beyond the 16th century. Historical fiction is a great way to get introduced to different eras and real-life characters, even if it only convinces you to visit Wikipedia to see if something you read was true or not. Just before Christmas I happened to finish three different books about one of my favourite cities, New York, and I thought I'd share them.

It took only a few days to read The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay (author of The Birth House), which shows you how much I enjoyed it. The book follows Moth, a 12-year-old girl in the Lower East Side of 1870's New York. The book delves deep into the poverty, crime and generally poor quality of life (sanitation-wise, health-wise, education-wise, you name it) for residents of that neighbourhood. Young girls and women are hit particularly hard - Moth is first sold into being a maid for an mentally unstable rich lady who beats her, escapes to beg on the street, and ultimately ends up in a house where girls are trained to become prostitutes and their virginity is sold to the highest bidder.
McKay wrote the book after researching her great-grandmother, who was a 'lady doctor' in the Lower East Side at this time, so we also get a fascinating glimpse into the life of a woman who chose to study medicine (in the 1870s!) and then committed herself to treating the poorest women in the city. I love that McKay's own family history got her researching and writing. And while the 'virgin cure' (the idea that having sex with a virgin can cure syphilis) seems crazy, McKay writes on her website that parallels can be found today with AIDS in countries like Thailand and India, which just reminds me why we need to keep studying history in the first place.
Read before: visiting the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

~~

It took me significantly longer to read Edward Rutherfurd's New York, but then again, it is almost 900 pages long. This is Rutherfurd's love letter to New York, an epic that follows the van Dyck and Master family (among others) from their beginnings as 17th century Dutch immigrants to their success in the financial world of Wall Street by the 20th century. Did I mention the book is 900 pages long?
The book is far from perfect. Some parts became too bogged down with historical detail - the American revolution was important but I didn't really need to read about every movement of the British and rebel armies. I enjoyed how events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire were detailed, but other ones were completely ignored - one Amazon reviewer recalled the amalgamation of the boroughs and the building of the subway as events unworthy of being left out. And while secondary characters were created to discuss some of the more marginalized populations (the Irish, African Americans) the book was really about a white, upper-class family.
The main character of this book is really the city itself. I found it fascinating to learn interesting tidbits of New York history, from when and why buildings were built to why streets are named what they are named. While it got a little cliched at times with its talk of freedom and the American Dream, it is a well-researched epic that's worth reading for its historical detail.
Read before: wandering Wall Street and drinking at Fraunces Tavern.

~~

Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin is set in 1970s, which begs the question - when is fiction classified as 'historical'? Are the 1970s historical? Is last year historical? Either way, I'll include it in my list for it's portrayal of a very specific time in New York history. One summer morning in 1974, New Yorkers looked up and saw something incredible: a tight-rope walker balancing, without a harness or safety net, between the two World Trade Centre towers. McCann introduces a variety of characters - an Irish priest looking after prostitutes in the Bronx, a grieving mother on Park Avenue, the tight-rope walker himself, among others - and chronicles their stories as they interconnect.
McCann does a great job placing readers in his specific time period - you feel the growing tension in Harlem, the heat of the summer day, the poverty on the mean streets of the city, the anger regarding Vietnam, the excitement of the new World Trade towers. While I wouldn't necessarily call it historical fiction, he does drop readers right in the middle of that particular day.
Read before: wandering up Park Avenue before exploring Harlem and the Bronx.

The Art of Collecting

2011-12-13T18:09:00.000-05:00

I was thinking of writing about the new Mayan exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, which I got to see last night. I found myself much more interested, however, in writing about two smaller exhibits I saw in the past few days, which gave interesting glimpses into museum collections.

I went to the ROM earlier in the day yesterday to see The Art of Collecting, a small temporary exhibit from the European department. Taking up only one room (but fitting in over one hundred artefacts), the exhibit highlights recent acquisitions from the past fifteen years in stand-alone glass cases. I wandered past a Tiffany lamp, Georg Jenson silver teasets, Royal Worcester porcelain figures, 19th century bouquet holders, and early 20th century rocking chairs, among other things.

Unlike most exhibits I've seen that highlight objects in this way, the text panels on the wall went beyond explaining why the museum focuses on certain areas of collection. They first explained why the department was set up in the first place - to collect masterpiece decorative art objects that students could learn from and observe. The panels then explained how the museum acquires its artefacts - fortunately mostly by donation with some purchases. It then explained how they got the money for purchases - through deaccessioning other objects. Surprisingly, it then explained the rules for deaccessioning objects that museums follow. It even finished with a paragraph about the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board!

I loved the transparency of it all - museums aren't exactly secretive but most people probably don't think about how and why certain objects turn up in museum collections. I understand what the ROM is doing, of course - explaining clearly to collectors that they can get tax receipts for donating objects to museums instead of keeping or selling them, and reassuring the public that their tax money, for the most part, is not being spent to buy these lovely objects. But it's also a great lesson about how museums build collections - something a little different from the usual decorative arts history lesson/timeline.

The Art Gallery of Ontario too has a small, temporary highlight exhibition. It's called Shift, and also encompasses a small space - one and a half rooms on the first floor. It features highlights from the Modern collection and despite its small size, it's quickly becoming a favourite - among my fellow employees, anyway. It definitely packs a punch - Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Chuck Close and Andy Warhol (among others) are all featured.

These highlight exhibits can serve different purposes - an older post of mine also talks about this. They can allow museums and galleries to show off new objects without the time and effort to re-do permanent displays (or while waiting for funding to do so!) or without organizing a larger, more comprehensive exhibition. For the ROM, most of their decorative arts collection is in furnished period rooms, with very few objects received post-1990s on display. It can also show the breadth of a museum's collection. For the ROM, the European department collects pieces from the medieval period to the 20th century, obviously a huge timeframe. As for the AGO, most visitors know about the Thompson collections (Group of Seven, European art, etc) but may not know that the gallery does hold some interesting modern pieces. It's also fun to see objects out of a linear context - viewers can see each independently or find connections between different objects. These objects are meant to be seen, and anything that gets them out of storage is fine with me.

Digital History: What's on the Menu?

2011-11-28T18:55:00.000-05:00

Food history was buzzing online last week - Ian Mosby's post on Active History discussed problems with popular locavore author Michael Pollan's rule about only eating food your great-grandmother would recognize, and it came only a day after this Star article about the University of Guelph's 13,000-volume Culinary Collection. Public historians should recognize the importance of studying food - the politics and social norms surrounding serving and preparing food can tell us so much about different eras, and describing (or even creating) old recipes can really grab the public's interest. As Mike Ridley, U of Guelph's chief librarian, says, "the fastest way to people’s minds is through their stomachs".

I was reading Food Network Magazine not too long ago when I came across a mention of a New York Public Library project, What's on the Menu?. The NYPL has one of the world's largest historical menu collections, with over 40,000 holdings, 10,000 of which are scanned. To make this amazing resource even more user-friendly, the NYPL has started a transcription project with those scanned menus, and they are enlisting the help of the public to help them with the huge project.

Their aim is to have all the menu items and prices transcribed for each menu, so dishes can be easily searchable by whomever wants to search them - academic historians, museum curators creating an exhibit, historical fiction writers, chefs, the list goes on. The NYPL plans to do this by letting internet users look through the menus and transcribe the items and prices into a text box. Users don't have an account, and there is no log-in - anyone who visits their web page is pointed towards menus that need transcribing. They hope, of course, that visitors read the Help section first - which details what to transcribe, what to skip, and how to format.

This is an great way to have data easily searchable and available to anyone with an internet connection. Why not allow users to transcribe data? Everything is reviewed by staff (though I can't imagine how long it will take to review 642,961 - and counting - dishes). One would assume that the job won't be perfect, but isn't it better than not having anything searchable or digitized at all? It reminds me of the oh so cruel Why you shouldn't become an archivist video that made the rounds last year. One character points out archivists will toil away (in a basement, of course) processing a large collection that no one will use - until someone finally does, but that person will be angry that the entire collection isn't digitized. The video is a joke, of course, but it does point out that researchers expect a lot from these collections - and records aren't serving their purpose if they're not easily accessible. In this digital age, accessibility is key - for researchers and, really, for anyone with an interest in history.

One interesting aspect is the Data section, where the NYPL lets users download the collected raw data and use whatever creative tools they can to analyze, interpret, or even create games with the data. The NYPL clearly understands the use of crowdsourcing - something I touched upon way back in January 2009 when discussing the Smithsonian's digital reputation. Maybe a software engineer will come up with something brilliant - using knowledge a trained historian wouldn't have. If only Miss Frank E. Buttolph could imagine how the collection she started in 1900 for the NYPL would be used in 2011.

Recent Exhibit: Grace Kelly: From Movie Star to Princess

2011-11-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Anyone who attended the Toronto International Film Festival would have seen the trailer for the TIFF Bell Lighbox fall exhibition about Grace Kelly. The swelling music, the comparisons to Diana and Kate Middleton, the promise of showing her dresses and "yes, even her Oscar".

Now would I have normally paid 15$ to see this (let's admit, fluffy) exhibit? Well, no, but after recently purchasing a discounted TIFF staff membership, I had free admission. And I have always liked Grace Kelly. I actually read a biography of her back in my younger days, and I very rarely read Hollywood biographies. I had seen a good handful of her movies. So really, why not wander over and see what they have?

This was my second time in the exhibit space at the Lightbox and again I hated it. You enter the exhibit through an awkwardly large glass door that looks like an exit. Inside there is one large room, and it's never clear which way to go through - last year I walked through their Tim Burton exhibit backwards. For this exhibit, you walk into a large introductory room, but then are given a choice of paths - and I again took the wrong one. It didn't make too much difference, but I can't imagine it's just me who finds it very unclear.

There is also a separate room off to the side, again with large glass doors that are always closed. It worked well for this exhibit, as it featured one of their prized possessions - a recreation of Kelly's wedding dress. But again, it's not very welcoming and interrupts the flow of the exhibit.

