William Walker - Future Of History Museums

William S. Walker Future of History Museums Workshop I have been asked at the last minute to step in for my colleague Gretchen Sullivan Sorin. Since time is too short to write a paper, I thought a useful substitute might be a selection of earlier prognostications and jeremiads regarding the state of museums that I have gathered in my research notes. The four selections included below all come from various editions of Museum News from 1964. Henry D. Brown, “Intrigue Before You Instruct,” Museum News 42, No. 7 (March 1964), 28-33 (33) “The museum management should never forget that an historical museum collection is a valuable adjunct to formal study and scholarship. As our civilization becomes more mechanically sophisticated, the museum’s collection of original objects is of value as a basis for perception, to enhance historical scholarship. “In the antiseptic and synthetic material culture of today, the historical museum offers the individual an opportunity to come in contact with a reality of the past which can serve as a contrast and comparison with the present as well as an intellectual and emotional bridge to the past. “Reality can be a challenging experience. The historical museum has the opportunity to use its original objects from the past to create a situation where the visitor is afforded a sense of reality, of understanding, of oneness with history. “There is no age barrier, a single exhibit situation is interpreted by the visitor according to his experience and to his attitude and willingness to perceive. A ten year old boy, an engineer father, or a professorial uncle will each have the opportunity to profit from the experience of a visit to a museum, historical house, or village. Each will gain subject information, on his own level of experience, as his interest and attention is held. “The presidential address of Carl Bridenbaugh before the 1962 American Historical Association Annual Meeting was entitled 'The Great Mutation.' Professor Bridenbaugh delineated how the recent changes in western civilization, from rural to urban and from handicraft to mechanization, would make increasingly difficult the perception of the way of life which had prevailed since the recorded beginnings of that civilization. He noted that the teacher and professor of the future, as well as the students, would not have experienced the background of an agrarian civilization. In the past that agrarian basis was a matter of common knowledge for town as well as country dwellers. While all of the documents and books will still remain to be examined, the sense of reality based on similar points of reference in common activities will no longer be present. “The potential for the history museum in effecting a partial bridging of this gap is an exciting prospect. The village restorations, and interior historic exhibits, can bring some measure of reality as to the thoughts and actions of men and of the past, supplementing that revealed in printed and manuscript records. “The museum of history has a unique and meaningful role for the future.” John Nicholas Brown (Citizen Regent, Board of Regents, Smithsonian Institution), “A

Kind of Madness,” Museum News 43, No. 1 (Sept 1964), 20-25 [*It is a total coincidence that I happened to stumble on this piece by JN Brown in my notes.] (22) “In looking over the field, as it were, the field of museums, three things seem clear. Whether you are specially interested in the gallery or the museum aspects—and I agree the two often merge—you find three essentials: preservation, education, and recreation. In varying degrees all three must be present. We must preserve and safeguard the objects committed to our trust. We have a responsibility to make displays which will be instructive. But we must not forget that going through a museum must be fun. This means proper lighting, proper displays, proper labeling, proper flooring for the poor feet, and a refreshment area where one can relax and digest the intellectual and spiritual pabulum so far absorbed. Museums should be happy places where the mind can be rewarded and the spirit be refreshed. “We have seen that what we call museums—those aggregations of objects, miscellaneous or co-ordinated as the case may be, are in fact the storehouses of our culture. We have seen how varied they can be. And we have indicated their tremendous impact on our total educational process. We all know the masses of school children taken, often reluctantly, through our museums and we believe in the efficacy of this exposure. For the adults, the educational process is even more significant, for with greater maturity comes the capacity for greater understanding and appreciation. The museum thus is a force for education and enlightenment, and likewise the museum is a source for inspiration and refreshment of spirit. “It is to the social aspects of the museum I now want to call your attention. It is not enough for the museum simply to be a storehouse of beautiful and interesting, welldisplayed and well-catalogued, objects [23]. The museum must also be a powerhouse which generates and disseminates throughout the community the inspiration which comes alone from the understanding of man’s overwhelming creative forces. The museum must be more than a shrine, it must create of itself. This is the reason why the museum stands alone amongst our social institutions, for to it belong the twin functions of the preservation of the past and the inspiration for the future.” S. Dillon Ripley, “Where do we go from here?” Museum News 43, No. 2 (Oct 1964), 1718 (17) “What is wrong with museums? Some people have argued that it is the name, that it sounds musty and dead, and we should rename them. This to me is to give up and cry ‘uncle.’ There’s nothing wrong with the name that we can’t fix. And we already are taking care of the exterior, the façade, anyway. More people go to museums than ever before. Exhibits get livelier, more stylish all the time ― and there is developing experimentation in a variety of audience participation aids. “Part of the trouble is that the word 'museum' is a sort of barrier, guarding the way to real understanding. The exterior, the facade, does a selling job, showing its wares, its exhibits, to the public, to school children, to adult extension classes. This selling job is often excellent, even hucksterish at times, but therein lies the rub. The inner job, the research and higher education processes, tends to be lost sight of. These inner tasks

