Steve Lubar

     This week we attended a discussion with Steve Lubar, an experienced public historian whose credentials I need not list. The subject of the discussion was, of course, museums. Lubar has spent much of his life working with or in regard to museums, and as such he had a number of great insights. First, it is important to know that Lubar considers his field to be the "public humanities." These include history, anthropology, and all the usual suspects, but the new focus on the idea of "public" is very significant. Being public means that the humanities need to be more widely accessible and influenced by all sorts of people, not just experts in the field. It is interesting to find that academic studies are opening more to public influence, especially with this trend being so significant on the internet. Innovations such as Web 2.0 are making good use on the ability to collect data from the ordinary public.
     The way in which the public humanities will affect museums in the future is what I took to be the most significant part of the conversation. In the oldest models of museums, collections were entirely composed by a single owner, with just about no room for public influence. Later iterations of museums sought to influence the experience of their visitors. In making an active effort to do so, these museums were indirectly influenced by the public. Now, as Lubar said, museums are shifting towards a model more focused than ever on the public. A focus on objects within a museum is moving towards a focus on the visitors, and objects themselves are losing their importance. The public still does not have much direct say in what a museum comprises of, as after all the museums are still constructed by curators. As we have learned throughout this course, the power of museums has always been in the visitor's experience (or as Lubar liked to refer to it as, social space) and not in the objects they house. As such, it is interesting to see that museums have moved towards the experiential model, and that they will continue to focus more and more on experience over object.
   I found the discussion with Steve Lubar to be very insightful. His ideas about where museums are heading in the future were very interesting, and I completely agree that they are going towards an increasingly public and social model. As Lubar said, people go to museums to shape their own way of thinking. It will be great to see where this takes museums in the future.

What Does America Mean to Me?

"Flag" by Jasper Johns, 1955

     Our peers at the University of East Anglia have been kind enough to share with us their writings on the question of "What Does America Mean to Me?" Having read them, I have managed to identify a number of ideas that are shared in common by many students. There are many of these themes, and they all are important pieces of the puzzle that is American identity.
     One theme common to many of the papers I read was that of American ideals. These ideals include racial and social equality, freedom (especially freedom of speech), and democracy. These ideals are all very true of Americans. I can think of nothing most Americans would defend more ferociously than their freedom of speech. However, as my peers did well to point out, these ideals are often in conflict with the reality of America. Racism and discrimination are still commonplace, despite decades of struggle against it, and in many ways equality is a far off dream. Freedom is something most Americans feel they have, but America's history has been defined by struggles to attain that freedom, from the American Revolution up to the Civil Rights Movement. Democracy, a form of government run by the people and for the people, has been the cornerstone of American ideals since the nation's founding. Many Americans feel disheartened that their opinion makes seemingly little difference (and consequently there is low voter turnout), and so democracy is constantly in question. Nonetheless, democracy is an important part of American identity and what America means.
     Another undeniable aspect of modern America is its mass media and how it influences much of the world. American media in the forms of television, music, movies, and other publications are widely distributed to the world, and provide a means by which America can influence other countries. As many of the students at the University of East Anglia stated, a huge portion of the media they absorb is American. Some students stated that most of the movies they see are from the US, one student stating "... if you were to visit a cinema in England you would see that at least 80% (probably more) of the movies being shown are from the US..." America's position as a world power is important to the nation's modern identity, and media is a very powerful way for America to maintain that position.
     Patriotism is yet another theme that showed up amongst many of my peers' papers. The US is somewhat unique in its common sense of patriotism. Americans are raised with patriotism as a norm, and are taught to believe in the virtues of democracy. As such, it is almost hard to believe that a sense of patriotism isn't as strong to citizens of some other nations. Some of my peers were curious about the significance to the American flag, and this is simple: it stands as a symbol for American ideals and patriotism. To Americans, our flag represents our country and all the ideals that it stands for, such as freedom, equality, diversity and democracy.
     These themes are just a few of the pieces of what America means. America's identity is complex, a result of its diverse population and rich (albeit short) history.

