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The Changing Roles of Museums and Museum Collections - Episode 35
110 Plays7 years ago
On this episode of Women in Archaeology, we discussed the changing academic and social roles of museums in the United States. We also briefly talked about the origins of museums and how museum outreach and exhibitions can be improved.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Women in Archaeology Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to the Women in Archaeology podcast, a podcast about, for, and by women in the field. Before we get started, we would like to extend our heartfelt condolences for those affected by the tragedy in Las Vegas.
How Have Museums Evolved in Society?
00:00:23
Speaker
On this episode, we will be talking about the changing roles of museums in society. I'm Emily Long, and joining me for this discussion are Sarah Head, Kirsten Lopez, Cheryl Fogelhatch, Deidre Black, and our newest guest, Nicole Boenstein. Thank you all for joining me this evening. Hello.
00:00:41
Speaker
Before we jump into our topic, Nicole, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes, I'm Nicole Bodenstein. I'm a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I'm studying Midwestern archaeology, specifically
00:01:04
Speaker
3D scanning and textile impressions on pottery. Oh, wow. And I'm also getting a museum studies certificate, which is why I was interested in this podcast. That's wonderful. Well, we hope you join us for other ones, but I'm glad you're joining with us today. And that sounds like a really fascinating topic, trying to see if you can see those imprints on there. Have you been finding a lot of different kinds of imprints on pottery?
00:01:31
Speaker
I've been finding a lot of things that I need for my literature review. Yay, it's a good start. Hang on. Something at a time. Hey, that's a good start. And I'm sure you'll find many great examples in museums and then segueing into museums themselves. As we can have seen over time, if looking at literature reviews and articles and
00:01:58
Speaker
new museums popping up all over the place. We can see that they have changed dramatically over time in their focus and intent, their subject matter. They've really evolved and their importance in society really seems to have evolved over time as well. And so it's interesting to see the transition of how museums have changed over time. Would anybody like to give kind of a brief history of museums, how they came about?
Historical Storytelling and Ancient Museums
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, from what I was told,
00:02:28
Speaker
or from what I remember, from what I was told, museums started as cabinets of curiosity or places that you could go to experience the world without like leaving your town. I mean, this is back in the, you know. They're the antiquarians. Oh, yes. The antiquitarian period. Yeah. She's talking about the antiquarians. Oh, yes. The Corian eras. Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
No, this was the Renaissance 18 18 18. Yeah. That's when you start getting like sociology. And well, the very first one was. I was going to say my my ancient princess archaeologist. Yeah. OK, so I told the the story of our first known museum, which was found. And an excavation.
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, which is always awesome. So it's a any gaudy Nana. Is the princesses name and she was in the Neo Babylonian Empire, so about 530 BC. That's close to like the ziggurat of her. Close to in Iraq.
00:03:52
Speaker
No, and she she maintained. She maintained a museum there. But what kind of artifacts and stuff were inside the museum? There were things that her father was an ancient antiquarian. I think this is something sort of that during the Enlightenment was rediscovered sort of like when. When Northern Europeans discover things, it's new.
00:04:16
Speaker
Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. Like like it's obviously it's obviously if it was important, we would have known about it already. And so they looked for, you know, old stuff, cool old stuff just to say, oh, look, see, this thing was here for this long. We, you know, we belong here. This is our heritage. And so they had
00:04:45
Speaker
boundary markers, statues, cones, parts of buildings. That was in the ancient museum? In the ancient museum, correct. Wow. So, you know, these were things that were centuries old then in 530 BCE. And she arranged them nicely and had a clay drum that had the labels in three languages of what the object was.
00:05:16
Speaker
where they found it and how old they thought it was. That's amazing. And this is back in the Babylonian times. Yeah, it all sounds so meta. An archaeologist found a museum. And so what archaeologist Leonard Woolley in the modern era was excavating the temple. And I was like, why are these really old things here and why do they have labels?
00:05:47
Speaker
I don't know. That's really cool because I mean there's definitely a trend over time with that especially like with what you were saying with the curio cabinets and I'm sure there are a lot of little labels with those. I mean like look at this awesome random collection of things I have and if I remember correctly like the um
00:06:07
Speaker
the earliest collection with like the Smithsonian Institution, they would have the main building and it was essentially just like rooms of stuff. Just here's some unique random things and it seems to have kind of come out of that just curiosity for the unknown, the exotic things you would see at the World Fair. Just essentially random things. I almost wonder if this
00:06:34
Speaker
if the process has repeated itself multiple times, just like in other cultural practices. How many times have we had curio cabinets that turned into a discipline? And in different countries and everything else. We've known about people curating projectile points thousands of years, and they'll use an archaic point on a later site or something, and it throws the archaeologists off until you realize that it's one in many, and it's totally different from everything else they're using, but they pick it up off the landscape and keep it.
00:07:06
Speaker
And the larger thing here is that Inditra brought this up.
00:07:13
Speaker
The whole concept of creating our story, like the Curio cabinets and especially of the early Victorian era, those were a way of creating a story and controlling the past. You brought objects home, you kept them, you displayed them. It showed not only your intellect and your ability to travel and how
00:07:41
Speaker
worldly you were, but at the same time, it also allowed you to create a narrative because the classifications that we enjoy today and the history that we enjoy today, none of that had quite been created yet. And I would be really interested, I mean, if there was anything written about
00:07:59
Speaker
What the princess from Earth thought of all the objects that she had in her museum and how they were classified and what the stories were of those because it's it's actually been a repeated event in history that
00:08:14
Speaker
newer cultures will collect older cultures items in order to display them in order to, as Deidre said, claim that as their heritage and thereby give themselves stronger rights to whatever the area that they're trying to claim is.