In general, I had two complaints about the exhibit. The first isn't too surprising, once it's clear that one of the organizers is the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The point of the exhibit is to celebrate Grace Kelly, and how wonderful she was. It is to marvel at her transformation from upper-class all-American girl to Hollywood leading lady to actual royalty. The exhibit is possible because the archives in Monaco lent her personal items - we see telegrams she received early on in her acting career, clothing she wore, letters she received from close friends such as Alfred Hitchcock, and even home movies she shot of her young family in the 1960s. These are all wonderful artifacts, but it also means that anyone looking for a hint of scandal will leave disappointed. Not that there was ever much gossip about Grace Kelly (she left Hollywood quite young, at the age of 26), but there was nothing negative about her at all. We are meant believe she was the epitome of style and grace, and never made a mistake or had a difficult moment in her life.

There is one letter that stands out among all the others on display. Most are congratulatory, discussing film roles or her Oscar nomination and win in 1955. One, however, is from her father. He writes what he describes as a painful letter, telling her that he and her mother are very disappointed about her relationship at the time with fashion designer Oleg Cassini. This British Vogue article mentions a 2003 biography of Kelly that argues she and Cassini never married because her parents disapproved (he was older, foreign and divorced). Her father, for that matter, was never supportive of his daughter's acting career either. While the exhibit briefly mentions she dated Cassini, it basically discusses how it affected her personal style. And while it describes in great detail her first meeting with Prince Rainier of Monaco (She wasn't wearing a designer dress! The power was out at the hotel so she couldn't blow-dry her hair!), it glosses over how their relationship grew, how they kept in touch, and why they got engaged so quickly - only about six months after meeting.

My second complaint was a complete lack of Kelly's own voice in the exhibit. The only words from Kelly's own mouth were a few quotes on the walls of the exhibit. Everything else - the telegrams, the letters - are written to her. The exhibit does a fine job of taking us through her early days in show business (modeling photographs, magazine covers) to her days as a top actress (movie posters, shooting scripts, film clips) to her days as a royal princess (archival footage of her arrival in Monaco, her clothing) but nothing gives the audience the sense that they know this woman more than any other fan would have in the 1950s. As the TIFF website states, the exhibit wants to celebrate "a figure sure in her own self-creation, fully aware of her consecutive, iconic roles as movie star, bride and Princess of Monaco." And that's what we see throughout the exhibit - the glossy creation known as Grace Kelly, superstar. The young woman who went through these transformations might have been more interesting.

Recent Visit: Lower East Side Tenement Museum

2011-11-18T13:26:00.001-05:00

I finally had a chance to see the Lower East Side Tenement Museum when I was in New York last month. I had heard of the museum a few years back, and was looking forward to taking a tour with one of their volunteer docents.

The price was a little steep - 20$ for an adult - but I hope it doesn't stop people from visiting because the museum gives glimpses into a part of New York's history that isn't unknown, but probably doesn't get the attention it deserves from most tourists. In a city like New York it's easy to spend the majority of your time at the big tourist destinations, and ignore the smaller museums. I find it hard sometimes just to leave mid-town Manhattan! But this museum, which focuses on the immigrant experience over multiple decades, is definitely worth a visit.

Visitors must take guided tours, which last roughly an hour, so first there was some waiting around in their gift shop/visitor centre. Luckily their gift shop is full of interesting books on New York and immigrant history. There is also a short film that visitors can watch.

Our docent met us in the shop and then we were led across the street to 97 Orchard, a five-floor tenement building built in the 1860s. The building had been closed down in the 1930s (the landlord couldn't afford to pay for some renovations) and basically shut for the next fifty years. The storefront was in use, but the apartments above stood empty up until the 1980s, when the museum founders were looking for a space for their museum. The museum consists of restored apartments based on specific families, and there is a wide variety - the Irish, Russians, Germans and Italians are all represented. Our tour was "Getting By", which talked about how immigrants lived, worked, and what happened if they hit hard times. It focused on two apartments and families - The Gumpertz family, German Jews in the 1870s, and the Baldizzi family, Italian Catholics in the 1930s.

The docent used a variety of interpretive tools, including artifacts (furniture, textiles, photographs) in the apartments, photocopies of census lists, oral histories, even a court transcript to talk about the families and the Lower East Side in general. To give us the feel for the period she would describe what language we would have heard on the street, where people may have worked, what shops would have been nearby. But the real star was the building itself.

The museum would have lost a lot of its impact if it hadn't been housed in that tenement building. Immediately walking in you were transported back 100 years. The hallway was tiny, the walls dingy. The cramped air felt worse once the docent described how dark it would have been, how many families lived in the building, coming and going at all hours. The public toilets weren't installed until 1901, gas lighting not until 1905, electricity not until the 1920s.

The apartments themselves were tiny - how did a family with several children live in a three-room apartment with one window? The Gumpertz family used outhouses in the backyard, and had no running water. The Baldizzi family had only three rooms as well, and an air shaft between their apartment and their neighbour's left little privacy. It was amazing to listen to how Mr. Gumpertz had left for work one day and never came back - no one ever found out what happened to him - and to stand in the apartment where his widow and children learned to live without him. We listened to Josephine Baldizzi speak about living at 97 Orchard as a small child - remembering how her family played checkers at the kitchen table and what brand of soap her mother kept above the sink. The docent made good attempts at getting us to comment on what we saw, asking us lots of questions - "What would it have been like?" - and though we weren't the chattiest group, the message came across.

The tour included a quick look at some unrestored apartments, where the shopkeepers stored their goods and used the walls to do inventory lists while the building was closed. The building isn't in the best condition, and I hope the museum has the funds to keep their programmes going while making sure the building survives well into the 21st century.

The museum's website is really well done, with big, clear text and graphics. It is easy to navigate and lets visitors know how they put the museum together. I especially like their use of crime scene photos to look at furnishings - "Note the Decor. Ignore the Body". I would definitely recommend a visit if you're in New York. It's easy to get swept up in the grandeur of Fifth Ave but history is definitely alive in the Lower East Side.

In which I consider children in the museum

2009-04-01T14:10:00.006-04:00

We spent a lot of time today in museology class discussing children's museums. These museums have been around for a hundred years, and are popping up all over the United States (and Canada). Children's museums are categorized by their high level of interactivity, and exhibits that appeal strictly to children. They are like science centres (which I would argue are pretty much children's museums in everything but name - a discovery I made a few summers ago at the Ontario Science Centre) where children are encouraged to run wild, while being stimulated by lights, computers, sound, buttons, cranks etc.

Unfortunately, our discussion relied on a strict dichotomy between children's museums and "traditional" museums, one for kids and the other strictly for adults. It seemed that these traditional "no-touch" museums could not possibly hold any interest for children. This seemed a bit silly to me, since I was an avid museum visitor from a young age and have never stepped foot inside a Children's Museum.

I feel that the vast majority of museums appeal to both adults and kids. They have to - these non-profit institutions could not survive without appealing to families, or anyone under the age of 40. We have discussed in different classes the level of education most museums must assume their audience holds. In the interest of having a wide audience, and not alienating those who may not have university degrees (for instance), museums generally write text panels anywhere from a grade 3-9 level. Besides, as a child in a museum I would have most likely been accompanied by an adult, who could explain a concept I didn't understand. Topics in history museums have always appealed to children, classics such as mummies, dinosaurs, and large machines.

We also discussed in class the nostalgic feeling people have for their local museums, and the sadness when renovations erase this public space people have grown to love. Surely many people began to feel a connection to their museums when they were children?

I definitely did. I have fond memories of visiting various Ottawa museums as a child with my sister and father. The Museum of Nature held dinosaurs, gems and stuffed animals ( I did enjoy these as a child...). The Aviation Museum had large planes - always fun. The Museum of Civilization was always impressive, with its collection of Native artifacts and models of early Canadian life. I visited the National Gallery quite a few times, but usually enjoyed the architecture more than the art. The Museum of Science and Tech was a favourite, though this falls more closely in the category of science centre, since I enjoyed looking at the chicks, climbing in the trains, seeing the model of the Titanic, walking through the Crazy Kitchen and watching the video of space ships blowing up.

I liked museum manager Mary Warner's article, "The Rumble of Little Feet" (Museum News, Sept/Oct 2006), because it argued that children could learn, and, gasp!, have fun in a traditional museum. As she says, children's brains have not changed to the extent we think in the past few generations: they are still curious about the world around them. They don't need overstimulation to get a valuable learning experience.

In which I look at built environments

2009-03-30T21:22:00.002-04:00

I have to admit that landscapes were not one of the many historical subjects that have caught my attention before I read this week’s readings, Rebecca Conard’s “Spading Common Ground” and David Glassberg’s “Interpreting Landscapes”, both found in Public History and the Environment, ed. Martin V. Melosi and Philip V. Scarpino (2004). In reading these articles, however, I realized the wealth of information that someone, especially a public historian, can find in these built environments. Everything from shopping malls to tenement buildings, from battlefields to railroads, from Native reservations to national parks, they are all part of the built environment, and hold good historical information for those willing to dig deep.

Conard preaches for a collective approach to preservation, without which the public will lose out on a worthy historical narrative. Land managers, preservationists and environmentalists all have their own agendas, and have rarely collaborated together on large projects. Land managers are usually looking for what’s economically viable. Environmentalists want a return to the wild, while forgetting (or perhaps not seeing) that there is no ‘wilderness’ anymore – land that is seemingly wild and natural can also have been as altered by human activity as a field paved over to make a parking lot. Preservationists, on the other hand, don’t see the ‘wild’, natural landscape at all, but only the artistic and historical merit of old buildings. While there’s nothing wrong with this, the buildings need to be situated in their natural setting to further understand their context. Conard wants to banish this either/or thinking of natural vs built, and find the layers of meaning in the interaction between the two.

Glassberg discusses the importance of involving the citizens of the area in the environmental research. People see their own landscapes differently from outsiders, and even differently from their own neighbours. Their perception can depend on class, race, gender, family history, length of time in that area, almost anything can change their view. Good interpretation can help people feel part of a larger environment, as well as enhance their understanding of their landscape.

