History News Winter 2015

“ History is local.

Everything has to take place somewhere…”

— Garrison Keillor

G r e a t e r t h a n t h e S u m o f O u r P a r ts

2 0 1 4 A A S L H a n n u al M e e t i n g S t . P a u l , M i nn e s o t a

W inter 2 0 1 5 V O L U M E 7 0 , # 1

K e y n ote S peakers

2014 AASLH a n n u al M e e t i n g S t . P a u l , M i n n esota

THE MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY

Features

17

7 It Goes On

Garrison Keillor

Page 7

By Garrison Keillor

12 Reflections on the Journey

By Marilyn Carlson Nelson

17 Sharing Human Experience: The Story of Hole in the Day

By Anton Treuer

22 It’s About the Story! A Revolution in Interpreting the Past Marilyn Carlson Nelson

Page 12

By Rick Beard

27 Leadership in History Awards

7

Anton Treuer

Page 17

Departments 3 On Doing Local History

By Carol Kammen

5 History Bytes

By Tim Grove

30 Book Reviews

By Raney Bench and Cindy Olsen

ON THE COVER

Minnesota native and creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion Garrison Keillor during his keynote address to the 2014 AASLH Annual Meeting.

Photo Eric Mueller

Inside: Improving Financial Management

By Stacy L. Klingler and Laura B. Roberts

History News exists to foster publication, scholarly research, and an open forum for discussion of best practices, applicable theories, and professional experiences pertinent to the field of state and local history.

For information on article submissions and review, see www.aaslh.org/ historynews. Articles typically run 2,500 words in length. History News (ISSN 0363-7492) is published quarterly by the American Association for State and Local History, a nonprofit educational membership organization providing leadership, service, and support for its members who preserve and interpret state and local history in order to make the past more meaningful in American society. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Annual membership dues for AASLH includes $13 applicable to subscription in History News. Single copy is $10. Postmaster, please send form 3579 to History News, AASLH, 1717 Church Street, Nashville, TN 37203-2991. Periodical postage paid at Nashville, Tennessee. Entire contents copyrighted Š2015 by the American Association for State and Local History. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the American Association for State and Local History. For advertising information contact Rebecca Price, 615-320-3203. For membership information contact AASLH at 1717 Church Street, Nashville TN 37203-2991; 615-3203203; fax 615-327-9013; e-mail: membership@aaslh.org.

1717 Church Street Nashville, Tennessee 37203-2991 615-320-3203, Fax 615-327-9013 membership@aaslh.org, www.aaslh.org

History News is a quarterly membership publication of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). It provides articles on current trends, timely issues, and best practices for professional development and the overall improvement of the field of state and local history.

EDITOR Bob Beatty Managing Editor Bethany L. Hawkins EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE Susan Ferentinos DESIGN Go Design, LLC, Gerri Winchell Findley

Nelson Chenault

Dear Readers,

For the past several years, our winter issues of History News include the addresses from our annual meeting speakers. This issue continues that trend. As you probably noticed from our cover, the speakers included Garrison Keillor, founder and host of A Prairie Home Companion. In his address, Keillor shared stories in his inimitable way, weaving in history with plenty of humor and a dash of storytelling panache. Minnesota native Marilyn Carlson Nelson, former chairman and CEO of Carlson, infused history into her own talk, sharing several personal examples of the importance and impact of artifacts in her life. I hope you find her talk as powerful as I did. And as part of our meeting’s tribal track, scholar Anton Treuer spoke on the subject of his book, The Assassination of Hole in the Day, which won an AASLH Leadership in History Award in 2012. Our last feature is Rick Beard’s continuing series on AASLH’s seventy-fifth anniversary; this installment focuses on changes in history interpretation.

Once again, History News leads off with Carol Kammen. Here, Carol talks about an issue that challenges most of us: how people use (and misuse) our work and research.

Tim Grove’s “History Bytes” column provides his insight into the data from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life report. You will also find the full list of 2014 Leadership in History Award winners, in hopes you will be inspired and submit your own work for an award, as well as book reviews by Raney Bench (Attention and Value: Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors) and Cindy Olsen (“History is Bunk”: Assembling the Past at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village). And no History News is complete without a Technical Leaflet. This issue, we offer Improving Financial Management,

by Stacy L. Klingler and Laura B. Roberts.