00:08:30
Speaker
So yeah, it's a repeating process and now today we've got our Smithsonian and most most countries have their own national museums and that kind of stuff. And I feel like it is kind of a repeating thing. I mean, look at the the Elder Marbles. I'm sure there's several items within the Smithsonian that are of questionable
00:08:50
Speaker
uh, provenience. Um, but it's the same kind of thing. Oh, just like the Met in New York. Right, right. And it extends to art museums and stuff too. It's not just like natural history and American history. It's all, anytime you're taking an object specifically to display it, to be like, look how awesome I am. You're also trying to absorb and create a narrative around that object.
00:09:13
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. What seems to be the bigger pattern, as you mentioned, with the storytelling is the controlling of the narrative. So that's where you get different forms of what we might refer to as museums in different cultures. The curation point that Cheryl brought up, I know in Southeast Asia, I can't remember exactly where this was, but there was a
00:09:40
Speaker
society that had curated their historic or their ancient grains. They continued to cultivate in small gardens that were sort of their ancestors, had to do with their ancestors and this is what came before. It wasn't their main crop anymore but
Exoticism in Early Museums and Cultural Perceptions
00:10:02
Speaker
like before rice it's somewhere in the islands and I can't unfortunately remember where this was but
00:10:09
Speaker
It just comes to mind as an example of controlling the narrative, identifying with the past in some way, but the narrative piece is kind of the big part that I think of when I think of the early museums for Western society, because that's really when
00:10:30
Speaker
some of this bloomed and not just in the history portion with the princess that Deidre was talking about, but also the exotic that was brought up that was very popular in the 18th century.
00:10:49
Speaker
I think some of that really started with the age of exploration and a lot of like the late 15th, early 16th century with the early explorers from Europe going to see and discover, quote unquote, the rest of the world. You know, they'd bring pieces of those cultures back and those were kept as sort of treasures or prizes that were a curiosity, but definitely
00:11:18
Speaker
continued to define the narrative of what those other cultures were as these empires spread. That sounded like a, that example in Southeast Asia sounds like today's Botanical Gardens. Yeah, not that far off. And to jump in from there too, I think that's where then we move from the exotic as well to
00:11:44
Speaker
seeing more of not just trying to bring things into the national identity, but things that are literally already part of that identity that needs to be preserved and upheld as an ideal kind of the house museum idea with like Mount Vernon with George Washington's home or any of the founders homes where you have the daughters of the American Revolution and
00:12:09
Speaker
people that want to preserve these houses as a museum as like upholding a tradition or upholding a particular period of time because it enshrines a particular aspect of the national identity. So I think you get both kind of the want to understand the exotic or at least display the exotic to also wanting to have something to enshrine the national identity. You know, it's like this was our founding father.
00:12:39
Speaker
Woo. Pretend you didn't have slaves, but the woo. And weren't they just so great compared to everybody else? Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, hang on there. But the house museums, they're not necessarily, they're not necessarily there for bragging rights. We have a house museum. No, seriously. It's true. It's true.
00:13:02
Speaker
It's down the road from us. It's the Ben Lomond site. They have chosen to represent the house as it was when it was used as a field hospital during the Civil War.
00:13:17
Speaker
also one of only I think two or three plantation sites in Virginia that still has slave structures on it. So they have chosen to maintain the slave structures. They bring in interpreters who once a year come in and act out the part of a house slave. They maintain a garden there that represents the kind of foods that the slave would have grown. So
00:13:41
Speaker
In essence, it is the house park of the house museum there is the slave cavern. So it's still a house museum, but it is a house museum interpreting slave life, not the lives of the people that lived in the plantation house. Was it still there?
00:14:00
Speaker
But its focus is to demonstrate what it would have been like to be in a field hospital during the Civil War, which is absolutely disgusting. But it's fantastic if you ever get to walk through it. Exactly. And it's great that these have changed. So many of these house museums have changed so dramatically over time and will definitely get into changes. It's just a shame how much in the past was very much like, this is the house. Hooray. Yeah.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, they're definitely great that lived in it. Exactly. And that's great to hear that. Like you're saying, you did that. Oh, yeah. So that the what you're describing is one of those changing roles, like what they had been used, like Emily was saying, for a long time or the sort of
00:14:52
Speaker
I don't know if that's the best word. And then it's now being used to kind of transform that role into sort of a tool for education of some of the different sides of these things that we see sort of in a broader sense. Exactly.
00:15:17
Speaker
But I have a few other examples. Oh, yeah. But we'll be definitely getting into that topic more on how things have changed more recently. And so just staying on the topic of just generally how museums were in the past, Nicole or Cheryl, did you have anything you would like to add? Well, it's interesting because I was recently at a small conference session last week, a time at museum collections, and there was a real divide between those who wanted
00:15:45
Speaker
objects we put out and those who wanted, educators mostly wanted to do this, to have experiential learning and have kids project, you know, look at objects and construct scenarios and practice based. And there were debates about, you go to a museum to see objects, and if you're making, you know, having them do other activities, you're losing that.