So many factors have changed the landscape over hundreds of years. Glassberg argues that economic forces were the first to change the landscape in the years after English settlement in North America. New crops were planted and grown depending on European market forces, while animals were forced into pens. By the 20th century technological changes had made the most impact. Not only did trains create new living areas outside of city centres, but streetcars also changed the face of cities with their linear divisions. Soon people were clamoring for a chance to go back into the wild, and national parks were created to appeal to those looking to go back to 'pure' nature. No matter that these parks were artificially created, with new plant life, animal control and modern amenities for travelers.

While an environmentalist would want to tear down these buildings and restore the pristine nature beneath the tourist façade, Conard would argue, as a public historian, that these buildings are an integral part of the historical narrative and can tell us much about building projects in the 1930s. Another problem can arise when discussing historical sites – much of the time, what makes the site special is spread over more than one era. Good interpretation can bring these eras to light - such as the example of Fort Ticonderoga, where a woman dressed as an American tourist from the 1830s discussed 18th century military history. Visitors aren't afraid of different historical layers, and interpreters should take full advantage of people's interest in history to explore new ways of unravelling an environment's history.

The somewhat scary thing about these created sites is that the vast majority of people don’t see these creation as anything else but ‘nature’. While it is difficult to look at a forest, or field, and know whether someone has chosen to plant certain foliage there, there are more obvious factors that visitors miss completely. I have to admit I was surprised when I read that the people in charge of Mount Vernon had forbidden any building across the river from the site. I have visited George Washington’s home a few times and had never once pondered why the beautiful view from the back of his home, looking over the Potomac, remained (most likely?) as it was in Washington's time (minus the sailboats, I assume). While this is a small example (perhaps going back to PEI’s national park featuring Anne’s green-gabled house would be more illustrative), it shows how visitors don’t think critically about landscapes, especially when visiting a park or historical site. Conard fears that people will lose the ability to see the difference between a ‘theme park’ and a real site, and thus will be willing to tear down the real site and replace it with the theme park. While this is an extreme fear, I think it’s an important point to ponder. As public historians, we need to figure out how to reach out to people and show them the rich history these changing landscapes hold.

Now that I am more aware of this aspect of public history, I find myself looking for history in the landscapes I know. The house I’m currently renting is a tiny bungalow just south of the UWO campus. Most of the houses in the neighbourhood are just as small, a sign of post-World War II building when people wanted detached housing and large backyards but building supplies were scarce. There are driveways at each house, showing the growing significance of owning a car. In comparison, my house in Ottawa, built in the 1970s, also features a large backyard but also a driveway with a double garage. Even these simple observations tell historians information about these decades. There is a wealth of information to explore in this area of public history, especially with the help of environmentalists, land managers, and the citizens themselves.

In which I look at a photograph

2009-03-22T14:58:00.004-04:00

Another museum podcast has inspired an entry. It has brought up some issues we have discussed a few times in class, ideas which I think are important to review for museum studies and public history students. The first issue is everyone's favourite, money, and the second is the museum's effect on perceptions of objects of culture.

This podcast came from the Met, and it featured retired director Philippe de Montebello discussing a photograph, Onesipe Aguado's "Women Seen from the Back", with his curator of photography. The photograph was part of the Howard Gilman collection, a large acquisition made in 2005. Gilman had been collecting photographs from the first one hundred years of photography, and had amassed a large collection in over twenty years. He has been an executive of a paper company, and had his own private curator (!).

The Met had long ago expressed interest in his collection, since they were lacking in this area, and in fact the museum had worked closely with Gilman. Their acquisitions were made with the knowledge of what Gilman had, and he did the same. The museum had long hoped, "with fervent expectation", that Gilman would make a gift or bequest of the collection to the Met upon his death.

They were disappointed (though I think their sentiments were much stronger than what can be mentioned in a podcast) to find that in Gilman's will, there was no mention at all about donating the collection. It then took seven years, rallying support from the Trustees, to fund the major purchase. As Montebello explains in a sidenote, unfortunately, right when they were negotiating the price, there was a "reversal of fortune" for Gilman's paper company, meaning they were no longer in a position to just donate the collection. That doesn't change the fact that Gilman had not made any bequest in his will.

This illustrates many of the financial woes that museums face. After working so long with Gilman, it would have only seemed natural to donate the collection to the Met. Perhaps he believed the Met to be large, and rich enough, despite its being a not-for-profit cultural institution, to support the purchase? What if he had been working with a smaller museum, one that could never afford a large acquisition such as this? Would he still have refused to donate the collection? Economic downturn or no, the real losers in this situation are the public, the visitors to all museums. It's a clear reminder that museums depend on donations to survive, and even large institutions like the Met can have difficulty when prices are put on artifacts. Of course, buying and selling is a normal practice in the art world, and the Met is an art museum. But who sets the price?

Which brings us to the second point brought up in the podcast - the museum's ability to place value, both cultural and financial, on an object, by displaying it, or collecting it in the first place. All museum activities are interpretive: "merely by collecting or choosing to place an object on view, museum staffs were interpreting the object, attributing importance to it within the museum's subject matter, and anticipating the expectations of visitors viewing the artifact or artwork." [1].

This particular photo, "Woman Seen from the Back", had been relatively unknown until the Met placed the picture on the front of the catalogue for the first major exposition of the Gilman photographs. "Did we not create its celebrity?" Montebello asks. He points out a museum's incredible responsibility, and their effect on perceptions of works of art, especially large institutions like the Met. The curator believed it to be their mission to shine a spotlight on these lesser-known works, and not to rely solely on famous artists and their works. I believe the Met is right in their way of thinking. While it can't be forgotten that most of the public perceives museums, especially art museums, as upper-class, more temple than forum, the Met should be lauded in attempting to introduce something new to the public, a work that has power, and beauty, but may have been ignored because it didn't have a famous name attached to it.

Museums must also be careful, however, and must remember that "Museums make judgements and... ascribe meaning (and power) to the objects and the very institutions that contain them." [2]. It is their responsibility to showcase a wide range of artworks, from ancient times to 2009, from different artists with different messages. The authority of a museum is highly valuable, Montebello explains, since the photograph is now in the canon of photographic works. But it must not turn to authoritarianism. Museums must use this power to explore new messages, new artists, and make sure different viewpoints are represented.

[1] Edward P. Alexander and Mary Alexander. Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2008, 257.

[2] Ibid, 258.

In which I do oral history

2009-03-15T15:05:00.003-04:00

As part of our public history project this semester, each of us had to do one oral history interview with a past employee of a hospital here in London, Ontario.

Oral history interviews are a very popular way of doing public history, and they can be an enriching experience for both the historian and the person being interviewed. The historian can gain primary knowledge from someone whose story perhaps has not been told yet, or about how certain historical events are understood by different people. The interviewee may enjoy looking back on past experiences, in either a nostalgic or perhaps a therapeutic way.

Of course, as Alessandro Portelli explains in "Peculiarities of Oral History", the transcription of the interview implies manipulation of the information in some way or another. Historians need to be careful of limiting this problem as much as they can, since most interviews end up in written form after they are recorded. Even video documentaries are edited, spliced together, and usually erase the interviewer from the situation along with their original questions. In printed transcriptions, gestures may be forgotten, the speed at which the person spoke and the tone of their voice could be erased. Keeping the audio record, as well as keeping a detailed transcription with comments about important changes in the person's narrative, should be essential to be able to get the richest record possible.

I did my oral interview back at the very end of January. My interviewee was an elderly man, and I felt very honoured to be invited into his house for the sole purpose of learning about his experience working at the hospital. Even the original phone call to set up the meeting made me nervous; one classmate mentioned she thought her interviewee might just hang up the phone, not knowing who she was. I don't think my interviewee remembered being contacted previously, but he very readily invited me over without any qualms.

I admit at first it was a bit strange. His wife was watching The Young and the Restless in the room next to us, and I felt slightly as if I was intruding on their lives. But he was very friendly, if a bit baffled perhaps. He wasn't clear on the details of the project, and how exactly we would use this information. I think the fact that we were doing a group project, and building an exhibit rather than writing a thesis, was hard at first to understand - even fellow UWO students think it to be a bit strange.

I had a sheet of questions ready when I arrived, but I knew I might not get through them all. That's the fun part of doing interviews - your interviewee may mention a topic you hadn't thought about, or seem very passionate about another subject, and I would say it's only fair to let them tell you what they wish. My questions led the conversation, of course, since I was there as a historian to gather certain information. But he himself came up with a few statements I just had to follow up with more questions.

I think I was most worried about sounding too official. I hadn't thought of this before, but when I began asking questions, I felt very much like a journalist. When you're talking one on one with someone, you want to answer them in a comfortable manner, since they are talking to you in an unrehearsed way. Sometimes he would go on a long tangent, or tell an interesting anecdote, and it would feel strange to follow up with a perfectly formulated question out of my notebook. I didn't change many questions, but I found myself rewording them as I asked, or asking them in a few different ways, so they wouldn't sound so rehearsed. But then sometimes, they would come out sounding unprepared, as if I was unsure of what I should ask.

This was the first time I had interviewed anyone, especially someone who was so much older than myself, and whom I had had no previous contact. It was natural to be a bit nervous, but overall I think it went very well. He wasn't guarded, he was happy to answer my questions and seemed interested, if not excited, to tell me about his experiences.

The difficult choice now is deciding how to use all this information my classmates and I have collected. I would love to put a full transcript up on our website, but realistically thinking, not many visitors will voluntarily read through 10+ pages of an interview, and especially not 15 of them. Pulling out interesting quotes seems like a better idea, but then again people don't generally speak in quick, catchy quotes, especially people looking back on their lives, and putting their memories into words, perhaps for the first time. My interviewee often spent five minutes answering one question, and I would feel as if I was doing him a disservice by cutting out all but little bits. One classmate suggested choosing questions from our class' list, and putting up a few responses. This could also be problematic, however, because of the nature of interviews. We were interviewing people in different positions, and so our questions were tailored to their experience. Maybe we didn't get to ask all of our questions, because the conversation might have taken a more interesting turn. I know personally I didn't make it through all my questions in the hour I was doing my interview. I have a feeling each interview may be quite different, and it will take some time to decide how to represent this valuable information in our exhibit.