We are grateful for the work you are doing for our field and hope that you will find inspiration in the following pages.

OFFICERS Chair Julie Rose West Baton Rouge Museum Vice Chair Katherine Kane Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Secretary Linnea Grim Thomas Jefferson Monticello Treasurer Norman O. Burns, II Maymont Foundation Immediate Past Chair Lynne Ireland Nebraska State Historical Society

COUNCIL Bill Adair Heritage Philadelphia Laura Casey Texas Historical Commission Evelyn Figueroa Smithsonian Institution Janet Gallimore Idaho State Historical Society Leigh A. Grinstead LYRASIS Jane Lindsey Juneau-Douglas City Museum Burt Logan Ohio Historical Society

Bob Beatty

Nicola Longford Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Lorraine McConaghy Museum of History & Industry Bill Peterson Arizona Historical Society Donna Sack Association of Midwest Museums

Lifelike Realistic Figures since 1957.

Conservation Forms since 1996.

Susan Tissot Humboldt Botanical Gardens Foundation Ken Turino Historic New England Jay Vogt South Dakota State Historical Society Tobi Voigt Detroit Historical Society Phyllis Waharockah-Tasi Comanche National Museum and Cultural Center

STAFF © Birmingham Museum of Art

Aja Bain Program Assistant BOB BEATTY Interim President and CEO CHERIE COOK Senior Program Manager Patricia Harris Marketing Assistant Bethany L. hawkins Program Manager TERRy JACKSON Membership and Marketing Coordinator

© Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum

Sylvia McGhee Director of Finance Rebecca Price Director of Advertising and Marketing

2

Winter 2015

On Doing Local History >

By Carol Kammen

One Saturday: Two Takes

T

his essay is about sending our children out into the world. By this, I mean our intellectual children, the projects we work on and then submit to our communities through publications, exhibits, programs, and the like, all the while thinking we have thoroughly researched a particular subject and presented something new.

We like to think we have set the record straight or have uncovered something heretofore unknown, both of which often result. We expect the public to receive this child of ours gladly. “Well, now we know,” we imagine our audience saying with great interest. “So that’s how it was!” Or even angrily, “I lived during that time; it wasn’t as bad as she says it was!” We expect that our child will, for the time being, be regarded as state-of-the-art, knowledge hot off the presses (sometimes literally).

What we do not expect is that our child will be ignored or even mangled, so that our research seems for naught and we wonder why we bother to do what we do.

This is where I am heading with a story of “One Saturday: Two Takes.”

I had a number of options that Saturday. There was a work party at a local theater, an art fair in a nearby village, and a walking tour along a street on our city’s south side. I selected the walking tour, of course. It was a cold day, but not snowing. So I set out, my hat firmly on my head, scarf around my neck, and warm boots on my feet.

The leader of the tour is a well-known activist, political leader, and fount of community knowledge. She is effective and well regarded. She certainly didn’t expect to see me on the tour, and it might have been unfair that I appeared unannounced, but I wanted to hear what she was doing with the material I had worked on for years.

I have researched this street extensively, because it is the hub of our city’s small African American community. The AME Zion Church is there, and the residents have been black and white over the years.

She walked us along the street, noting people currently in the houses, pointing out the monument to African American Civil War soldiers who enlisted—“In what

year, Carol?” she asked. She took us past the church and pointed out houses known to have been lived in by some interesting people. What the tour leader did well was create interest in houses that most people would pass by without a second glance, on a street that most of the folks on the tour usually don’t see. She linked the past and the present and gave a sense of then and now: a living street as museum.

What she did not do well was provide context. “This is the church” is not an explanation of why the church is there, who founded it, why this community of African Americans didn’t continue at the uptown Methodist Church from which many had come. Nor did she discuss the significance of a church to a community or how it created community life over time. Yes, it was cold and explanations take time, but there were only twelve of us, and we could have walked and listened. She also read her information from a hastily written tour more than two dozen years old. She pointed to the monument to the black soldiers who went off to war in 1863 without explaining why their presence was important to the Union war effort, what changed to allow them to enroll in 1863, or what the New York governor had to do with their enlistment on Christmas Day. I cheer her for leading a group of people who were interested, who stayed with her for the full ninety minutes, and who were pleased at the end of the tour with having seen a part of our city they were totally unfamiliar with. (My tour mates were members of a hiking group committed to an urban tour that day because it was the beginning of hunting season, a good time to stay out of the woods.)