00:16:13
Speaker
The educator is coming back with, yeah, but they don't retain anything if you're having them look at objects. So it was interesting to be able to fly on a wall during that conversation. I bet. And it seems like a more old school approach to just have objects, only look at the objects, and that's it. Right. And the balance is probably somewhere in the middle. They were talking past each other. Research collections are different than educational collections. And I was never clear which side
00:16:42
Speaker
the collections object-based people were on. This was mostly historians, and so a lot of house museum people. And I'm an outsider to that world, so I really didn't know who was who and what was what. Well, that kind of brings us to the end of our first 20 minutes. We will be coming back to this topic and going into then how things have changed in our next 20 minutes. So we will be right back.
00:17:11
Speaker
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00:17:30
Speaker
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00:17:46
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone. In our first segment, we talked about a brief history of the museums, how they came about, what was their role.
Object-based vs. Educational Approaches in Museums
00:17:56
Speaker
Now we're gonna get into the role of education, how museums have changed over time in terms of their education outreach approach, and then how that can create tension between the different approaches, whether it should be more object-based or more
00:18:17
Speaker
educationally based of what Cheryl was talking about at the end of our last segment. So who would like to jump in? I can get in on this one. Excellent. So some of the things that come to mind that I've seen is the idea of a museum
00:18:37
Speaker
As we talked about before, it tends to be very much what's in the public mind as far as when you ask that anyone specifically or anyone randomly what they think a museum is, they'll usually think of something that's very kind of clean, something that you don't really touch anything. It's just stuff you look at, such as an art museum or a history museum.
00:19:05
Speaker
or natural museum. It's very, yes, I like that word sterile. And static, yes. And there's been a big movement away from that in the museum world, mostly when it comes down to those who've been trained in education, how do you get this
00:19:24
Speaker
the lessons that these things are teaching to stick. How do you get people to learn what you're trying to teach them? Because eventually, you know, it kind of came to this point of like, well, you know, it's cool to see these things, but what do they mean? And then trying to portray that meaning in a productive way. And then from there, you know, how do you get things to stick? And so a lot more museum staff, museums have education staff.
00:19:53
Speaker
I mean, these are people who specialize in being able to get people on board with what things mean, how to get the information to stick, which often involves things like touchables, hands on workshops type stuff. And that's where where I think the science museum was kind of born from. And I don't know if that's 100 percent true.
00:20:20
Speaker
But where you get sort of these larger abstract concepts and how do you get those things to stick with the public that may not have a lot of the background knowledge and displaying how certain things work, principles of physics and.
00:20:36
Speaker
Those are big things that you see in science museums that are usually geared towards kids. One example here in Portland is ONSI, which is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, has some amazing exhibits that are stationary. They also have a huge traveling exhibit section, which has a lot of the traditional things-based exhibits that come through, and some have more interactive elements. So you have things like
00:21:04
Speaker
There's a things based thing exhibit that tells a story and you go through and collect stamps where you do wax rubbings of different parts to put together the story that you take home in a booklet. So this this interactive piece. Before we started this, someone compared it to a what was it? They can't remember the word.
00:21:33
Speaker
This one of you gals compared it to it. Maybe it was a scavenger hunt. Well, that's a scavenger hunt. The examples I gave, but it's like a glorified adult theme park or something. I don't remember.
00:21:49
Speaker
What if my term was daycare? Daycare, that's what it was. I'm like, who was that? Yes, that was me. Oh, my. So that's where you get the things versus the education. But then there's other roles that museums play. And does anyone else want to jump in on on that?
00:22:12
Speaker
Well, I do have a question. Yeah. Are you on this changing? Do you think that some of these changes came across as it became less invoked for money to people to support and be patrons for for museums? And so you have to reach out to the masses, become more egalitarian. And when you're at a lower price point, you have to have more people. Do you think any of that is in the play here?
00:22:42
Speaker
Um from what I've read it actually went the other direction. It may have instigated some drop in funding but or may have been instigated by drops in funding but from what I've read it appears to look like drops in funding have actually instigated the move towards
00:23:05
Speaker
more than trying to just service the rich because they still try to get patrons and they a lot of museums still do have patrons that will donate especially places like art museums and some history museums
00:23:25
Speaker
But some of it is is the what I was thinking of, too, and this kind of comes into the patron money is housing of collections that have been there since the 18th, 19th, early 20th centuries and research collections, which museums usually house, often associated with universities or national museums such as the Smithsonian.
00:23:54
Speaker
And so I'm sure a few of us have worked at some of those types of museums. Does anyone see what kind of interaction between the education and collections departments has? So interaction between the collections and the education department? Kind of. Yeah. So like, you know, those are sort of the two from the
00:24:20
Speaker
Cheryl's earlier example of the two sort of debating factions, more or less, is sort of the traditional things versus, you know, base versus the education interaction base, which tends to encourage a lot more children. Sounds like the divide between museums as repositories and stewards of objects versus their informal education roles and their their need
00:24:51
Speaker
to demonstrate themselves as useful in. And, you know, worthy of of existence into in as society changes around them, because I think before it was that in the cabinets of curiosity, it was that people would go around on these these, you know, worldwide tours by boat and collect
00:25:19
Speaker
fantastic things from exotic cultures and taxidermy animals. And and now in today, when the when people are able to just access the Internet or hop on a plane and go see some some new place rather than having to see it in a museum, I think museums are
00:25:48
Speaker
doing more, I suppose, democratic things, and trying to involve the community around them. Remember that narrative that we were speaking about? They want
00:26:09
Speaker
Well, I suppose we want we as museum professionals would like other people to feel like they have a voice in that narrative so that it's not just like we are the museum and this is what we have to say about the subject. But because because there are so many people in different groups in a community and in the state and other other
00:26:34
Speaker
you know, however you want to define a locality. Have you seen a change in terms of museums playing more of a social justice role as well?