I think oral history interviews are a great way to introduce students to a different way of doing history. Most history undergraduates use books, articles, and other print sources for their research. Many graduate students probably don't use interviews either, even if they are looking into 20th century history. But talking one on one with someone, hearing firsthand their experiences, is a valuable tool for historians, especially those looking to show audiences multiple viewpoints, as Jo Blatti points out in "Public History and Oral History". It can also be a personally enriching experience for the historian, and I hope as well for my interviewee.

In which I write for the public

2009-03-09T20:27:00.003-04:00

As other UWO public history blogs have mentioned, we recently completed an exercise of writing a newspaper-type article (an op-ed) on a historical topic. It had to be a specific length (no more than 400 words), have a snappy opener and closer, catch people's interest, and answer everyone's favourite question about history: "So what?" How did this topic relate to life today?

At first, I got a bit worried. I never read the newspaper, nor even op-eds online, so I wasn't sure how to proceed, what style or tone was expected, what kind of subjects to discuss. I was also not a student of modern (19-20th century) history, nor North American history, and could hardly imagine relating a topic from the early modern period to the present day. We also had a tight deadline - just under two days - which left me with little time to research a new topic. I began to think of anniversaries, as these are many exhibit planners, writer, archivists, etc favourite way of bringing the past to life. I remembered my earlier blog post about Henry VIII and the 500th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. Sounded good - but how to relate it to the present day?

I began to think of the 'thesis' of the article, the message I wanted to get across - that the Henry VIII constantly represented in pop culture is an older, more angry Henry. In 1509 Henry was a very young, athletic, handsome man, educated, artistically talented, and the country was filled with hope. The image of Obama popped into my head and the idea of a very strange comparison between the two came to mind.

Here is the article:

