Recent Visit: Lower East Side Tenement Museum

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 look at a photograph

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 think of new forms of exhibits

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 consider the musee imaginaire

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.

In which I look at a museum blog

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

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

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.

In which I celebrate Henry VIII

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 think of public spaces

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 turn to archival web exhibits

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

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

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

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.

Introduction

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.