Museums, Multivocality, and Social Justice
00:26:47
Speaker
Sometimes, definitely more acknowledging of multi-vocality, I think. I think the cabinets of curiosity kind of privileged.
00:27:02
Speaker
I think I reacted so strongly earlier because it was it was a privileged history. It was certain people were were kind of in charge of that history or the old white rich man, you mean? Yeah. That was the way they wanted other people to view history is if you don't mind me inserting. So yes.
00:27:27
Speaker
It's a way of showing history or even art or. I don't know. Personally, I was working at a science and technology museum over here in Milwaukee called Discovery World, and we have all kinds of interactive exhibits and it I feel like it it's like. That it's not just.
00:27:52
Speaker
going through and looking at objects and reading labels, because as it turns out, no one really likes to read labels. You find this time and time again. But what people like to do and especially children, they like to press buttons and feel that and they kind of almost accidentally learn by by through these hands on exhibits. And like, for instance, we have
00:28:19
Speaker
Well, I suppose it's not we anymore. But at Discovery World, they have Lake Sturgeon that you can touch. And it's an endangered species. Oh, cool. Yeah, the Children's Museum here has an adult night with wine pairings. Oh, that sounds delightful. Yeah, you can you can do the light exhibit where you touch all the things and make light and learn about light refraction and speed and all that stuff. It's really cool.
00:28:44
Speaker
And Sarah, I understand you wanna get in on this as well? I do. And the point that Deidre just made is my pet peeve to this whole... No, seriously, I worked at a children's science museum for about a year when I might first move down here. And just my opinion of museums in general, I love museums. I absolutely love them. I can spend all day on them. I am one of these people that reads labels, but I'm also an adult.
00:29:14
Speaker
And the way I experience a museum is much different than the way children are expected to experience a museum. And one of the things that I have a major issue with, especially working in the field of education here in Virginia for the last two years, people kidify way too much
00:29:38
Speaker
with the expectation that if we make things too intellectual, children can't follow it. And I think that's a huge disservice to children in general. And it, I'm sorry, it dumbs down the museum and it takes away from the overall experience of the museum for everyone, not just the kids. So this is my soapbox.
00:30:05
Speaker
I understand. No, seriously, I understand that the museums have to change. And I understand the way that we're presenting information and the artifacts and stuff has to change. It can't just be room after room of artifact porn. I mean, that's not doing anybody any favors. The labels, especially, I mean, there's some of the labels at the Smithsonian that I'm just like, well, that was completely useless. And you move on to the next object. So you're basically just invited to stare at this thing. It might have a title.
00:30:29
Speaker
And then nothing, you know, it gives you no information. You have no idea. You know, you might get to know what the materials are made out of are, but you don't know anything else about it. Yeah. And that's the thing. And then Deidre mentions these adult nights. The Children's Museum in Indianapolis used to do it, too. They would close down the museum for a night and you had to pay. I mean, it was again, it was kind of a privileged event. You had to pay somewhere around 50 to 75 dollars. Wow. Ticket to go. But oh, the one here is much cheaper.
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, but you could go and you could drink wine and eat cheese and explore the exhibits. And the fact that adults are willing to do that and it's they're not fundraised. Well, I mean, maybe they work for the museum, but they weren't they weren't advertised as fundraisers.
00:31:15
Speaker
So it was a adult night. You came, you ate, you drank, you walked around the museum, and you as an adult got to experience the children's museum without all of the kids there. And the fact that adults would pay for that privilege means there is some attraction to the idea of being able to interact with the objects.
00:31:37
Speaker
of in a museum. Even if it's just a replica of the objects that you're showing them, people want to touch them, they want to interact with them. And so I'm all for 3D printing of objects and the sharing of objects like that, or the creating of replicas that can be pushed, touched, you know, if somebody, you know, vomits on it, no one cares, it's a replica, we can make a new one, you know, the actual statue that's now got human vomit all over it.
00:32:03
Speaker
And someone like the Ming Vaz down the stairs. Exactly. But at the same time that we need to create more interactive, we need to create spaces that are more interactive for people. We need to also keep in mind that kids are great. Half the time the kids are at museums, they're there because they have to be, which means they've already shut you out anyway. The ones that are learning are going to learn regardless. So there's no need to dumb everything down.
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah, in hopes that you're making it friendly for kids. When what you should be doing is making it just interactive so that everybody can come and interact with it and have a really great time and tactilely learn about history or art or science or engines or what have you. Yeah, that's my rant. Yeah, that's a good point. It's a very good point. What go to the museums, I think that is working pretty good at getting there is
00:33:01
Speaker
I had the great pillage of going to the Bishop Museum in Hawaii this summer. And the Bishop Museum is 125 years old. It has the clothing of King Kamehameha, who was the king that united the islands and was the king when the first white people found that there were other people there. No way. It started off.