He killed his wives, he created his own Church, and he was a big fat slob. Say the name Henry VIII to anyone and those will be the first thoughts to come to their minds. A lot can change in a thirty-eight-year reign, however, and many people forget that when Henry came to power, he was only two months shy of his eighteenth birthday and beloved by his subjects. He was young, charismatic, and the first non-disputed king in almost one hundred years.
2009 marks the 500th anniversary of Henry’s accession to the throne, and England is throwing one hell of a party for their most memorable and controversial king. New exhibits, ghost tours and a jousting tournament are in the works. I cannot think of a historical figure that has captured the public’s attention more so than this larger-than-life king. His immense popularity in pop culture is reflected in the Showtime series The Tudors, starring a brooding, womanizing Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry, as well as in last year’s film The Other Boleyn Girl, though it’s popularity may have been due to featuring two young, popular actresses who spent two hours purring “I love you, sister” into each other’s ears while their breasts heaved inside their corsets.
While the sixteenth century may feel like the dark ages to most, there is much about the excitement and hope surrounding Henry’s accession we can understand, even today. Our American neighbours’ new president came to power with similar fanfare and recognition that a new era was about to start. Like Obama, with his degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law, Henry was bright and educated by the best tutors in England. Like Bush, Henry’s predecessor, his father Henry VII, was seen as old, stodgy, unpopular and conservative, and international communities breathed a sigh of relief over both new regime changes. At eighteen, Henry was in the best shape of his life, and enjoyed dancing, hunting, and jousting. For Christmas this year, many people got to enjoy the ubiquitous pictures of a topless Obama frolicking on a Hawaiian beach. Both men definitely caught the public’s attention.
It seems there’s something about Henry VIII that keeps us coming back for more. Perhaps it’s our infatuation with the rich and powerful. Perhaps it’s our innate respect and excitement for someone who ushers in a period of change. Or perhaps everyone just likes a good sex scandal.

~~~

One of the hardest challenges was getting the word count down to 400. Historians like to use large words, such as subject jargon, and they don't like to edit. As Professor Vance quipped, "Why use ten words when you can use twenty?" This is fine for an academic audience, but a short newspaper article, being read by those without historical backgrounds meant that this article needed to be short, easy to understand, and interesting.

I decided to go out on a limb with this piece, and I don't regret the attempt. I think it worked out pretty well in the end. While some did comment that the Obama section was a bit surprising, I still agree with my original sentiment - that by comparing the hope that Obama brought with him to the presidency, people would better understand an event that happened 500 years ago. Perhaps a story like this would peak someone's interest, and instead of renting The Tudors they might visit a library to learn more. Isn't that what public history is all about?

In which I think of new forms of exhibits

2009-03-01T12:29:00.004-05:00

This week in museology we've been reading about exhibits - who is listening and looking (students? the upper class? the 'public'?), who is talking (curators? designers? educators?), the problems with interpretation, the concerns with 'blockbusters', the ethical questions that need to be thought through. "Museums are not museums without exhibitions", writes Kathleen McLean, and they are "the soul of a museum experience". I thought I would share with you, readers, a very interesting exhibit I saw recently: the Met's The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions.

This was a very strange exhibit for me, especially as a public history student. Traditionally exhibits are thought of as visually appealing, 3-D versions of an academic paper, in the way that there is a thesis, and objects are used to illustrate this idea. We are used to exhibits talking about one historical subject, perhaps two; but this exhibit was very different.

Philippe de Montebello was the director of the Met until his recent retirement. His 30+ year influence, as well as the respect given to him by his colleagues, is obvious. The show really is a celebration of his time at the museum, and it was well-advertised; the Met's Special Exhibition podcast had been doing shows about the objects featured in the exhibit for months.

This exhibit was not on one historical topic, nor did it centre on one historical era or country, and it didn't talk about a certain art movement. Th exhibit featured the Met's most important acquisitions over the past thirty years, most important being defined in this case as the most transformative to its collections. As the exhibit website describes, it is a celebration of the diversity of the museum's collection. Three hundred objects were placed in the gallery's largest exhibition space, and in it was created "an explosive kaleidoscope of works in various materials representing artistic traditions that range across the globe and across time".

The show was organized in a completely different way than a usual art gallery. The objects were organized solely by acquisition date, meaning that a visitor moved from an 18th century French dress, to a 4th century BC Egyptian figure, to a 14th century Burgundian deck of cards, to a 5th century Indian Buddha, to a Sienese medieval painting, to a picture of Marilyn Monroe. The artifacts spanned thousands of years, hundreds of countries (even Easter Island), and included everything from famous painters (Rembrandt, Picasso, van Gogh) to little-known 19th century photography, from clothing to quilts, from pistols to armour.

Walking through the exhibit was slightly overwhelming. I'd never seen an exhibit that literally centred around acquisitions and ignored any sort of thematic organization. But I, as well as my father who was with me, both agreed it was a new and wonderful way to see the objects. There was no attempt to relate the objects to one another; the accompanying text panels spoke only of the individual artifact. The exhibit let the visitors make their own connections between the objects, between styles, between countries, between eras. It also did a great job at illustrating the sheer size of a world-class art museum like the Met, whose collections mandate must be very long indeed.

While it might seem counterintuitive for curators to put together a large exhibit without a historical (or artistic) theme and which had no prescribed learned message for visitors, this sort of exhibit still worked. It let visitors see objects that had never been displayed together in the same room, allowing for new meanings to come out of the objects. It broke traditional museum rules and moved some of the interpretation from the curators to the visitors. Overall it celebrated the efforts of a single man, who helped the Met become one of the most important art museums in the world.

In which I think back to historical novels

2009-02-21T19:27:00.005-05:00

I am blatantly stealing Jenna's idea, so I hope she doesn't mind!

I too became interested in history through more popular means than my 'Integrated Studies' classes of grades seven and eight (and yes, for some reason geography and history were lumped together under that unappealing name). Something about fur-traders and the plaines d'Abraham just didn't peak my interest. But I read many historical novels for 'tweens' - or whatever we were called back then - and I thought I would share some of my favourites.

Karleen Bradford, The Nine Days Queen

I loved this book when I read it. It got me completely interested in Henry VIII and his wives. The book revolves around the short life of Jane Grey, whose mother was first cousin to Henry. When Henry's son, King Edward VI dies, a Protestant faction puts her unwillingly on the throne for nine days, until she is unceremoniously thrown in the Tower of London by the true queen, Mary I. Later she is beheaded. The fact that it was a true story made it such an exciting book, and it had everything: royalty, Renaissance England, murder, sex scandals. Young readers will be completely engrossed by the fact that Jane is only a few years older than them.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Though not a novel, this is a must-read for anyone young person, even if they're not interested in history. It is an incredibly powerful book and will give any young person a real glimpse into the horrors of WWII (I doubt I'm spoiling anything when I say that everyone except her father dies in concentration camps). Anne is a great narrator, however, sharing every personal detail of her life hiding from the Nazis - how she hates her parents, when she got her period, even how she has a crush on the boy they live with. Incredibly poignant, and a great introduction for kids interested in learning about WWII.

Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow

I read this book in school, and good thing I did. It really is one of my favourite children's books of all time. I was slightly obsessed with time travel books, and this book is a great example of the genre done well. Unhappy Abigail is intrigued by a game played by some kids in the park called Beatie Bow, and her search (as well as a piece of Victorian lace she has just bought) leads her to travel back to 19th century Sydney. I loved time travel books because it let the reader see very clearly the differences in past and modern life, and the modern narrator's comments were always the same as my own. It let you imagine what you, the reader, would do in the same situation. Abigail discovers new friends, a new life, grows up a bit and learns to appreciate what she has. Sounds simple, but it works.

Kit Pearson, The Daring Game

Okay, so this one isn't too historical, though it is set in the 1960s. I just had to put a Kit Pearson book on this list because she's such a great children's writer, and I loved all her books. This is her first one, and it's a great story about a girl who moves to a boarding school, and gets into some fun/trouble with a game played by her roommates. Pearson also wrote a fabulous time travel book called A Handful of Time, where an unhappy girl accidentally goes back in time to when her mother was young while she's at a family cottage. She's well-known for her Guests of War trilogy about English children who come to Canada to escape the war.

History will always be in the popular imagination, and as long as authors and directors find new ways of bringing it to life, kids will gain an interest in history that might even translate to a life-long hobby or even further study. I find it hard to believe that kids can't get excited about history when it is so prevalent in novels, movies, even video games. It's true that history classes in school can be dry and unimpressive, but hopefully kids can discover the wealth of popular history that is out there, like I, and most likely many of my history grad colleagues, did.

In which I consider the musee imaginaire

2009-02-20T17:45:00.007-05:00

I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts, from the National Gallery (UK), when an interesting concept was discussed, that of Andre Malraux's musee imaginaire.

Sophie Howeth, director of the English School of Life, describes the idea as a "museum without walls". Malraux's original idea had to do with the ever increasing number of art reproductions available in the 20th (and now 21st) centuries, and art's subsequent ability to reach out beyond hallowed halls to influence everyone and everyday life. The National Gallery used this idea to answer the age-old question: how is culture (Shakespeare, Caravaggio, Stravinsky) revelant to us now? Or, as asked by high school students everywhere: What's the point?

Sophie Howeth's answer, luckily for us public historians, is a resounding affirmation of the importance of culture, even in our daily lives. She explains that while visiting a gallery, for instance, we aren't blank slates. Our families, our jobs, whatever happened in our day - we are still carrying these things around with us. When we leave the gallery, we want to take a piece of it, a part of that sanctuary, back with us.

We all have a musee imaginaire in our heads, or we bring it to life with scrapbooks, or postcards on the fridge, or even blogs. It is our way of collecting those pieces of art, or music, or writing, that really inspire us, mean something to us, and speak to us on a different level. Whether we realize it or not, we all have this going on in our heads - we've all got our own museum without walls.

So how do we engage with this personal cultural collection? In the same way we usually feel a personal connection with a piece of art - when it is working on answering the same questions we are asking. Howeth explains how we turn to art when we feel the need to know someone else is battling with the same important, enduring questions we are - art can help solve the universal feeling of not being alone. Artists put into words, music, paint strokes, whatever, the different emotions we feel.

I felt this podcast was quite timely, as one of the big museum news stories in the past few weeks was the closing of the Rose Art Gallery at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. The university trustees' decision to sell the collection to pay for school administrative costs had art museum directors raising their voices in anger. Art collections shouldn't be seen as expendable income, they should be held in the public trust for educative purposes, not sold in our failing economy to pay for the university's deficit. Not to mention that selling collections goes against the code of ethics of most museum organizations unless the proper deaccessioning rules are followed and the money is put back into the collection.

So this question, of the relevance and societal importance of culture, is increasingly being asked and pondered over, especially in our current economic climate. I have a feeling that Brandeis university is not the only institution battling financial problems, and starting to see their art or artifact collections as assets, instead of a rich cultural collection with the ability to teach and inspire. Unfortunately culture, heritage and the arts is often forgotten in budgets, or the first to be cut out of them.

Maybe we should all sit back and think about our own musee imaginaires, stroll through an art gallery, pick up that classic book we've always meant to read, or go walk through a new museum, and remember the role culture can play in our personal lives.

Smithsonian 2.0

2009-01-31T20:51:00.004-05:00

It's safe to say the internet has been around for awhile. It seems almost cliche to talk about how revolutionary this tool has been, how it has changed lives, the world. I have had an internet connection in my home(s) for the past 13 years. There are teenagers who probably don't legitimately remember a time without e-mail, MSN Messenger and illegal downloading. MySpace is old news, Facebook is getting tired, the New York Times is almost bankrupt. Internet behaviour has already changed - welcome to Web 2.0. Or are we onto something new already? Either way, the internet is hardly new, and our world has been adapting for quite some time.