All afternoon I thought about what makes a good tour guide. Obviously, knowledge of the subject is first: knowing what to highlight and why. And this requires context, not just a slim heading on a guide sheet. From there, I believe enthusiasm carries the most weight. And pacing is important: knowing when to slow and when to keep on moving. Tour leaders should be able to add to their scripts with information that comes to

The best tour guides… h ave kno wle dg e • offer conte xt show enthusiasm • understand pacing

mind, but not so much that those being guided feel that the leader is making it up while walking along.

The best tour leaders I have encountered have been at Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. They are knowledgeable, passionate, and have a product that people want to see and understand. In Wright, they also have a great character to discuss.

National Park Service tour guides are often very good, as are many architectural tour guides. But I have also been locked in a house with a woman who picked up every ashtray and wanted to explain who gave it to the homeowner and why—the very definition of a bad tour!

This particular walking tour answered most questions but gave folks little to chew on. It skated around the context and complexities that would have provided deeper understanding. And yes, it totally ignored all the work I have done over the years on blacks in our county, especially on this particular street. To be honest, I wondered why I had even bothered, especially since the guide had read the material I had placed on her desk. So I was miffed, not for me but for my children, so carefully culled from the census, from the newspapers, and from records where African Americans are hard to find and mostly absent.

I shared my observation with a woman who works for an agency that rehabilitates houses and then sells them to firsttime homeowners. She nodded her head in shared experience. “We put the houses in tip-top shape, and then we have to walk away and let the owners take over.

Some are kept well, but some are not. In both instances, we give the raw materials to people but cannot determine how they will be used.” This is much like our work, no? Everyone who creates an exhibit, publishes a book or article, or gives a lecture knows the slight stab when material so carefully gathered, thought about, and presented is totally misrepresented, or even ignored.

History news

3

On Doing Local History >

L

ater that Saturday evening I went to a joyous community event at our public library, featuring a true cross-section of our population. We ate green eggs and ham, and some tortilla flats. The evening included music and a short program. Near the end of the evening, a library administrator came up to me and shared his appreciation of the work I had done on a book about African Americans at the local university. He marveled at the effort I put into identifying students, because university documents never asked for race. He expressed surprise that there was material about their previous schooling and what they did when they left to make their lives elsewhere. “What research!” he said. This warmed my heart. The book has been out for six or seven years, and here was someone telling me that my work provided a platform from which to expand.

This essay is not really all about me, nor do I want it to be. I think it is about how others perceive and use our efforts.

Sometimes these efforts are greeted as we want them to be, sometimes not. We

4

Winter 2015

send these “children” out into the world as well prepared as we can manage: faces cleaned, shoelaces tied, hair combed. We hope they meet people who appreciate who they are and help them on their way.

But it doesn’t always happen that way.

Sometimes our children meet a happy public, and sometimes they encounter people who misuse them. Or worse yet, people ignore our intellectual progeny, while holding on to outdated knowledge or even promulgating misinformation without bothering to see that history changes and sometimes corrects itself.

We all do the best we can. Once we let a lecture flow, open an exhibit, present a program, or publish an article or book, we cannot determine its reception or use. People will pass some things by and mishear others. But in some cases we will catch the attention of someone who will say, “Ah yes, that makes sense,” someone who will then incorporate our new take into his or her work. It is important that we get it right, but what others do (or don’t do) with our work is beyond our control. My husband used to say about history, “It is all a crap-shoot.” Historians

need only to be honest with themselves, follow up their own interests, answer questions as best as possible, be true to their sources and reliable in reporting, and then let the chips fall where they may.

Despite its bumpy start, my Saturday ended well—as will most of your efforts, I presume. I was pleased to have offered material to someone who will use it well and will expand upon it—and possibly even correct some things he might find not exactly right. What matters to me is that he was delighted to come across my book, found the information new and startling, and appreciated the resources needed to tell this story. In some way, my research will become a basis for his own work, proving once again that we are but links in the chains of knowledge.

Sometimes we add a link and sometimes we initiate a whole new area of interest as we do our best to do local history. t “On Doing Local History” is intended to encourage dialogue on the essential issues of local history. Carol Kammen can be reached at ckk6@cornell.edu.