00:33:28
Speaker
Crazy talk. And the museum started off, it's this very gorgeous, ornate, dark tropical wood things with these big glass cases and drawers and these old, old curated things. But what they've done, they've gone through, well, first of all, they stabilize the cases because the cases themselves are historic now. And while, yes, you have the stuff, they've arranged it so it tells a story.
00:33:57
Speaker
And so you see the story and in between the story, there's things you can touch. There's things I can do. It's like, oh, this is what these feathers look like. You touch these feathers over here. Or this is a piece of these are some bark cloths that have this repeated motif on it. Here's some stamps and see if you can do it. How long do you think it took to take this to make this big long thing?
00:34:21
Speaker
And then you go, you know, as you go up the stairs, you get, now that you have the base, you're like, ooh, this is cool stuff. You go to the next one, and it goes, this is the story of how people got here. You go to the next story, and it goes, this is the modern story of Hawaii, and how we got the stuff that's in this museum. And so you go through it, and you know, if you're someone like me who wants to read every single label, and
00:34:48
Speaker
would annoy all my siblings whenever we would go somewhere. And they're like, God, can't we go through this? I'm like, no, we must do this. And we'll see every diorama. But I was able to go through, but also my siblings that were with me as adults were able to go through. And they got something out of it, too. And we all learned in our own way going through that museum. We learned a really good story of the history of the culture of Hawaii and even a history of Polynesia in general.
00:35:18
Speaker
And they have other stuff there. They have a planetarium and traveling exhibits and plants. But I think that what they're doing is a really good middle grounds method of so you have the curation, you have the stuff, you have the interaction. And I felt in no way that it was dumbed down. And they even presented the the struggles of the native Hawaiians and how things were
00:35:49
Speaker
taken from them. They didn't dumb it down. They presented it in simple, understandable terms. But they didn't dumb it down. And they presented like, this is what these people feel like. And like, you can listen, you can, you know, pick up the headphones and listen to the stories, you can play the drum. And I thought it was a really, it was a really nice museum. And I think that
00:36:17
Speaker
you know, they're moving towards the future with this museum, you know, about how to make it a museum of the people, not just for the rich people that collected it 125 years ago, who are all dead now.
Community Involvement and Heritage Consultation
00:36:29
Speaker
Very cool. That's a wonderful example and I'm sure there's there are many many wonderful examples that are trying to make that push going towards being interactive for both children and adults and we can get into more of those examples as well as some of the other points we think that need to be changed at museums. How can we push this even further in the next 20 minutes? So we will be right back.
00:37:02
Speaker
Bye!
00:37:04
Speaker
The CRM Archaeology Podcast brings together a panel of cultural resource management professionals to discuss the issues that really matter to the profession. Find out about networking strategies, job hunting, graduate programs, and much more. We'll often feature interviews with college professors, CRM business owners, and experts as well. Check out the show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com forward slash CRM Arc Podcast. Let's get back to the show.
00:37:43
Speaker
Welcome back. In the last 20 minutes we talked a little bit about the changing roles of museums, how they have changed in terms of their education, different kinds of outreach, some of the positives, some of the negatives. We got a little bit into that. For this final section we're going to talk about
00:38:04
Speaker
what is being done right and then some of the things we think might need to be done perhaps a little bit better maybe we need a little more of something like we're in the right direction but we could take it a step further and one of those things is community involvement and
00:38:21
Speaker
you can, it seems like you can never have enough community involvement, especially those with a direct stake in the collections and perhaps those whose ancestors are being represented in the collections. And so I know you guys were interested in talking about that. So whoever would like jump on in. I have an example of this one where the the museum and associated archaeological site went from a
00:38:50
Speaker
you know, Anglo colonizer interpretation to a full community involvement involving the people whose culture and ancestors were involved in the site.
00:39:03
Speaker
And this one is the Caddo Mounds site here in Texas. It was formerly known as the George C. Davis site. It is a public archaeological site. There's mounds, there's a lot of house remains, and there's been quite a lot of work done here. And what started off as, oh, you go look at the mounds, you go in the museum, you see all the stuff that was dug out of the mounds. Before the 80s, perhaps you see some people that were dug out of the mounds. I haven't gotten the full history on that.
00:39:33
Speaker
Um, but over the years of the past several decades, uh, the cattle people have become more and more involved. Uh, some of them sought it out and also the state, uh, the people that were running the site sought them out to go, you know what, we can do a better job of this. And so now if you go there, uh, yes, you go around and you see the mounds, but, uh, the cattle will also come and do cultural events. They have become.
00:40:02
Speaker
very, very involved in the interpretation of the site, and making the site a living thing again. You know, it's not just the static thing you see over in the corner, okay, these people were here, now they're dead, but these are still a living people, a living culture. And so they go, Oh, this is you know, this is what this means. This is how we make our pots. Now this is how we make our baskets. This is our dances. These are our elders telling stories. And it's very interactive, which we've been
00:40:33
Speaker
talking about much of this episode, how that's a good thing. And it really brings the site. It's not now just owned by the people who eventually came here. It's owned by the people who are the direct descendants of the people that made the site. And it also, it belongs more to the surrounding community as well, because it's in a fairly rural area. And there's a lot more involvement.