So why did I feel like I had jumped back in time while reading the Washington Post's Jan 26th article, Smithsonian Clicks-n-Drags Itself Forward? Great quotes like Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough's "With digitization and with the Web, we can see it all. We can see it all!" almost made me laugh out loud. Maybe museums do deserve the stodgy, old, static reputation they have earned over the years. It's almost sad that it took the revered institution this long to realize the power the web can have. The Smithsonian holds 137 million artifacts (and yes, you read that correctly). As with most museums, only about 1 % are on display, and that's only in the D.C, area. Fortunately, they are now realizing the great role the internet can play in reaching a wide audience, of all classes, in all cities.

The good news is that because it's the Smithsonian, they can afford to get the best. At a recent VIP weekend, Wired's Chris Anderson (he of the Long Tail) gave a talk - where he proclaimed that curators needed to "get over themselves." He argues that the Web has made them obsolete. He argues that the best curators are the people out in the Web who are passionate about their specialized hobbies. If the Smithsonian put their objects on the web, they could put out a call to attract these people - a theory that is very similar to Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing. "There aren't enough of you", he argues, and I can only imagine the reaction among the curators in the audience.

The main message was that the Smithsonian had to join the 21st century, as much as this task may boggle the mind. I can't even imagine the day when the world's largest museum complex will get even one million objects digitized and available to the public. But they have reached the first step - the recognition of the internet's power as a public resource - and hopefully they'll be well on their way to keeping museums relevant into the next century.

In which I look at a museum blog

2009-01-17T17:37:00.002-05:00

Eric Espig, one of the creators of F Blog, had sent out an e-mail on a Museum listserv asking for comments on his work. He and his partner, both museum studies graduates, were organizing an exhibit called Cold War Berlin: Life at the Breaking Point for the Diefenbunker in Ottawa, to open May 2009. And they are documenting the entire installation.

The first question is, why? Why go to all the trouble to create a blog and post about the everyday issues that come up while installing a museum exhibit? My first thought would be that they were first and foremost posting this information for themselves, as a keepsake of a large project they had put months of work into - maybe their first large self-designed exhibit. Reading through the posts, however, makes it clear that this blog contains great advice on the practicalities of physically transforming a space into an historical exhibit. It shows the background work that most visitors don't even think about. It shows that those wanting to work in museums must have a lot of extra knowledge, and special skills, that they may not have thought about before.

Did you know that most masking tape will only stay sticky for 7-8 days? Or that you should use a low V.O.C. acrylic paint in a museum environment? These two bloggers let the public know the best tips to create a maquette, how to write a curatorial essay, and where to get cheap exhibit cases (and what tools you'll need to disassemble them). They show how they created their title panel in Photoshop, how they changed their design for maximum visitor flow and how they created stencils for the walls.

Blogs like this can showcase one's skill and even passion in creating something for the public. Comments from blog visitors could add different ideas and advice to the new museum worker. And of course, all publicity is good publicity. The power of the internet has proven itself once again, and thankfully young museum fanatics are taking full advantage.

In which I share some news

2009-01-17T17:10:00.003-05:00

An interesting article was brought to my attention through a Dan Cohen blog post the other day, though the story itself is from December 2008.

It is easy to forget that not every country, or government at least, is thrilled when new historical projects are dreamt up. In Russia, a human rights group called Memorial had been creating a digital repository concerning Stalin's reign of Terror. They had been collecting photographs of gulags, oral histories, artifacts and had been planning a 'Virtual Museum of the Gulag'. Unfortunately, masked men raided their office in broad daylight and stole over 20 years worth of work.

Memorial had been attempting to collect information from many small Russian museums, almost 300 of them, and wanted to help disseminate their important historical message in a more national way. No wonder scholars were outraged when they heard that the government was trying to stop their research.

Stalin is still a very controversial topic on Russia, and this story really raises awareness of how powerful even a virtual museum, or any type of information repository, can be seen as messengers of history. Museums are the key to public memory, and it's almost unbelievable that such a direct action would be taken to stop Memorial's work with Russia's non-elite population.

Read the original story from the Times UK.

In which I consider audiences

2009-01-05T13:55:00.009-05:00

I was in Washington, D.C. for part of my Christmas vacation and, as usual, visits to the Smithsonian museums were our chosen activity. Washington excels at featuring interesting, important (and FREE!) museums set in beautiful, public spaces - I would suggest a visit to anyone interested. My father and I first visited the National Portrait Gallery, which we hadn't visited before. One large permanent exhibit they have is America's Presidents, and as we wandered, the text panel for a portrait of George Washington caught my eye:

"As the general who led us to victory in the American Revolution and as our first president, George Washington was often painted and sculpted. Everyone, it seemed, wanted the hero's portrait. But it is this portrait that stands for all time as the image that best represents what Washington meant to us when we were a new nation and continues to mean to us in the twenty-first century... This was the man who told us what this new kind of leader-an elected president-could be and whose maturity and resolve gave us confidence in our future. " [from the NPG website] There was also extensive use of 'we' - "We can see.." "We can say.." "We are lucky..."

I pointed this out to my father, who retorted, "Well, what do you expect? It's the US. Of course they're self-centred."

But it began to bug me. I couldn't remember being in a museum or gallery where the text panel used such familiar language, where it assumed that the person reading it would not only be American but would believe in such glowing praise of one historical figure - and in such poetic language! It really got me thinking - should text panels contain an omniscient, third person narrative or speak to an intended audience? How does a visitor, or tourist, relate then to the historical information when it is presented so one-dimensionally? Who decides who this intended audience should be?

A city like Washington, D.C. is visited by many non-American tourists - such as myself - and despite the fact I was in a National Gallery in the national capital, I was still surprised that the writers would focus solely on a receptive, national audience. I am not naive enough to believe that a text panel can ever be truly opinion-free - there is historical interpretation at all levels - but should it speak so personally, instead of trying to give facts? The website claims that "this exhibition lies at the heart of the Portrait Gallery’s mission to tell the American story through the individuals who have shaped it." But tell the story to whom?

In contrast, we also visited the National Museum of the American Indian, whose website states its goals : "To protect and foster their cultures by reaffirming traditions and beliefs, encouraging contemporary artistic expression, and empowering the Indian voice." The intended audience, for the most part, seemed to be non-Native people. Being a large, national institution situated in downtown Washington, this doesn't seem surprising. Even the website statement says "their cultures", showing that many of the people (not all, of course) behind the project were non-Native. Is this just because Native populations are in the minority? In that case, is the Portrait Gallery correct in writing with a majority audience in mind? What about the rest of us?

Do different museums have different audiences? To me, museums seem like one of the largest tourist draws in large cities, so narrowing to an intended audience seems detrimental. Even if a certain gallery has a narrow focus, such as American Presidents, is it right to lose the third-person, impersonal narrative that academic historians thrive on? Does it lose credibility? Or is it just a product of public history, trying to personally and emotionally interact with visitors and perhaps pluck a heartstring or two? But isn't part of public history gaining the interest of a wide audience, no matter the subject?

I am aware that many museums do have in mind the goal of educating a certain audience, for example when Native populations use the money gained from casinos on their land to finance an educational museum, mostly for their own people. Various national museums come to mind as well, which is why I was not surprised the National Portrait Gallery would be so glowing in their text panels re: important American figures. I believe, however, that the best way to portray their historical information would be in a less personal manner so as to include all possible audiences. Museums are there to educate as many as possible, not to make people feel excluded because they are not part of that group, nation, etc. I feel non-Americans looking for a more in-depth, more scholarly, and less personal history will be disappointed.

All blogs come to an end?

2008-12-16T23:47:00.001-05:00

A short post:

I just learned that the website of my previous post, Torontoist, will be closing down January 1st! I guess I'm cursed - it lasted four years until I wrote about it. The content will still be up, but if you're hankering for some vintage ads and archival photos, visit soon!

In which I glimpse Toronto's past

2008-12-09T13:41:00.002-05:00

One of my favourite blogs is Torontoist. It is updated daily with everything Toronto-oriented: news, concerts, movies, politics, urban planning, photos, art listings, transit news, pretty much everything. It is part of the Gothamist network (which boasts many cities, from Seattle to Shanghai), but is written by various Torontonians, most university-age and in their 20s and 30s (I think). They claim to be the largest, most influential, and most widely-read website of its kind in Canada, with 250,000 visits per month. One of my favourite articles are posted on Saturday mornings: Historicist.

"Every Saturday morning Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today." Posts feaure glimpses into Toronto's past, everything from the Santa Claus parade and famous TO residents such as Banting and Best, to old amusement spots and the histories of famous buildings. And of course, in great public history style, the entries are full of archival photos.

I wouldn't have thought at first that a city blog like Torontoist would be the place to find historical vignettes. Torontoist is unabashedly part of the 'indy' crowd of TO, and they are known by some for being too cool for school (though I'm always impressed by their political coverage). On the other hand, I have realized that this blog is the perfect spot for these glimpses. Torontoist advertises itself as being about absolutely everything Toronto-related, and why shouldn't this include its history?

History can be equally as interesting as daily news. I believe people who live in Toronto, and want to learn more about the city, need (and usually want, I hope) to learn about how the city came to be the way it is. Historicist serves as a reminder; many posts talk about the oft-forgotten and perhaps dismissed people, places and events that helped create Toronto. Whether it's learning about the history of a long tradition, or about the architecture or a building one might pass by daily, or about the entertainment spots visited by families in the earlier 20th century, Historicist teaches people what Toronto was, while the other posts on the blog explain what Toronto is like today. I believe Torontoist has realized that history makes us who we are.

In which I celebrate Henry VIII

2008-12-01T15:50:00.001-05:00

It is - unbelievably - almost 2009. This will mark the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the English throne. And England is throwing one hell of a party for their most memorable, controversial and beloved king. I cannot think of another monarch who has captured the public's attention (both domestic and international) more so than Henry and his exploits. The popularity of the TV series The Tudors, Philippa Gregory's novels (such as The Other Boleyn Girl), and numerous History Channel documentaries on his six wives (usually narrated by popular historian David Starkey) have proved that this is a part of history of which people just can't get enough.

I've always had a soft spot for this larger than life historical figure. In fact, the title of this blog comes from one of his original musical compositions (in case anyone was wondering). So I was thrilled when I learned that London was taking advantage of the first law of outreach, according to some archivists: anniversaries. Anything divisible by 5 or 10 will work, and 500 is a popular momentous age to celebrate (think back to the American celebrations of Columbus' 'discovery').

For the academics, there is an international conference to be held next July at Hampton Court Palace to discuss Henry and his court. Strangely the website claims to have a goal of "disseminat[ing] this research to a wide academic and non-academic audience" - a lofty goal perhaps for an academic conference. But they deserve praise for wanting to spread the knowledge further outside of academia's ivy-covered walls.

The real celebrations will be happening all throughout 2009, and there is an amazing array of exhibits and events. Hampton Court, already a popular historic site just outside of London, will open new rooms to the public and focus on one day in Henry's life: July 12, 1543, when Henry married his sixth wife. Costumed characters and recreations will abound. Hampton Court is one of the only surviving palaces used by Henry VIII. Despite its renovations in the late 17th century for William III, many parts from Henry's day are conserved, such as the chapel, great hall, and some Tudor kitchens, so there is an air of authenticity. Other events in 2009 will include musical concerts on period instruments, Christmas celebrations, a jousting tournament, a special coronation weekend, and cooking demonstrations - where visitors can help cook food Tudor-style and later eat some of the dishes at the cafe on-site. There will also be special ghost tours of the palace - because who doesn't love a good ghost story?

The Tower of London will also feature an exhibit, regarding Henry and his armour. The British Library will present Henry: Man and Monarch, and display manuscripts he commissioned and books he owned.

Lastly, for those interested in learning more about Henry VIII, Oxford's Continuing Education Dept will offer a course, "Henry VIII: Reputation and Reality", thus giving people the chance to learn more about Henry in a university setting.

The organizers have clearly realized that there is a large interest in everything Tudor these days, and I can't think of anything better than a year-long celebration that invites both scholars and the public to come to London and learn more about the Tudor period through exhibits, displays, events, etc. Visitors can walk the halls of a Tudor palace, eat 16th century food, hear 16th century music, see 16th century artifacts. They can literally walk in the shoes of a famous historical figure. I am very impressed at the level of engagement with the past that will be offered at these sites. Public history is about trying to impress our own interest with history onto those that may not be interested, and using music, art, food and events to show people a fascinating time period is a great way to get them involved - and maybe even learn something.