History Bytes >

By Tim Grove

Looking Forward

O

ne of my favorite comic strips took a poke at historians recently.

In “Pearls Before Swine,” the character of Pig opens his front door, and a man is standing there with his back to Pig. “Just wanted to introduce myself… I’m Bill, your new neighbor.”

Pig responds, “Why are you facing the other way?” Bill: “I’m a historian. We look backwards.” Pig: “Careful crossing the street.” Bill: “Thanks. I’ll process that comment in ten years.” 1 We in the history profession do look backward. We enjoy the past, and we are trained to study it. Looking ahead is not something we are generally comfortable doing. Yet, our organizations must do this in order to prepare for the future. We require strategic thinkers who are willing to make guesses about coming needs. In our changing technology landscape, these forecasts are vital to our future success.

But looking forward requires boldness, because sometimes predictions come true and sometimes they don’t.

I’m a big fan of two sources that offer data on technology in the future. One of them, the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report, Museum Edition, is published every year and polls some of the best minds in the museum field about their prognostications regarding the winds of technology. The other, the Pew Research Center’s Internet in American Life project, usually takes a different approach.

It tracks trends in society and crunches data that offer a mirror on how the American people are using technology.2 Last year, though, the Pew decided to poll 2,558 experts and technology builders—some of the most prominent Internet analysts of our generation—and ask them to predict where our digital world will be in the future. They published their findings in a report titled Digital Life in 2025.3 Their conclusion: “accessing the Internet will be effortless, and most people will tap into it so easily it will flow through their lives ‘like electricity.’”

Convergence is a word often associated with the future of technology, as is the phrase “The Internet of Things.” This

term generally describes the interconnectedness of technology. We are moving away from machine-to-machine communication toward a world where information flows from numerous points around us to our multiple technological devices.

These devices are on their way to being mobile, wearable, and even embedded in our surroundings.4 If you didn’t realize it, we are living through a sea change. The experts predict both positive and negative trends, but ultimately agree that technology will revolutionize human interaction. They predict the areas that will be most affected are health, education, work, politics, economics, and entertainment. Some of the trends raise concern; some are threatening—interpersonal ethics and maintaining civil liberties while establishing security and trust are large issues society must grapple with.

The Pew experts identified fifteen theses about our digital future—eight characterized as hopeful, six as concerning, and one as neutral. Depending on how you view these futurist exercises, you may or may not find much use for such a report. The expert comments were all over the spectrum, from alarmist to encouraging. At least one expert refused to offer a prediction, citing an example from history. Jeff Jarvis, of the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, wrote in the report:

I’m a big fan of…

“Horizon Report, Museum Ed ition ” “Internet in American Life ” Pro j ect

F

ollowing are just a few random trends from the report that I believe pertain most specifically to history organizations.  Augmented Reality. “Augmented reality”—defined as enhancement to realworld input through the use of portable/ wearable/implantable technologies— continues to expand. In the health realm, it can mean monitoring vital statistics with direct feedback on ways to react to them.

For history education, augmented reality offers numerous ways to help people gain new understanding about the layers of the past. Various history organizations have been experimenting with ways to allow audiences to imagine what a place looked like in the past by incorporating archival sources or artistic renderings.

For example, a plantation’s outbuildings may no longer exist, but technology can help visitors imagine what they looked like. Whether modifying perceptions of the physical landscape or incorporating “voices” from the past to offer the human element, augmented reality provides creative ways to teach about history.  A Forum for Discussion. This present world of social media, with everyone joining the conversation and sharing information, offers potential to engage new audiences and traditional audiences in new and deeper ways. of ost gh the se rai to Yet, the race toward allowing t e bu “You give me no choic to the greating ord acc t tha t everyone to interact and conou Gutenberg and point Eisenstein, the imth be iza El ic, tribute will not come without top til est scholar on the not fully realized un s wa y iet soc on the cost of privacy. History ok pact of the bo invention of the [print the er aft ars ye organizations, along with othred one hund et and its velopment of the ‘N de the In ... ss. ers, will need to figure out how pre . ] ing berg years are at 1472 in Guten , to define their authoritative impact on society, we ver Obser lumnist for London’s s John Naughton, a co rg’ be voice and develop strategies to good citizens of Guten t dic asks us to imagine the pre to ly protect their users’ privacy. fol ng Gutenberg’s hometown, Mainz, usi Catholic the authority of the the undermining of d scientific an n tio ma the Refor Church; the birth of , changormation of education revolution; the transf add, uld wo childhood; and I ing our sense even of uldn’t wo we y, da To n of nations. upheaval in our notio on our ther if he hammered know our Martin Lu Web in its ange brought by the door. Consider the ch dict the pre to d now you ask us first twenty years an5 next dozen? Sorry.”



