Category Archives: Cultural diversity

Period Rooms at a Modern University

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During a recent visit to Pittsburgh, I visited the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh.  At 535 feet, it’s the tallest university building in the nation and dominates the skyline east of downtown.  Despite its name, it’s more skyscraper than cathedral.  It’s also an historical and architectural landmark, built between 1926 and 1937 as an Art Deco “cake” with Gothic Revival “frosting.”  For those of us working at historic house museums, what’s most interesting are the Nationality Rooms, a series of 29 classrooms on the first and third floors designed and furnished to represent different nations and ethnicities.

The classrooms vary in size but each have Continue reading →

Video: Ask a Slave, Episode 1

In honor of Black History Month, we’re sharing Ask a Slave, a series of short interviews with Lizzie Mae, “personal housemaid to President and Lady Washington.”  It’s based on the experiences of Azie Dungey, who was an interpreter at George Washington’s Mt. Vernon.  She wrote, produced, and created these videos as a way to, “present all of the most interesting, and somewhat infuriating encounters that I had, the feelings that they brought up, and the questions that they left unanswered. I do not think that Ask A Slave is a perfect way to do so, but I think that it is a fun, and a hopefully somewhat enriching start.”  Although Dungey portrays an enslaved African servant, many of her experiences are shared by others who interpret historic sites, no matter the period or topic.  For those of us working at historic sites, they’re incredibly funny but they also reveal some of the challenges we have interpreting other times and places.  You’ll want to look at some the comments on YouTube to get the full national scope, plus take a look at the number of views to get a sense of the impact.

Dungey is currently working in Los Angeles on another series, although focused on the 19th century.  Can’t wait to see what she produces.

History Organizations Gathering Awards

The American Alliance of Museums announced the winners of its 2013 Museum Publications Design Competition, which identifies the best in graphic design in fifteen different categories.  This is a juried competition and we send our congratulations to all, but especially to (given the bias of this blog):

  • Drake Well Museum for their journal, Oilfield
  • Kentucky Historical Society for educational resources.
  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum for their 2011-12 annual report
  • Museum of Flight (Seattle) for their 2011 annual report
  • Museum of the City of New York for the journal, City Courant
  • National Archives for their Girl Scout Welcome Activity Badge Cards
  • Peabody Essex Museum for their members magazine, Connections
  • Peabody Essex Museum for invitations to the Cultural Conversation and Ansel Adams events
  • Peabody Essex Museum for educational resources
  • Shaker Museum (Mount Lebanon) for the 2012/13 annual journal

I love good design and I applaud all the winners.  One thing about design contests, however, is that they’re only about design Continue reading →

Video: Food Critic Reviews Museum Cafe

Tom Sietsema, the food critic for the Washington Post, provides a rare video review of Mitsitam, the cafe at the National Museum of the American Indian.  It is one of the few good places on the Mall to eat (which is a culinary wasteland for the most part) and does an outstanding job of interpreting cultures through food.

Interpreting Bondage and Freedom in the Chesapeake

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Visiting Annapolis a few weeks ago, I had a chance to see the nearly completed installation of Freedom Bound: Runaways of the Chesapeake, a year-long exhibit about the resistance to servitude and slavery in the Chesapeake Bay region from the colonial period to the Civil War.  Heather Ersts and Ariane Hofstedt of the Historic Annapolis Foundation graciously provided a personal tour of the exhibit, which is installed in several museums and historic sites around the city.  It’s an exhibit worth seeing not only for the content, but also the design, and several items jumped out at me:

1.  The exhibit looks at the varied experiences of people through nine persons.  Seven of these persons were enslaved Africans, but two are white–a convict servant and an indentured servant–which will surprise most visitors.  It complicates the usual narrative that only Africans were held in bondage (of course, being owned as a slave is very different from being incarcerated as a convict) and it’s by encountering the unexpected that people are more likely to learn.  The typical exhibit about slavery trots out the same 1850 drawing of the slave ship Brooks, a pair of iron shackles, and perhaps a tag from Charleston.  Yes, those are all authentic and true, but the constant repeat of these items renders them Continue reading →