conducted behind the façade tend to be denigrated in the minds of educators, university administrators, foundation executives, and others concerned with higher learning who see the museum merely as a sort of public show. If they know that scholarship exists at all behind the façade they tend to think of it as old-fashioned, whatever that means. . . . “An especial problem today has to do with the role of museum trustees. In former years there has developed a tradition of trusteeship among the leading families in every large community. This tradition is threatened by present-day corporate restlessness. Nowadays, a large business corporation tends to rotate its executives on the escalator of promotion from city to city all over the country, preventing the eventual successful leaders from developing a real sense of participation in community life. They have no time to take root anywhere. Should not corporations themselves, aware of the cultural environment which is needed for their employees, take stock of this situation and attempt to support museums and similar community enterprises as they are now beginning to support education?” Joye E. Jordan, “The History Museum: Poor Relation?” Museum News 43, No. 3 (Nov 1964), 17-19 (17) “How does the community evaluate the average present-day history museum? It is quite disheartening to admit that, culturally speaking, the history museum is still at the bottom of the totem pole, not only in the community but in the museum world as well. Regardless of the locale—north, east, south, or west, with Canada included—you will find that museum prestige is ranked as follows: Beginning at the top will be found the art museum; the science museum is now almost a close second; but the history museum is still associated, in the minds of the progressive citizenry, with musty rooms in a dilapidated house containing an assortment of cases which had to be discarded by the most civic-minded department stores in town. … “For the most part, even an excellent—by our present standards and definitions— history museum seldom is spectacular enough to attract the interest and support of the general public without the benefit of some special ‘gimmick.’ The cultural rewards are not so significantly impressive that they really satisfy the quasi-intellectual or the man of newly acquired means. Even antique furnishings and early architecture have a difficult time competing with the old masters, ballet, and opera when the president of a bank or corporation decides it is high time that he become affiliated with the ‘arts.’ This is to say simply that a community history museum, while socially acceptable, can be compared, culturally speaking, to a poor relation: genteel enough and not to be excluded from the activities of the elect, but generally clothed in well-worn, if not downright shabby, garb, and more or less tolerated rather than sought after. … “But why belabor the fact that the profession has not set up academic standards when the current status of history museum personnel, professionally speaking, can be compared only that of the self-made man in any other field of endeavor? The percentage of history museum personnel who have had any previous training in any type of museum situation is so low as to be practically noncomputable.

… “Until the establishment of a new history museum is approached in the same manner as one would approach the establishment of a new business, financial problems will be ever present. In today’s economy, it is no favor to meet with a local group and encourage it to think that a modern, functional, history museum can make any sort of a respectable start on the proverbial shoestring. In the first place, inadequate housing and an ineffectual program give the project only pitying concern at best, and even though pity may be akin to love, who cares to accept it as a substitute? Our civilization loves a going concern. “Affiliating with success. Yes, we in the history museum field have this attitude to combat. ‘Him as has, gets,’ but request funds from the holder of the purse strings for such modern ‘gimcracks’ as new exhibit materials or equipment and you are apt to be informed that you already have exhibits, just as the ladies of Boston are said to have their hats.”