00:41:03
Speaker
of everyone a lot more pride in the site. And that's one of our examples how a museum went from stuff on the wall to being strongly involved in the community. Awesome. I like that example a lot, which is why I poked you at presenting that.
00:41:27
Speaker
There's I work with museum collections, and I know a couple of us in here do as well for research purposes. And that is a topic that has a lot of history, as we mentioned, is the curiosity cabinets and people looking at and analyzing objects. So the idea
00:41:52
Speaker
that descendant communities have a say, at least, if not control over how what gets put on display, how it's put on display, who gets to see it, if it's seen by the public or by researchers. I know generally speaking due to NAGPRA, and that's a whole other topic that we're not really getting into here, but
00:42:21
Speaker
when there's a request or if a museum has collections that are sensitive, culturally sensitive, and a researcher requests to be able to put an image, say, into a presentation, the tribes are generally contacted and be like, hey, is this okay? Can so-and-so put this for this purpose? And they can say yes or no.
00:42:43
Speaker
The level of involvement, I know, varies widely from what Deidre just discussed to the multivocalities. So you have the little plaques or panels next to artifacts having, say, the native story behind it alongside the scientific view. There's a whole
00:43:14
Speaker
Examples of what as Sarah, you talked about earlier, the the house museum stuff that's much more interactive and that you're not just looking at things and interacting with things, but you're physically interacting with the space. Right. That is a really, really cool.
00:43:32
Speaker
advance that I would like to see more of with regard to not just strictly museums, but just historic places. And I know some historic districts have programs where they do like a tour of homes that are listed and you can open your home for a day if your house is listed to get the story of the house told, which I think is kind of fun.
00:44:03
Speaker
But one of the things I wanted to mention too is that with the change in museums, there have been
00:44:12
Speaker
a revitalization of cultural cultures and native cultures in the US, particularly this is something we see in the West a lot anyway, is not just involvement in existing museums, but tribes creating their own cultural centers, which are kind of like I think of it as like a backwards museum in or not backwards, but inside out, because it's very much like the collections are here to learn from and for the tribe to
00:44:41
Speaker
have the artifacts play a role in their culture rather than keeping in storage and totally behind glass. I mean, they can be, but the knowledge that the artifacts can bring into the culture and also the knowledge that the culture has about the artifacts that may or may not be able to be shared
00:45:03
Speaker
with the public or just that maybe isn't known because the museum didn't ask. I know one example is it that I always find kind of funny is it. So there's a museum I worked for a while back that had a bunch of baskets on display and they were all in a shape of a bowl. Right. You know, and a tribal member came through and was like, I'm sorry, I just want to let you guys know that
00:45:33
Speaker
these three or four baskets yeah those are hats you have them displayed upside down so oh dear just to let you know um
00:45:52
Speaker
So there's an important role that I think the conversation and the interaction in place of communities is definitely necessary. But researchers, I think, are often intimidated because, you know, as scientists, we're often socially awkward by talking to people. But there were a couple of other examples you guys had, I think,
00:46:20
Speaker
Well I think there are a lot of wonderful examples from small scale to large scale. You have things like there are living history museums that are highly involved with the indigenous communities in that area to the American Indian Museum, the Smithsonian in DC, where
00:46:38
Speaker
It was created this building structure to the collections, everything and how it was it was widely involved with a variety of indigenous communities. But I believe, Nicole, you wanted to make a distinction between the idea of a museum and that of a like a heritage center. Yeah. So one of the things that I remember as you were talking about museums and how and versus the center that you mentioned,
00:47:08
Speaker
was that some museums have even opted to rename themselves as centers to get away from the old thought regarding museums that they're inaccessible, they're not, you know, only a couple people get to tell you what the narrative are. Whereas the center is a little bit more
00:47:37
Speaker
geared toward the community and toward being an anchor of a community where where cultural events can happen and where it could be a forum, it could be a center where new events and new ideas are created. So it becomes less of a stale glass house where stuff is held and more of an active environment that everyone can participate in.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah. And that definitely moves, I think, as Sarah was complaining about, sorry, I mean, enlightening us about the soapboxing about the daycare center feel of some of these interactions. It is a daycare center feel.
00:48:27
Speaker
There's definitely some of that too. I feel like people just want to go and drop their kids off and be like why can't you entertain my children and then leave and I mean they think their kids are just going to learn. I think to be fair though I think there's less and less places in today's that parents feel comfortable taking their kids to and being able to
00:48:52
Speaker
just temporarily turn off that switch of of constantly chasing after the kids. Like the the Milwaukee Public Museum, for instance, sometimes doesn't.
Safety Protocols for Museum Visitors
00:49:04
Speaker
Well, it's it's a safe zone where I've seen parents be very comfortable with their kids just running ahead. They're like in the middle of the next exhibit. The parents don't even see them, but they're totally fine because there's museum staff that are trained in Code Adam and
00:49:22
Speaker
to find the kids and- Did you say code Adam? Oh, code Adam is- Yeah. It's from Walmart and Joe Walsh. Oh. It's for when you have a missing child and you're in a public space. Oh, I see. A series of steps you go through to help locate and reunite the kids. Okay. Yeah. And also prevent them from being removed.
