This post will be very short because my drive home was very long.

For me, the best part  overall of attending AASLH annual meetings is that it renews my feeling of being so grateful for having found and chosen this field of work. My last session of the conference was “Building Community Connections: Collaborations for the 21st Century.” The collaborations discussed were between middle and high schools and local history institutions. One of the schools was my alma mater, Timberlane Regional High School, Plaistow, NH and they won another award last night!  The students got to do the work of real public historians and produce documentary films. I think it’s pretty amazing what they’ve accomplished, but I’m jealous – to think I could have experienced this field in high school, if they did projects like these way back when!

My idea of a great session is one that leaves me with more questions than answers.   Particularly in these days of immediate access to all kinds of information I don’t view conference sessions as how-tos as much as places that stimulate new thinking.   Yesterday afternoon’s session, Dealing with Tragedy:  Museums and Memorialization was just that.    The issues related to three different tragedies and their subsequent memorials and museum presentations were discussed:  the Oklahoma City bombing;  the Columbine shootings and September 11.   The situations were also quite different for the museums:  the memorial and museum here is created on the site;  the Littleton Historical Society’s exhibit on Columbine was presented as a part of a local community story, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History looked at September 11 within a broad national context.

At the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum, 350 community members helped write the mission which is, “We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.”   It does that effectively, but on my visit to the museum, I was struck by what it didn’t do, also an issue addressed by historian Bill Bryans.    It doesn’t really explain the why,  in part because family members, who played a significant role in shaping the memorial and museum, felt that to do so gave voice to the perpetrators.   But, as Bryans noted, over time, the question of why becomes more important.

Marilyn Zoldis,  who had worked at the Smithsonian on the September 11 exhibit set forth a set of questions they considered as they developed the September 11 exhibit:

what role should a museum play in an event such as this?  what public expectations do we face?  what responsibilities do we face?  how do we establish and maintain historical perspective?  how do we deal with emotions?  how do we maintain historical objectivity in a time of crisis?

Great questions all–and out of the following discussion came more questions for me.

Should memorials and museums be differentiated?

How do we define a “sacred space?”   and does that harken back to Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address in our American sensibility?

Do these particular events, ones that happen almost in the blink of an eye,  lend themselves more easily to museums and memorials than events than unfold more slowly, such as this summer’s oil spill?

Has a 24 hour news cycle, twitter and the immediacy of the web shaped the public’s interest and perspective on events like these?  What role then, do museums play in peeling back the onion of the media’s coverage?

And finally,  how can these museums/exhibits/memorials be places where we not only remember and grieve, but gain understandings and create change in the world?   I think that comes from looking at the whys of terrorism (state-sponsored or not)  straight in the face, as places like the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam do every day.

Thanks to these session presenters for their compassion and frankness.

I attended the awards banquet tonight. Enjoyed James Loewen thought provoking talk. Really happy for all the award winners. Congratulations to you all! You set the bar high for all of us.

Today was a great day, from beginning (“Mythbusters: Beyond American Indian Advisory Committees” session), middle (Plenary address by Gerard Baker to end (Awards Banquet with speaker Jim Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me). Gerard Baker was incredible. He made me think back to when I used to work at Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska in the mid 1990’s. The Park was only just beginning to recognize the Hoonah Tlingit for whom the Park was their ancestral homeland. Now I am in Louisiana and the group that is in general underrepresented at our historical center is the African-American population. So I have been trying to see how I can transpose what I’m learning in the many sessions that deal with including Native American voices, via advisory committees in particular, to inviting more African American participation and perspectives. I think forming an African American history advisory committee might be a good idea. Perhaps then we could ask, like Dan Provo did of the Native American advisory committee at the Oklahoma History Center, ‘Okay, we have this space – what should people know?’ From listening to Jim Loewen tonight, there’s going to be so much they don’t know. But as I learned in a session yesterday, “Moving Beyond Material Culture,” don’t fault your visitors for coming to your door with misconceptions, just don’t let them leave with them.  