The Mütter Museum

A part of The Hyrtl Skull Collection

      This week, our class made our final field trip, this time to the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. An old establishment, it was opened to the public some thirty years ago. Before it was opened to the public, it had served as a sort of library for medical tools and specimens, available only to physicians. Now the Mütter Museum is one of the most well-known museums in Philadelphia, a popular tourist site for its collection of oddities.
     The Mütter Museum is a strange place. It is built of beautiful marble and polished wood, and the walls are lined with wooden cabinets. Initially, the museum almost looks like The Wagner Institute with a bloated budget. What's held in the cabinets are wonders to hold anybody's interest. These include skeletons of people with unfortunate disorders, preserved organs, wax casts of skin ailments, and my favorite, a huge collection of skulls from all over the world. The "specimens" (our tour guide was careful to call them specimens and not exhibits) represent not the most ordinary conditions of humans, but rather the most extreme and extraordinary.
     The Mütter Museum is a place alive with memory. Many specimens in the museum are over a century old, and the museum officials are more than happy to share the history of these specimens with visitors. The stories attached to the specimens are significant, as much of the importance people give to the objects is in the history they can tell. This is true of any museum, and it is a way in which they act as an archive. The act of display is what most distinctly sets museums apart from archives. Display is important for expressing the purpose of objects. As Michelle Henning states, "display gives things their documentary and evidentiary function." As such, the displays are used to express the intentions of the museum, and they act as the voice of the museum.
      My feelings for The Mütter Museum are mixed. I was delighted to see another old-fashioned museum with regal display cases. The exhibits were interesting and bizarre, and even more interesting and bizarre were the stories behind them. I can't help but feel as though the gross-out effect may have been overplayed, however. The occasional gasps and "Oh my god!"s from my classmates were humorous, but I have to wonder if the museum's entertainment qualities are overriding its educational qualities. Either way, The Mütter Museum is an interesting place and without a doubt worth at least a visit.

Eastern State Penitentiary

     This week, our class visited Eastern State Penitentiary ("ESP"), the world's first penitentiary. The day was cold and wet, and seemed painfully appropriate for visiting such a place. The penitentiary was first opened in 1829, and remained an operational prison until 1971. A tour guide led us through much of the compound, using everything around as visual references while he narrated parts of the place's history. Our tour guide made no attempt to glorify the history of ESP. He described how the penitentiary was intended to house one inmate per cell, but this model immediately broke down once they accepted prisoners beyond their capacity. Eventually, ESP became as wild and corrupt a place as every other prison of its time. Some time after closing down, ESP was designated a national historic landmark and later opened for historical tours. ESP also opens annually as a haunted house, but their intentions seem admirable, as the proceeds from the haunted house go towards the daytime museum and upkeep of the building.
     One thing that ESP's staff said really stuck in my mind. ESP claims that it is not a museum, but rather a historic site. As they said, this was because ESP lacks any sort of exhibit space. This is not entirely accurate, though. The entire site of ESP works as a visual experience, from the towering outer walls to the preserved cells. Each part of ESP that a visitor sees works together to create a certain experience, just as exhibits in any museum would. The result of this is a transformative experience. The tour guide claimed that he wanted people to walk away thinking about the prison system and other such big questions. The combined parts of ESP lead a visitor to this thinking. It works in the same way that art and natural history museums work as described by Michelle Henning. That is, the exhibits in such museums gain their significance not in the fact that they are artifacts, but rather in that they work to create a transformative experience in visitors (Henning 114). This is entirely true of ESP. The exhibits here are the various parts of the building. Their significance is not in that they are the preserved parts of an old prison, but rather their significance is their effect on visitors. In this way, ESP is obviously a historic site, but it is also a museum.
     All in all, I was very impressed with Eastern State Penitentiary. The tour guide gave us a very pleasing experience, combining history with visual artifacts. Many historical museums fall victim to glorifying the past (I'm looking at you, Betsy Ross House). ESP, however, did well to avoid such a thing. The individual parts of ESP worked together as a whole, and I think those maintaining the site have done a good job of keeping the place historic.

The Franklin Institute

     This week, our class visited the Franklin Institute, and we were given a tour of the new electricity exhibit. Like other museums we have visited, the Franklin Institute's primary goal is education. Unlike other museums, however, the Franklin Institute is an experiential museum, such that the goal of education is achieved through the method of entertainment. The Academy of Natural Science had some interactive exhibits, but nothing quite on the scale that the Franklin Institute uses. The electricity exhibit, while not being especially large, managed to pack in a variety of displays. These displays included both static displays (like artifacts once owned by Ben Franklin in a glass case) and hands-on, "dynamic" displays. The hands-on displays were varied, and included a key which gave visitors a static jolt, e-books on touch screens, and even some video games. Each piece of the exhibit had a lesson to teach, even the most seemingly pointless ones. The displays were fun and they all effectively held a visitor's attention, which took a great deal of work from all the people working behind the scenes.
     The electricity exhibit proved to be a prime example of the experiential museum. Fun, seemingly extraordinary exhibits served to teach lessons about completely ordinary things. The exhibits taught about lightning, static electricity, magnetism and more in an interactive way. The displays give visitors a certain sense of importance. Visitors are being lead through the exhibit and persuaded to try various experiments, but it is done in a way that makes them feel as though they are aimlessly exploring and adventuring. It's easy to feel a certain sense of self-satisfaction when you use your hands to complete a circuit, give somebody a shock, or cause a wall of lights to flare up and react to you. The Franklin Institute quite effectively teaches visitors while making them feel clever and engaged.
     I think the Franklin Institute did a great job at what it set out to do, that is, to teach and entertain simultaneously. Some of the lessons may have gotten muddled in the fun, however. The exhibits about sustainability struck me as especially odd. They attempted to teach about sustainable energy use and renewable energy with a multiplayer video game. I watched four of my classmates play this game, and I could tell that the lesson hardly sunk in. When experiential museums attempt to teach brief lessons about deep, complex topics such as sustainability, balancing learning and entertainment must get very tricky. Perhaps if the exhibit had been just a bit bigger, it could have better reached its educational goal.