Rethinking Audiences.

An Internet-enabled revolution in education will spread more opportunities. The Internet continues to break down geographic and socioeconomic barriers. The History news

5

History Bytes > ability to communicate with people all over the planet may not be an immediate need for history organizations, but the potential reach is mind-boggling. Like never before, history organizations must be more proactive about packaging their messages so that they resonate beyond traditional audiences, whether that means connecting to broad themes in American history or providing a forum to discuss timely topics of importance to society.

History organizations have been given an opportunity to demonstrate relevance like never before.  Organizational Change. According to the Pew report, “Most people are not yet noticing the profound changes today’s communications networks are already bringing about; these networks will be even more disruptive in the future.” The changing technology landscape means a disruption of business models established in the twentieth century (most notably with regard to finance, entertainment, publishers of all sorts, and education).6 For museums and other organizations, it may mean new organizational

charts and new budget priorities that move funds toward different audiences or toward increased digitization efforts. Nishant Shah, at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University (Germany), observed: It is going to systemically change our understandings of being human, being social, and being political. It is not merely a tool of enforcing existing systems; it is a structural change in the systems that we are used to. And this means that we are truly going through a paradigm shift—which is celebratory for what it brings, but it also produces great precariousness because existing structures lose meaning and valence, and hence, a new world order needs to be produced in order to accommodate for these new modes of being and operation.7

T

he report quotes American computer scientist Alan Kay: “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” History organizations are not in the business of inventing new technology, but they should be thinking strategically and staying informed. As a field, we should do our best to stay current with technology and to think creatively about ways to harness

its potential to offer new ways not only to preserve the past, but also to demonstrate the relevance of looking backward and learning from the past.8 t “History Bytes” is a forum for discussing Web issues facing all types of historical institutions.

Tim Grove can be reached at grovet@si.edu.

1 Stephan Pastis, “Pearls before Swine,” September 6, 2014, Go Comics (website), http://www.gocomics.com/ pearlsbeforeswine/2014/09/06.

2 New Media Consortium, “NMC Horizon Report: Museum Edition,” NMC Red Archive (website), http:// redarchive.nmc.org/horizon-project/horizon-reports/ horizon-report-museum-edition; and Pew Research Center, Internet in American Life (website), http://www. pewinternet.org/.

3 Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie, and Maeve Duggan, Digital Life in 2025 (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2014), http://www.pewinternet.org/ files/2014/03/PIP_Report_Future_of_the_Internet_ Predictions_031114.pdf.

4 Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie, “Digital Life in 2025 Summary: Fifteen Theses about the Digital Future,” Internet in American Life (website), http://www. pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/digital-life-in-2025/.

5

15.

Anderson, Rainie, and Duggan, Digital Life in 2025,

6

Ibid., 4.

7

Ibid., 11.

8

Ibid., 12.

J. M. Ke l l e y l T D.

Specializing in the Preservation of Period Architecture and Interiors 5075 Old Traveller Lane • Mechanicsville, VA 23111 • Phone: (804) 200-5705 • www.jmkelleyltd.com

6

Winter 2015

G reater tha n the S u m of O u r P arts

2 0 1 4 A A S L H a n n u al M e e t i n g

Eric Mueller

S t . P a u l , M i n n esota

It I Goes On

Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of Mr. Keillor’s address

delivered at the 2014 AASLH Annual Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota.

For full audio of the talk, go to http://on.aaslh.org/AASLH2014Keillor.

t’s an honor to be here and to realize that I am now old enough to be of interest to a group of historians. I am seventy-two, and what I know about history is that some of it is memorable and what isn’t memorable teachers try to teach you but it doesn’t stick. History is local.