My day had some unexpected crossovers.  I didn’t expect to have similar discussions in “What’s Radical About Radical Trust” and “The Essential Framework of Informal Learning,” with a dash of Gerard Baker’s plenary thrown in as well as a bit of “Gen X Leadership Considered.”  What could I possibly have found in common between all these sessions?

Teaching people to ask good questions.

In both Radical Trust and Informal Learning, we had some discussions about teaching critical thinking (and I wasn’t in the 21st Century Skills session).  Many people don’t understand how we do what we do (we were also talking about people not understanding the scientific process either) and how we draw conclusions, from the available evidence, to determine what we think is correct as far as we know.  There were certainly other discussions too so please don’t take this as the sole summary of 150 minutes of lively discussions.

While not explicitly saying it, I think Gerard Baker’s moving plenary address had a bit of this too.  He talked about his life growing up on a reservation and attending boarding school and then his career at the National Park Service.  As superintendent at (now) Little Bighorn, Mount Rushmore, and the Lewis & Clark commemoration, he worked to establish dialogue with Native Americans and bring their stories into the narrative.  I would like to be optimistic that if people hear a fuller historical narrative, it will help them notice when they might not be getting all sides of a story.

I enjoyed the Gen X Leadership Considered session as well.  There were a lot of interesting points and thoughtfully remarks as we talked.  One of the points that came up was from a younger staff person, who identifies as a Millenial, who talked about the fact that their lives have been structured so it may take time for them to develop a sense of when they can be self-directed and move beyond assigned tasks.  One aspect of this too could be considered teaching our emerging professionals to ask good questions.

Hopefully this actually makes sense and I’m not over-reaching in trying to find some thread to my day.  This certainly was not the only point raised in all of these excellent sessions, but one that I found interesting.

Now to enjoy the chili truffle and lemongrass truffle that I bought at the chocolate cafe we discovered in Bricktown, after dinner and a lively discussion with colleagues (is there any other kind?)!

Yesterday in the exhibit hall at the AASLH annual meeting, I picked up a remarkable little publication from the American Association of Museums booth. It’s called “Characteristics of Excellence for U.S. Museums.” It’s remarkable because it’s like Frosted Mini-Wheats. One side is dry and the other is frosted. The dry side lists the characteristics of excellence in the language we museum types use when we talk to each other, and under these headings:

Facilities and Risk Management,
Financial Stability,
Education and Interpretation,
Collections Stewardship,
Leadership and Organizational Structure,
Mission and Planning, and
Public Trust and Accountability.

On the “frosted” side, these characteristics are described “in plain language.” The intention of the “translation” is to demonstrate that AAM standards are not “extra work” or “unattainable.”

I applaud AAM on publishing this pamphlet and plan to use it in the field services work I do in Ohio. I’ll use it because it sums up the right thing to do in museum work and because it’s a guide to writing and speaking plainly.

But, in another way, the notion that standards need to be “translated” points to the fact that we’re better advocates for our organizations when we speak in plain language about what we do and why it’s good. In the case of my organization, one (but not all) of our purse strings is held by the elected representatives of the taxpayers of the State of Ohio. Those reps likely didn’t go to museum school, so the language we use to advocate for the services we provide to their constituents must be the language they use.

Sorry, Bob Beatty, I didn’t post on Sept. 23. It was a full day of sessions and insights and I meant to post in the evening. But I met up with a friend from grad school and we sat in the bar of the Courtyard (by Marriott) fleshing out an idea for a movie about life at the local history museum. I’m not sharing her ideas here (they’re really good). We’ll all have to wait for the movie.

But, what took from our laugh-fest last night was the idea that we folks in state and local history have the best store of human interest stories and funny business. People who “are into” something, like history for example, take it very seriously and are very earnest. That seriousness and ernestness can be the source of some very humorous stuff. But, because we history folks are generally kind and helpful folks, we don’t want to make light of peoples’ foibles.

I wish there was a “safe space” where we could. Like a Jerry Seinfeld kind of space where we could laugh at ourselves a little–and know that we’re not laughing AT our fellows, but laughing because we recognize their foibles in ourselves. And, that by laughing a little at ourselves, we’re reminding ourselves that we’re human, and that that’s what history is all about.