For more info, check out Susan James,
"London celebrates Henry VIII anniversary"

In which I consider the macabre

2008-11-21T20:08:00.004-05:00

I have been thinking about Lennon and Foley's 'Dark Tourism' article. They discussed the new phenomenon of tourist interest in recent death and atrocities, and continued by analyzing the Auschwitz-Birkenau historic site. So, what is this fascination that people have with death and destruction?

I have stood where Ann Boleyn (and countless others) lost their heads in London, I have stood where Savonarola burned to death in Florence, I have looked over the graves of Titanic victims in Halifax. I have observed medieval torture instruments (including a used guillotine) in Ghent, I have walked past rows of bones in the Paris catacombs, I have seen where gladiators once lost their lives with crowds of Romans cheering their demise. Seems I can enjoy the macabre as much as the next person, and who wouldn't enjoy the more colourful, gory parts of history? As a history student, it is the extraordinary events that capture our interest for the most part. The wars, the murders, the intrigue. But the difference is the distance I feel from these activities. This is one of the fundamental reasons I chose to study history that had happened five hundred years ago as opposed to fifty. The distance allowed me no personal attachment, no emotional draw.

I recently watched a trio of youtube videos (aaah youtube, what don't you have online?) that I happened to watch in a trio because they happened to link to each other. Hence the addictive nature of youtube. The first was the crash of the Hindenburg, complete with radio soundtrack. The second was the Kennedy assassination, a video I had never seen before (and I really wish I hadn't let my curiosity get the better of me because it was particularly horrific). The third was a 'home video' of Hitler, Eva Braun and their pals frolicking in the Alps in 1939. Now, with these events, while there is some distance, the fact that they happened in the 20th century while most of my grandparents were alive is shocking to me. I can't help but feel this sensitivity to the horrific events that are still in the living memory. The invention of colour video helps particularly with the idea that these people were not so different, that these events happened recently and could possible happen again.

As a historian I understand why Lennon and Foley would criticize Auschwitz-Birkenau for lacking historical explanation or interpretation. At the same time, I can't imagine going to a historic site like a concentration camp and trying to see it with a distant, professional historian perspective. It's too horrific, too recent. I enjoyed their description of Auschwitz as more of a pilgrimage site - while talking about such an event it shouldn't be forgotten as one aspect of the site. Visiting such a place would just be heart-wrenching - even with the inauthentic touches that Lennon and Foley point out. As public historians, we must remember what the public is looking for. Are they looking for a moving experience, or a balanced history lesson? One skill public historians must learn is putting the two together. But I have to admit - while I was standing in Anne Frank's room in Amsterdam, I didn't care that there were video screens with oral interviews, or text panels explaining the Dutch situation in the early 1940s. I was just excited and moved to be there, history lesson or no. There are just some spots where words aren't needed.

In which I remember

2008-11-12T22:31:00.003-05:00

I was browsing indie Toronto news blog torontoist when I came across this post just one day after Remembrance Day. What a moving statement from students, a group one would not normally think would bother to impress on people the number of Canadians lost in war. Engineers had placed white crosses all over U of T's front campus, in front of University College, to remember each and every one of the 628 students, faculty, staff, and alumni that were killed in WWI. I won't say too much else, because other posts have already stated the importance of remembering. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

In which I shamelessly get your attention

2008-11-05T20:04:00.003-05:00

This past spring I congratulated myself on getting my BA by spending a month in Europe. The amazing museums and art galleries in cities like Paris and Rome allowed me to finally see first hand many of the things I had spent four years studying - as a medieval/Renaissance/early modern scholar, I was in heaven. But while seeing Titians in Venice and Botticellis in Florence was amazing, I remember quite clearly another museum I visited (and don't judge me too badly) - Amsterdam's SexMuseum.

This institution is as old as I am, opening in 1985, and is one of Amsterdam's most popular museums with over 500 000 visitors per year. It only cost 3 euros (a steal in any European city) and let me tell you - this was like no other museum I had been in. Plastic mannequins in revealing clothing smiled at you while you walked past a small shelf with various ancient Egyptian, Greek and European artifacts - all illustrating some sort of sexual activity. The collection mainly consisted of walls covered in 19th century pornography - studio pictures, for the most part. Imagine an explicitly dirty postcard, but starring men that look like Civil War soldiers and women whose hair would look old-fashioned aboard the Titanic.

I feel like using the term "museum" loosely, and not because I believe sexuality is not a valid historical topic. In fact, as my profile states, I find it a very interesting field. I spent the second half of my time at U of T discussing 15th century cross-dressing English prostitutes, the medieval church's views on acceptable sexual positions and the gay nightlife of Renaissance Florence. I wouldn't consider myself a historical prude. The field is still growing, being only about 20 years old, but is popular enough (as one can imagine) that pioneer sex historian Vern L. Bullough even has his own Wikipedia entry.

The SexMuseum, though, was different. First of all, it is centrally located along a main street leading to the train station in arguably the most liberally-minded city in the world. Tourists come to Amsterdam for well-known reasons. The museum was clearly catering to the tourist demographic - young backpackers looking for raunchy activities to later recount to their friends in postcards with XXX on them. The fact that it is open daily until 11:30 is case in point.

So I began to think - what makes a museum a museum? Is it any building with any coherent collection of historical artifacts on any topic, or does it have to be something more serious? A collection of local artifacts illustrating the humble beginnings of a small town, with no budget and no visitors, or a gallery of pornography, which receives half a million visitors? Is the SexMuseum seen as a legitimate museum, as opposed to if I set up my childhood toys on a shelf in my garage and invited friends over to take a look? My previous post confirmed museums don't even need permanent homes. So what of a wild tourist trap designed to make young North American travelers blush and giggle? Is it a legitimate museum?

I should point out that there are now other sex museums that seem to have more legitimacy, such as New York's Museum of Sex. With award-winning exhibits and academics on board, this seems more like the museums we all know - just with a more colourful focus than dinosaurs or medieval art. While sexuality is not fully accepted as serious topic by all, the Museum of Sex is clearly a real museum. Amsterdam's museum is a bit harder to categorize. I'm not fully sold on stripping it of its title, but the idea of including it in the same category as the ROM, the Met or Theatre Museum Canada makes me shudder just a little bit. So I will have to end this post without a firm opinionated conclusion, just more questions.

In which I think of public spaces

2008-11-04T16:20:00.005-05:00

I was scanning my monthly UofT News e-mail the other day when I came across a story about Theatre Museum Canada. I had never heard of this museum before, and a quick look at the article confirmed that this museum, indeed, did not have any permanent home, only a website. The story talked about a new display that will be going up in Hart House (a student centre on campus) near the theatre housed within. Which got me thinking two things.

First, what a smart way for a group to show their exhibits and collections without a permanent museum structure. Not everyone can afford a home for their collections, especially one that is well-designed for the purpose of being a museum, one that is big enough with storage space for artifacts and one that is centrally located to attract residents and tourists alike. Not everyone even has the budget for any space, whether it be optimal or not. Matching up with Hart House was really a no-brainer for Theatre Museum Canada; the Hart House theatre is well-known around U of T and has seen many famous thespians cross its stage, such as Donald Sutherland, and is supported by Canadian film heavyweights such as Norman Jewison. Why not take advantage of empty walls and use them to highlight an important collection that needs a home? Especially since it seems that it may be the only theatre museum in Canada. Obviously a whole community is passionate about this collection, and placing it near a theatre space would definitely help attract the right audience and support, as well as highlight the history of the Hart House theatre.

Which brings me to my second thought. I realized the importance of bringing the museum out of the museum. One great way to get people interested in history is to place the history not by itself in a museum, isolated from the community, but within heavily used buildings with histories of their own, which many people passing by might not even realize. I myself stopped by Hart House for various reasons: 5$ international lunches, choir practices, guest speakers, gym visits, political debates or just as a place to relax between classes. One of the things I love most about public history is the 'public'ness of it: teaching people in public places or using popular media, whether it be historical fiction, an on-line exhibit sponsored by a national newspaper, a plaque on the side of a heritage building or in a city park, or exhibits in public buildings. It will be of increasing importance to get that history into as many places as possible, to interest as many people as possible.

That is until heritage and culture are finally given the importance they deserve in government budgets and each historical group receives enough money to conserve, collect and exhibit on their own.

In which I rethink Amazon

2008-10-20T14:04:00.004-04:00

In our digital history discussions, we often get into heated debates (well, not really debates as we usually agree on the topic) regarding digital technologies. The difficult part of the class is attempting to tie our rants about these topics - for example, whether internet technology is getting too personal - back to the task at hand, that is thinking of technology in terms of historical study.

Amazon has been mentioned frequently in class. Many people love it and its personalized recommendations, and Dan Saffer, author of Designing Interactions, has listed Amazon as a great example of a smart technology - one that takes information and personalizes it for the user, creating a clever site that can make life easier. I began to think how a service like Amazon could be used in a more academic sphere. Different variations of existing technologies has already been mentioned, such as the smart GoogleKids idea Ruthann came up with and on which Simon pondered. I began to think of how Amazon could be used academically, and came up with AmazonScholar.

AmazonScholar would be similar to the Amazon book store we all know and love (or hate), but it would cater to university students and those in academia, or those wishing to browse through the latest works from university presses. A large, online academic bookstore with overnight shipping - what could be better? Many Amazon features would be found on AmazonScholar, such as the book recommendations. It would suggest for you the best (or most popular) books on your research subject. Users could rate books to give readers a good idea of whether the book would be right for them. Users could also make lists for others to browse. Instead of 'Sophie's Favourite Mysteries' there would be 'Sophie's Top Books on Education in Medieval England' which would list all the books I find helpful on that subject. It could be a sort of annotated bibliography for other students to use as a resource. The main front page would list the top ten bestsellers, showing which subjects were selling fastest (art? history? economics?) and of course the user's personalized front page would show the hottest new books in their field.

A huge online resource for academic works - what a great resource for those doing academic research. Ratings and recommendations would make it that much easier to find the right books. Amazon's personalized technology would be a perfect fit for those trying to stay on top of the new publications in their field - for both professors and students alike.

In which I turn to archival web exhibits

2008-10-15T12:43:00.003-04:00

We were introduced to a wonderful database in archives class a few weeks ago, the Smithsonian's Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web. The Smithsonian is a huge institution, and I am so happy I now know about this site. Online exhibitions are a great example of digital history because they weren't (for the most part) just a digital component of a physical museum exhibit. This is partly because archives are less likely to have the personnel, space, money and time to put together an exhibit, and partly a reflection on the acceptance of digital history. There is no reason why archivists wouldn't want to share their holdings with the public, and online exhibits are the perfect way to reach a wide audience from around the world.

I discussed the Bibliotheque nationale de France's Bestiary in a presentation last week. What a great way to share their incredible holdings of medieval French manuscripts with the public! Unless I had travelled to France while the physical exhibit was showing, I would never have learned so much about depictions of animals and seen so many examples of medieval images. I was very impressed with their high-resolution digital images, which I am sure someone spent months doing. The result, however, is a rich collection of historical artifacts available for viewing by anyone with a computer and internet. I can't pretend that seeing these images online are any replacement for seeing them up close in an archive, however I have to be realistic. Even I, who studied medieval history at a large university, would never have had the chance to see these artifacts. I have to forgo the smell, the feel, the atmosphere of the archive, but am happy to do this if the other option is not seeing them at all. This is really the strongest argument for digitizing as many historical items as possible; the advantage of immediate availability overshadows any arguments to the contrary.