00:49:48
Speaker
from the premises by someone who there should not be removing them. Yeah. OK. And, you know, they have I've been taught very strict protocols when a code atom is called personally. So, well, I definitely agree that museum exhibits shouldn't be dumbed down or
00:50:08
Speaker
I I also think that there's a lot of room for museums to continue catering or like, for instance, the Field Museum, I believe, has a whole almost a center at the bottom of it where where young kids can be with some caretakers. And yeah, I haven't personally seen it, but I really wanted to drop my niece and nephew off their ones. But I.
00:50:38
Speaker
But that's a good point, especially, I mean, we definitely want to have museums that are kid friendly enough. But yeah, you don't want to go too far in one direction and not too far in another direction. You want a happy medium. And just as an example that I personally find it runs a good gamut in terms of not only
00:51:00
Speaker
promoting social justice, providing issues on the past, showing issues in the present, what can we do in the future, has the adult exhibits, the kids exhibits is the Holocaust Museum in DC where it shows a continuing issues but also highlighting this horrific event and they have an amazing children's wing that takes kids through
00:51:22
Speaker
what actually happened without, you know, hopefully not completely scarring them for the rest of their lives. But I went through that as a kid and it stuck with me, but in a good way, you know, rather than being like, oh, I'm scarred for life. And I'm sure there are many examples. Exactly.
00:51:43
Speaker
Not coming down, but making it as sensible. Yeah. And it's good to have both, I think. You know, stuff that's geared more towards everyone or towards adults. And then is it stuff that is in that very scattered, very kid friendly way? Because there are some that just have a hard time engaging. And I think places like that are important for kids that just aren't interested because those tend to be science and technology museums. They're rarely history museums.
00:52:13
Speaker
And so that's where you get, you know, finding a way to engage a certain population. You know, kids that can't sit still for 10 seconds, which most kids, you know, not all kids, but there's a healthy handful out there. And it's good to find ways to engage them. And I think that is one way, you know, they have the
00:52:40
Speaker
so many studies about the importance of not just hands-on. I think the dumbing down issue is a problem, but the
00:52:54
Speaker
It's hard to address, especially with and there is, I think, some attention or there has been some attention within the professional and professionalization of museums and that that's being improved upon. But just like all other kinds of museums, some are better than others, some do it better than others. Some think, well, in order to make this kin-friendly, all we have to do is dumb it down. And that's not cool at all. So that's definitely something that can be improved upon for sure.
00:53:25
Speaker
And how much of that do you think is a funding issue? Like they can't. Most of it. I do think there's a chronic lack of funding. And I think that drives people to or drives the museums to try to do things that they don't have the budget for. And so they end up cutting corners and trying to cut costs and then you get lackluster results. Yeah. You know.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, I don't want to hold people accountable for things outside of their ability. But if you're running into that kind of a situation, maybe you should evaluate reevaluate even doing the project in the first place. And maybe those funds can be used better use somewhere else as opposed to trying to create a kid friendly interactive program that is going to fall flat because you just don't have the money to do it.
00:54:13
Speaker
And some of that is finding either really good grant writers or people who can really schmooze those patrons to get enough funding to hire a professional educator that can design this the way that the museum has vision for is really kind of what
Impact of Funding on Museums
00:54:32
Speaker
it comes down to. Not everyone has the ability to do that, obviously, but that's where it's kind of like
00:54:37
Speaker
Those are some key elements in creating really great museums, I think. I think those areas are expanding and I hope to see that improving upon. What statistics I had seen when I looked before this show were a few years old.
00:55:00
Speaker
But it did appear that, you know, you have museums and historic sites as some of the largest entertainment, physical entertainment that people do in the States and actually combined outran population for people who attended theme parks, which I found was kind of surprising. Awesome.
00:55:25
Speaker
I imagine museum admissions are probably cheaper than theme parks too. So there's a bit of an economics and then a tourism and a social learning. Yeah. Yeah, true. So much cheaper.
00:55:39
Speaker
Well, on that note, it is time for closing thoughts. I know we could talk on for hours about museums. I know I definitely could. There are so many topics to go into about museums, but for this final 10 minutes, ladies, do you have any final thoughts? Cheryl, would you like to start? Well, I guess like anything, just keep
00:56:07
Speaker
present, you have to remember what the audience is and what the intent is in terms of what you want to use the collections for, exhibit, display, research, education. And so a good professional should balance out and match those needs up. And you could do more replication with educational collections or unpervenience. But for research, you really need the real deal. So in some sense, the debate that I mentioned is artificial.
00:56:36
Speaker
In some sense, it's just people wanting to use the same collection for multiple purposes. Yeah, that's a good point. It's a very good point. Anybody else for final thoughts? Well, I've recently seen where multiple avenues of research have shown that amongst adults, millennials are by far the biggest users of libraries and even are using libraries to a greater degree.
00:57:06
Speaker
than the generation before them at the same age. That's surprising. I think that's awesome. As the oldest millennial, I take pride in this. I'm with you. And I'm hoping that this is a trend. You know, museums often get lumped into the same categories as libraries, as far as, you know, what they're for.
00:57:33
Speaker
how to fund them and stuff like that. And so I hope in that this is a trend that people are ready to learn people are, you know, reverse the trend. And we want to learn, we want to take possession of the past as a community, you know, not as a place of privilege. And so I have hope.
00:57:56
Speaker
Oh, and I wanted to jump in. We mentioned NMAI.