Everything has to take place somewhere, and if you write a book about the broad cultural sweep, it’s bound to be two-thirds fiction. You’ll write about the

Garrison Keillor by

keynote speaker

1920s as the Jazz Age, but there were more interesting things happening then that had nothing to do with music or alcohol. The Jazz Age is all about Manhattan—there’s a whole other country out there.

People write about the 1950s and say that Elvis changed America, or Jack Kerouac did, leading to the 1960s as a decade of protest. I don’t think so. The real story of the 1950s and 1960s was the boom in education, and for every beat poet or hippie, there were ten thousand people who found themselves moving into the middle class and enjoying all it had to offer. In 1947, my family moved out of an apartment in south Minneapolis to an acre of cornfield north of town along the Mississippi where my dad was building a house, and it was my parents’ dream come true. They planted little skinny trees— spruce and birch—and a lawn and a garden, and bought a bedroom suite on installments. For them, children of the Depression, this was beatitude. Elvis and Jack Kerouac had nothing to say to them.

H i s t o r y n e ws

7

J

ust down river from this hotel

Minnesota Historical Society

is a lake, Pig’s Eye Lake, and here in St. Paul, most people know that the town was first known as Pig’s Eye, which in French is L’Oeil de Cochon. Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant was a French fur trader with a bad eye who sold whiskey to the Indians. He was around in 1819 when Fort Snelling was built where the Minnesota River flows into the Mississippi.

(Your plane probably came in low over the Minnesota when it landed at the airport, and if you’re staying in St. Paul, you probably drove in on Fort Road right by the old restored fort.) Fort Snelling was built to assert that this was part of America, which French-Canadians were not so mindful of and neither were the Ojibwe. The French were businessmen, trappers, traders; they ran oxcarts up to Pembina; many of them married Ojibwe women and spoke Ojibwe or Dakota.

They had settled in here, in other words. The soldiers at Fort Snelling were innocent aliens. But they kicked Pig’s Eye Parrant out of Mendota, the little town across the river from the fort, where he operated a still, and he simply moved downstream to where downtown St. Paul is now and opened a tavern around Fountain Cave. And since he was the only European around, the little settlement was known as Pig’s Eye for about ten years, until Father Lucien Galtier arrived around 1840, built a chapel, decided not to worship the Lord in a town named Pig’s Eye, and renamed the town St. Paul.

Very few St. Paulites know about Frank B. Kellogg, for whom Kellogg Boulevard was named. This is not the guy who invented corn flakes. He was a successful lawyer who got elected to the U.S. Senate and became Calvin Coolidge’s Secretary of State in the mid1920s. The U.S. had declined to join the League of Nations, and in 1928, as a gesture toward international good will, Secretary Kellogg negotiated a treaty signed by sixty-two countries—including all the major European powers— promising not to use warfare as a means of settling disputes. It was called the Kellogg-Briand Pact—Aristide Briand was the French foreign minister—and it was signed in 1928. The next year Frank B. Kellogg won the Nobel Peace Prize. In the following decade, Japan invaded Manchuria, Italy invaded Ethiopia, Frank B. Kellogg with Crown Russia invaded Finland, and Hitler Prince Adolph of Sweden, 1926 invaded Poland. Today, not many people could tell you who Frank

8

Winter 2015

B. Kellogg was. Did that old lawyer really imagine that just because people signed a piece of paper, this would usher in an era of peace on earth? If he did, then we named the street after a fool.

The story of Pig’s Eye is a reminder to us that the town was not founded by idealists. He was a guy who sold whiskey to people who wanted whiskey. Many of them hadn’t drunk whiskey before, but once they arrived in Minnesota they needed something to dull their misery. The Kellogg-Briand pact was a piece of paper signed in Paris by men in morning coats and top hats. So even though the Kellogg mansion up on Crocus Hill is on the National Register, nobody is going to turn it into a museum. It takes too much explanation.