The database gives people an idea of how much there already is on the web. These exhibits were put together by large universities, archives and museums, trustworthy sources who have put much time and effort into making parts of their collections available. The range is everything from to the French Revolution to Brooklyn in the American Civil War, from Chaucer to Edgar Allan Poe, from Ottoman Embroideries to the Housewife's Rich Cabinet. An amazing amount of information is available for free online, you just have to know where to look. For the most part they are exhibits, meaning there is enough background information for most people to understand what it is that they are looking at, and the layouts are generally clear and well-designed to attract audiences. Digital exhibits are a great way to keep a physical exhibit going after it has closed down. Museums often have limited space; by letting an exhibit live on digitally the artifacts can continue to be highlighted and people can keep learning about new historical topics. Online exhibits are a great option for those institutions wanting to highlight their collections but do not have the space or funds to put together a physical exhibit at all. While students can use these exhibits as a resource, they are really a great example of public history: artifacts and information on display for the public to learn something new.

In which I defend museums

2008-10-06T17:08:00.007-04:00

While doing research on film archives (for HIS9806), I came across a harrowing quote from one Douglas Crimp, a professor at the University of Rochester. His take on museums took my attention away from the various methods of preservation of nitrate film and I thought I would share it here.

Crimp's view of museums is a pessimistic one. He sees them as institutions of confinement, similar to asylums and prisons (!). He believed they placed art within a confining framework of historicity that disallowed the possibilities of discontinuity and rupture with the past. The author of the book I was reading, film archivist Karen F. Gracy, disagreed; she believed the museum maintained itself in its gatekeeper of culture role by forsaking rigidity and allowing different forms of artifacts in its doors [1].

I had problems with Crimps's statement. Was he insinuating that museums stole art, placing them in an institutional setting where they were decontextualized to the point of being unrecognizable? Did placing them in a historical venue make them any less important, ground-breaking, modern? I have to agree with Gracy's idea that museums have been able to adopt various new objects and represent them as important historical artifacts, everything from celebrity shoes to classic Mac computers from the 1980s (these have to be on display somewhere...). Museums are no longer the stuffy, dark old buildings filled solely with hundred-year-old objects which had belonged to important people. Museums are changing, and are able to show the importance of everyday objects from the not-so-distant past as important cultural, political and economic artifacts.

As for placing objects in confining historical frameworks: What better way to observe how things can be completely new than to place them alongside similar (or not) objects for comparison? True, museums tend to lean towards an idea of progress, and as history students we are taught to never believe something hasn't happened before, and that everything is continuous. Museums, however, are also able to teach visitors about the evolution of ideas, countries, attitudes, etc. I may not know a lot about art, but I can't believe placing an important new piece in a museum will immediately give it a negative historical aura by taking away its individuality. Museums like MOMA are popping up in many large cities and feel very different than museums like the American Museum of Natural History, but they are museums nonetheless. Maybe Crimp needs to redefine his definition of a museum before comparing them to prisons.

[1] Karen F. Gracy, Film Preservation: Competing Definitions of Value, Use and Practice (Chicago: The Society of American Archivists, 2007), 71.

In which I get nostalgic for the dark

2008-09-24T23:00:00.004-04:00

So, museums are still on my mind. I am well aware that there are many other options for public history students, and we have begun to learn about a few of them in class, but it's museums to which I keep going back. I am learning about some of the issues that can come about discussing digital history, but I'm still pondering and forming my opinions on the subject. So for now: museums.

I was remembering one of my first memories involving museums. I began to remember what the museum looked, and felt like, and began to compare that image to the new ideas that have recently been transforming galleries across Ontario. And I admit, I was a bit torn over whether these changes were for the better.

Let me start - one of my most memorable childhood experiences in a museum happened while I was a Brownie, circa age 7. We had the fantastic opportunity to have a sleep-over in the dinosaur gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature. This was a favourite Ottawa museum of my sister and I, and the night didn't disappoint. Looking back, it strikes me as such a wonderful way for young children to experience public history. The gallery, as I remember, was the perfect spot. It was similar to a lot of older museum galleries: dark, softly lit, very atmospheric. The perfect setting for dinosaur fossils to be displayed against the wall, as if they had just been discovered in some Alberta desert.

Newly renovated dinosaur galleries have been envisioned very differently. The entire feel has changed, and not only because of ubiquitous interactive digital stations (I have no qualms with these). The ROM recently opened their new dinosaur gallery in the Libeskind crystal, a gallery which followed closely their new philosophy on the design of museums. Even before the opening of the added crystal, the ROM had realized they needed a change - from the dark and gloomy to the bright and airy. In late 2005 they unveiled their new Asian galleries, which featured a sea of glass shelves and large, newly-uncovered windows. The dinosaur gallery follows the same idea: housed in the crystal itself, it features large windows and lots of natural light to show off the hanging models of dinosaurs. The Museum of Nature in Ottawa has also recently redone their dinosaur galleries with similar results.

I do applaud this new philosophy, as I believe it may attract visitors who may have thought museums were dank, gloomy and full of old, dusty, dead things. Museum galleries are becoming more modern, more hip, more cutting-edge and hopefully some visitors will decide they are more fun and interesting places than they once were. They're moving towards the future, not stuck in the past. I can't help but remember, however, that wow feeling an atmospheric, dimly lit gallery full of dinosaur bones could give to a young child. It didn't turn me off the idea of history - it was interesting and mysterious, and a little spooky. I just hope these new galleries will be able to keep delivering that wow factor to children and adults alike.

Interpreting History for the Public

2008-09-15T14:42:00.008-04:00

I have been thinking of the readings we have done for class, and one idea has stuck with me into this week, and that is historians as interpreters. This is an idea originally brought up by Manan Ahmed, who wrote about historians needing to interpret between the past and the present. He also mentioned the need for interdepartmental interpreting. Both very important ideas for public historians, since we tend to work more with other programmes (fields such as environmental science, new skills such as IT, art & design) to bring our ideas to the public, while trying to teach them that history can be extremely relevant to the present.

In this week's readings, the idea has taken on a different form, one I am more familiar with, and that is interpreting the past, as academics, for the public. One of the biggest worries re: digital and accessible history is the danger in losing our status as interpreters. Once Google and various other corporations get all primary sources, or all books ever written, online and available to anyone with a computer and internet access, will there still be a need for librarians, archivists, and historians? The answer seem to be that we'll still be needed (sigh of relief) to help them find the information, help them sort through the thousands of articles, and teach them the research skills that will be essential in surfing through all the available information.

What I am most concerned about is engaging people with the past - and it should be one of our most important goals. This seems to translate as the need for more interactive exhibits (both in museums and online). While volunteering at the ROM, my official position was called 'Gallery Interpreter', one of the reasons the term stuck with me through this week. Our job was to engage adults and children with the artifacts on display, and we did this two ways. First, we carried a hand-held artifact (or copy) in our hands, and let our audience touch or play with it. Then, we used a pseudo-Socratic method of questions and answers to engage them in conversation, while relating to the hand-held artifact as well as a larger immovable artifact on display. We weren't there to lecture - standing and listening to someone talk can be as boring as just passing by artifacts and reading labels to many people. We weren't even answering their questions most of the time, they were answering OURS (Is it heavy? What do you think its made out of? What do you think it was used for?).

If someone is engaged in conversation, or in an interactive activity, as opposed to passively listening or reading, their interest will last that much longer. Isn't that why history students have to join tutorials and engage in seminar discussions? This idea is important for getting across to those who aren't interested in history. We have seen in our public history reading that many people feel much more passionately about their personal history, such as keeping photo albums or creating a family tree, than visiting museums or sitting through a history class. Our job is to get them interested in what we as historians are interested in. Public historians, because of that, have to try that much harder.

In which I get worried over my faith in humanity

2008-09-10T13:31:00.001-04:00

So the readings for this week's introductory digital history class are completed, and two thoughts came to mind. Well, more than only two thoughts, but you know what I mean. Today's post will deal with the first.

I felt surprise at certain opinions given in Nicholas Carr's Is Google Making us Stupid?. He (and his colleagues) claim that the internet, the new medium of choice for the late 20th century, had warped their minds to the point that they had lost the ability to concentrate on old-fashioned, hand-held, time-consuming books, or even long articles. Then could no longer focus their attention, and had no interest in doing so.

While the article is undoubtedly McLuhanesque in nature (his name is mentioned on the first page), with his famous "the medium is the message", one must remember that his statement was made more than 50 years ago. I took a Canadian media course in my last year of undergrad, and we discussed McLuhan and his overshadowed colleague, Harold Innis, whose theory can be related to "the medium biases the message". The effects of new technologies have been discussed for many years, such as in the new age of radio and television, as well as with the rise of daily newspapers. One need only to think about how a medium such as the nightly news or a newpaper biases the messages towards the sensationalistic, the quick, the snappy, the attention-grabbing, the famous newscaster line "and now... this" or the headlines in a newspaper (dead body found! taxes rising! Canadians getting fatter!). Our attention spans were being shortened for a much longer time than the 1980s/1990s/2000s. Were people worried about the effects? Of course. But were they having personal meltdowns and losing the ability to read an article from start to finish, to read a book, to concentrate longer than two minutes? I don't think so. So the question is, what makes the internet so different?

The fact that many of the people quoted in Carr's article are former "literary" types, as he calls them, makes me worry. It's one thing when someone who wasn't very inclined to read a book would rather skim an online article, but quite another when someone who loved to read has lost the ability. Is it really the ability, or just the interest? Part of me thinks this must be some sort of personal choice, even a laziness on their parts. Adapting to one medium is fine, but why does one need to lose other interests? This is a harsh opinion, and a personal one I admit, coming from someone who spends a lot of time online but can still spend hours reading a book. Maybe I'd just like to have faith that our brains can't really be permanently rewired thanks to the abundance of online sources and the prevalence of the internet in every facet of our daily lives. There's nothing wrong with adaptation, in fact its incredibly important (we're all here to hop on the digital history train, no?), but this loss makes me worry.

The internet isn't only here for skimming and skipping around - many valuable sources online are long in nature, and reading through it all at a fast pace is doing a disservice to those who spent so much time writing or digitizing those articles, and wasting a great opportunity to learn through a convenient medium. Take advantage!

Introduction

2008-09-06T17:13:00.001-04:00

Aaah, the internet. I had been without you at home for seven long days, and now that you're back I can rejoice. I will be the first to admit that this past year, I used the internet for the most banal of activities (*ahem* celebrity gossip *ahem*). Living without it, however, when moving to a new city, starting a new school and new programme was challenging at best. Arguments with one national telecommunications company, a switch to the Other national telecommunications company, two rescheduled appointments and one broken telephone jack did not make things any less irritating. It all makes one wonder - the internet is so completely prevalent in our daily lives, so why is something as simple as setting up a connection sometimes so difficult? But enough about my frustrations. This blog is here to talk about everyone's favourite subject, public history.

Public history is still a bit of a mystery to me, one I am looking forward to unraveling as the year goes by. As I understand it, it is history as it is related and communicated to the public. Museums and historical sites are key, but for those whose interests in life may not include history (unbelievable as that is to me!) we must remember the incredible importance of popular culture: movies, novels, maybe even video games. A young adult historical novel I read in middle school got me interested in Henry VIII and Tudor England, an interest that still exists ten years on. I even had a Scottish friend explain to me this summer how the movie Braveheart rekindled national interest in William Wallace, surprising because the movie was made in Hollywood by an Australian/American.

A big part of public history now is of course the internet. Many believe the internet to be a necessary evil. Evil, however, is too harsh of a word. The internet has been a wonderful development for the study of history, not least in the field of public history. The internet has the power to make accessible so much information, from archives, to historical documents, to interactive exhibits from world-famous museums. Their are pitfalls of course, such as the loss of stringent academic rules, which has already been pointed out by a colleague on their blog. Historians, however, are trained to be critical of all sources they use, whether they be primary or secondary. Clearly with the rise of the digital age, this training will be even more important.

The internet will never replace the feeling of holding an 800-year old manuscript in your hands, or standing in the middle of an ancient Greek temple, but it can help foster interest in new students, as well as be an invaluable resource for historians around the world.