Here in Oklahoma City, I’m reminded of how many ways all of us gain a bit of history–and it’s often not in museums or historical societies.    I skipped out on sessions this morning and went to see the Oklahoma Museum of Art and their fabulous Dale Chihuly exhibition.  Very little interpretation, but I sat down to watch the video.  It was mostly about process, but all of a sudden, there was history!   Chihuly had invited master glassblowers from Murano to come work with him here in his studio and several young American glassmakers described those Venetian masters as having centuries of knowledge in their heads.  It made me realize that when I look at these beautiful shapes and colors, I’m looking at not only a fertile imagination, but those centuries of skill, imagination and as Chihuly said in the video about the masters, the ability to “reflect, change and make a decision”  instantly.

My favorite building here conjures up an entirely different history.  The Santa Fe railroad station, just across from the hotel, is an incredibly evocative place as evening falls and train whistles sound.  The view and the experience summons up a host of history known, and unknown.  It’s tempting to jump on that train and head further west, as so many people did.

I think one of our greatest challenges as museum people is to figure out ways to create this emotional memories, to connect what we know (Venice, or Oklahoma) with what we–and our visitors–don’t.

The Levi Coffin House in Fountain City, IN will receive the Albert Corey Award at tonight’s Awards Banquet – a very well-deserved honor.  The House is operated by volunteers, though owned by the State of Indiana.  Levi Coffin played a significant, documented role in the Underground Railroad, in both Fountain City and later Cinncinnati.

The Levi Coffin House was the site of my most memorable experience during SHA in 2007.  One of our classmates, Gerry Reilly, was their staff contact at Indiana Historic Sites and Museums, so he was able to arrange a special tour for us.  Given the busy Seminar schedule, we loaded up in a few cars and headed off to Fountain City, over an hour away, for a nighttime tour of the House.

We toured the Levi Coffin House by flashlight.  I can’t do justice to the experience of walking through the house in the dark, then sitting on the floor of a bedroom and peering into a crawl space.  As I remember, the guide said they didn’t know how often the crawl space had to be utilized as a hiding place but they can document one night where there were about 15 people in the house on their journey to freedom.

In the basement, there is a brick cistern which helped disguise the number of people who might be in house.  Coffin ran a store, so he could also disguise the number of people he was feeding.  This, and seeing an authentic wagon with a false bottom, helped me think about the practicalities of the Underground Railroad.  I hope Michelle or any of my other SHA ’07 classmates will add their comments.  It is remains a powerful reminder of the role historic sites and landscapes can play in understanding history.

If you’re traveling on I-70, near the IN-OH border, do visit the Levi Coffin House.  Congratualations on your Corey Award!

Going off of Andy’s post title above, the Blog ate my blog post and it wouldn’t show up ’til now. So, a much-delayed post.

Yesterday, during the engaging keynote address by Susan Stamberg, I was hit by a wave of nostalgia. As Ms. Stamberg went down a list of her favorite museums—the Phillips Collection and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) among them—one particular institution piqued my interest: The Museum of Ham. Her vivid description of the oldest cured ham on exhibit at that museum took me back to the exact point in my childhood when I fell in love with museums. And let me tell you: It involved a flying can of Spam.

My first encounter with LACMA happened when I was five years old. What captured my absolute, undivided attention out of all the pieces on display was an Ed Ruscha painting entitled “Actual Size,” which depicts a flying can of Spam, painted to scale, under a large banner of the word “SPAM.”

“Spam?? I love Spam!” thought my five-year-old self. (Little did I know what Spam is actually made of. But then again, who really does?) What a connection I made with that painting, having nothing to do with its provenance, or its art historical “importance,” or its place within the artist’s oeuvre. Instead, I related to the painting in a way that the artist or curator, perhaps, would have never intended: the kinship I felt with Spam. Still on prominent display at LACMA, I’m quite tickled every time I see it, and it serves to remind me of when my interest in museums took root.

Museums matter. Seeing objects in “real life” matter. Ms. Stamberg spoke of museums’ potential to cause reactions and prompt emotions. This certainly was the case for me, a former Spam-loving kid and current museum junkie.