The Academy of Natural Sciences

     Yesterday, our class visited the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Ben Franklin Parkway. The Academy is the picture of a natural science museum, populated by dinosaur bones, dioramas, excited children and disinterested parents. Entering the building, a visitor is immediately confronted by the skeleton of an immense aquatic dinosaur, and the sight of this bus-sized skeleton is both intimidating and awe-inspiring. As such, the first room I (and just about every other student) was compelled to enter was the dinosaur hall. Here are displayed numerous skeletons of dinosaurs which fill me with a childlike sense of wonder. Some of the bones are put into action poses and placed over primordial backdrops. The aquatic ones even have an accompanying ocean sound effect which seems to loop indefinitely. This hall was of great  interest to me, because so much is said so matter-of-factly about these creatures that nobody has ever seen alive.
     After looping through the dinosaur hall, I found myself in the African and Asian halls. The placards make me wonder what savage lands these must be! It is interesting to note at this point that the Academy didn't seem to me to be organized in a way to command visitors into following a path, but rather it encourages some wandering and exploration. Even when dioramas were neatly aligned, I still felt compelled to follow a winding path.
     The dioramas are of great interest, as they make up the majority of the museum and are it's most important displays. Numerous glass-walled rooms lined the halls of the African, Asian, and North American exhibits. In them were displays of animals, which seemed to be quite alive despite their absolute lack of movement. The animals were placed into settings which were meant to reinforce their realism and make the viewer believe this is their natural setting. Oddly, while the animals and fake plants were quite convincing, the backdrops over which they were set were painted without much regard to detail. It seemed as though the backdrops were intentionally left unrealistic. The animals were grouped with their respective species, and what's more they were all posed to be facing out at the visitor. This, to me, made it look even less realistic. The fact that they were posed for and by humans was just too strikingly obvious.
    I found it surprising that humans were not present in any of the dioramas. What's even stranger is that humans were shown multiple times in the dinosaur hall, where the exhibits would draw comparisons between the anatomy of dinosaurs and humans. It was odd that they would put humans into this exhibit, because nothing even resembling humans existed when dinosaurs walked the earth. Despite this, no humans could be found in the dioramas of animals that are not yet extinct. Perhaps people were removed from these exhibits to avoid some of the racial controversies we have learned about. I could not help but wonder if the dioramas really were a good way of displaying nature. While I may not know of a better way, I feel that dioramas try to trick the viewer into believing they are totally true and natural, but in fact, they are just man-made constructions and settings. As such, they aren't a great way of displaying natural history, but they probably could be worse.

A portrait of Joseph Leidy, "The last man who knew everything," sat in the dinosaur hall.

His contributions make up a portion of the museum's displays.

The Betsy Ross House

This Thursday, our class visited the supposed house of early American patriot, Betsy Ross. Betsy Ross was an upholsterer who is famously believed to have designed the first American flag, known notoriously as the Betsy Ross flag. The house museum located at 239 Arch Street is agreed to be her home.
The building enters into a gift shop, which doesn't seem to be a part of the house's original 1740 design (the room itself, obviously she didn't have a gift shop). The self guided tour begins next, touring one through the main house, up and down winding stairs. Plaques dot the walls, celebrating the legend of Betsy Ross's creation of the first American flag. The guided tour, on the other hand, barely mentions it. Instead, the guided tour leads the listener through the life of Betsy Ross while describing the various rooms in Betsy's small house. The audio is littered with testimonials from Betsy Ross, which were quite clearly things she never said nor wrote. The tour itself is as small as the colonial house, ending after some 15 minutes. One must then return to the gift shop to return the audio device (not to mention, the audio specifically asks you to visit the gift shop).
If ever one of our field trips related to the readings, this was it. This place was the model of a house museum. The Betsy Ross House, on a smaller scale, attempts to accomplish much of what Colonial Williamsburg does. The house uses objects and buildings to contextualize history. The house also encourages nationalism through the narrative of Betsy Ross as a hard working early American. The place exists as a historical site, and there's no reason to think that Betsy Ross didn't reside there. However, the legend of her telling George Washington to can his six-pointed stars in favor of her simple five-pointed stars is likely a lot of exaggeration. There is no documentation to prove that Ross singlehandedly created the flag, and it is more likely that she was a member of a collaboration. In this way, the Betsy Ross House seems to function like every other house museum. It is a genuine historic site, but it spreads a fair bit of fiction. Because the place must hold up in a changing modern world, some facts are stretched to keep it interesting and valuable. This is the strange condition that all house museums find themselves in, and it is these faults that make them so interesting to study.