00:58:06
Speaker
Oh, I can't remember the acronym for the life of me ever. The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Yes, I got it that time. Good job. So we mentioned that one, but also the very recently completed, which I am very excited about seeing in D.C. next year. Yes.
00:58:28
Speaker
What is it? It's the the the name National Museum of African American culture. Oh my god. Thank you. I'm like it's a long way. I can't remember that one.
00:58:41
Speaker
I got okay, I got to go one of the one of the early opening weeks because I have friends who are amazing. And I am not kidding you, it is probably one of the coolest museums I have been to in a really long time. And I've done pretty much every museum in the Smithsonian. It's just cool. And the building is frickin gorgeous. Like it is just a beautiful building. So if nothing else, go see the building and stay for the exhibits because it's
00:59:08
Speaker
It's a stunning museum. It's there's just a lot there. They did a really good job of making things interactive, a really good job of making things, explaining things in a way that like you can walk through a display and understand what's going on and you feel educated when you leave. It's not boring. It's beautiful. And I really think it's a model that a lot of museums should attempt to follow from here on out. I read about that one that it has they followed some of
00:59:36
Speaker
the things they did with the American Indian Museum, which at that time- Another really good museum. Oh my gosh, yeah. Had the highest display lag time measured in any museum in the Americas, but the African American Museum lag time that's been measured like per display is phenomenal. Even blew that one out of the water. Yeah. The way that the information is presented and everything, people just linger.
01:00:04
Speaker
You're going to be there, go early because you are literally going to be there all day. And it's not even one of the bigger museums. It's actually, I think, one of the mediums, almost smaller sized museums. You will be there all day. There's just that much information to do it. And pro tip, when you go, just go all the way up to the top floor and work your way down to the basement. Don't start at the basement and go up. Awesome.
01:00:30
Speaker
So I think this has been a really great conversation and I think it's a really great jumping point for all of the topics that we talked about because I think they could each be so many things could each be their own episode.
01:00:46
Speaker
In our last episode that we did for the monuments, some of the similar things came up and I wanted to do a quick shout out, actually. I don't know if you guys have anything off the top of your head that you would recommend that we haven't mentioned yet being the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana and. The. I can't remember the rest of it,
01:01:14
Speaker
Anyone else have anything else that you would suggest? There's one that's under the works. You can only go there by group appointment right now, but the Levi Jordan Plantation is another one of those where much of the enslaved person's quarters and their cultural remains are behind and the entire purpose of this historic site interpretation is for the enslaved person's experience and they've
01:01:44
Speaker
you know, gathered up survivors stories, descendant stories. Nice. And it's, you know, funding and historic sites go. Yeah. I've had the great fortune of working on it, fieldwork. And so it's going to be an up and coming one there, southwest of Houston. Cool. Very, very cool.
01:02:11
Speaker
Great. Uh, Nicole, final thoughts? Well, I just looked it up and the...
01:02:17
Speaker
National Museum of African American History and Culture is still free, but the passes are timed, and I don't know about you, but because the SAAs are going to be in DC next year, I am going to integrate that into mine. Exactly. I'm totally going to be there. You might want to buy it. It's a few days early, yeah. Well, I'll have to go together.
01:02:44
Speaker
Early. Excellent. So that's a lot of wonderful suggestions, a lot of wonderful examples of different museums trying to incorporate many different viewpoints, trying to do different types of interaction. I think we had a good conversation.
01:03:05
Speaker
And we always need to remember to also visit our local museums and hey, the best thing you can do is be a volunteer.
How Can You Support Museums?
01:03:14
Speaker
If you want to change something, volunteer at a museum and getting involved is a wonderful thing to do. Ladies, thank you so much for joining in this conversation on this discussion this evening. Really appreciate you being here.
01:03:30
Speaker
Uh, for our listeners, um, we will provide links to some of the different museums and articles that we discussed. If you are interested, check us out on Twitter at women, um, at Women Arkeys. And so the, the, uh, Women in Archaeology podcast. And then we also have a blog and we would love to hear from you. Our email is, and I'm afraid I can't remember off the top of my head, Sarah, do you know?
01:04:00
Speaker
Our email is womeninarche... shoot, man, you messed me up. It's womeninarcheology at gmail.com. Thank you very much. And please visit our blog as well, which I believe is a women in archaeology at... Dot blog spot. Yes, dot blog spot. Thank you very much. I should be able to remember this.
01:04:27
Speaker
Honestly, though, I Google this pretty frequently. If you just type in women in archaeology, both the podcast and the blog will pop up in the first 10 searches. Excellent. We cool. Perfect. Wonderful. Thank you. Well, again, ladies, thank you so much for being here, and hope to have another discussion with you again soon. All right. See you soon. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
01:05:02
Speaker
We hope you have enjoyed the show. Please be sure to subscribe and rate our show wherever you listen. We are available on iTunes, Stitcher, and probably whatever your favorite podcasting app is. Remember to like and share. If you have questions or comments, you can post them in the comments section for the show at the Women in Archaeology page on the Archaeology Podcasting Network site, or email them to us at womeninarchaeologypodcast.com. This show is part of the Archaeology Podcasting Network,
01:05:30
Speaker
and is produced by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle. You can reach them at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Music for the show was Retro Future by Kevin MacLeod, available at Inkomtep and Royalty Free Music. Thanks for listening!
01:05:50
Speaker
This show is produced by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.