It’s more likely that we’d make a museum of the apartment building on Lexington Parkway where in 1934 John Dillinger had a shootout with the FBI and escaped with his girlfriend, Evelyn Frechette. But Dillinger was only there for about a month, not long enough to be considered one of ours. Many famous people have come briefly through St. Paul. Henry David Thoreau came up the river on a steamboat in May 1861, on the advice of his physician. He had tuberculosis. It wasn’t often that doctors advised people to come to Minnesota for their health; Thoreau may have been one of the last. He was very ill but still he took copious notes about flora and fauna, and he walked around the Minneapolis lakes and took a tour up the Minnesota River and went back to Concord and died a year later.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born here in September 1896, in an apartment up on Laurel Avenue. We celebrated his centenary in 1996. We renamed the World Theater the Fitzgerald, and we put up a statue of him in Rice Park. And we wish there were a grand house that we could turn into a museum, but the Fitzgeralds were renters and Scott left here in 1919 when his first novel was published. He took the train to New York, and Zelda met him there and married him. They were famous partygoers, celebrities known by their first names alone—like Sonny and Cher or Groucho and Harpo—and they got drunk and splashed around in the fountain by the Plaza Hotel. He wrote stories about the Jazz Age and only came back to St. Paul once, in the summer of 1921, when Zelda was pregnant, and people here were horrified that she had no idea how to care for an infant and had to hire a nurse. They rented a house on Goodrich Avenue, and he wrote one of his best stories, “Winter Dreams,” in that house. Then they went back East, and he never returned.

Died in Hollywood, 1940, a brave shadow of himself, trying to make a comeback.

In 1996, there were St. Paulites from the Summit Hill neighborhood who remembered how scandalized their parents had been by his drinking. Scott was very drunk one

Eric Mueller

Father Lucien Galtier arrived around 1840, built a chapel, decided not to worship the Lord in a town named Pig’s Eye, and renamed the town St. Paul.

Minnesota Historical Society

year when he came home from Princeton, and he walked into St. John the Evangelist Church on Portland Avenue on Christmas Eve and walked down front—not sure where he was—and asked the priest, who was in the middle of the homily. That sort of episode, and not The Great Gatsby, was how he was remembered. But soon the secondhand memory of him died, and thirdhand was not vivid at all, and now we’d love to honor him, a writer born here who is still of interest all these decades later. He had a beautiful prose style. You read him, and passages jump out at you like he was talking directly to you. Young people feel that way when they read Gatsby in the tenth grade and come wandering through the neighborhood looking for Scott, and there’s nothing left, just a statue. But he lives in his writing. Poor Frank Kellogg is just a street.

We’ve turned the James J. Hill mansion into a historic site, a big pile that looks like a train station, where the founder of the Great Northern Railroad lived for twentyfive years, until he died in 1916. But the railroad got merged into the Burlington Northern and then the Santa Fe, and a man became president of the railroad who didn’t like winter, and he moved the headquarters to Fort Worth. And the old Great Northern buildings downtown, where men in green eyeshades sat at high slanted tables and kept the accounts, writing the numerals in a fine decorative hand with quill pens—they’ve been turned into condominiums, even James J’s old office, a modest third-floor corner office with windows that looked out on the tracks going into the Union Depot. He liked to keep the windows open so he could hear what people were saying on the street.

Minnesota’s most famous native is Bob Dylan—Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, born 1941, who spent a year or so at the University of Minnesota not going to classes— but Bob Dylan has refused to go along with any attempt to honor or memorialize him. He reinvented himself when he left here to go to New York in 1960, and he is not interested in us remembering who he was before the reinvention. When he went to New York, he told stories about his romantic past as a criminal and an orphan and a migrant worker. He told some people he was from New Mexico. He did not talk about growing up the son of an appliance dealer in a prosperous mining town. Hibbing would like to make a museum and have a parade. Bob says no.

H

istory is local. My family has a distinguished

history, but it took place back east and doesn’t count for much out here. We’re descended from Elder John Crandall, an associate of Roger Williams in Rhode Island, a humane and learned man who spoke Iroquois and was decent to the natives. Elder John was once arrested for preaching Baptist truth to the stiffnecked Puritans of Boston. And one of our relatives was a schoolteacher, Prudence Crandall, who was kicked out of Canterbury, Connecticut, because she admitted young women of color to her academy in 1833. She was a premature integrationist. She later took up the cause of women’s suffrage prematurely. We have great progressives in our family tree, but when we came west, to the land of inebriation and Indian wars and railroad tycoons, we lost our history, and now there are young people who bear the burden of having my last name. Being associated with a radio comedian is a big step down from Elder John Crandall.

My aunt Eleanor and my uncle Lew were historians and storytellers, and they felt obliged to tell me about our family—Elder John Crandall and Prudence—and how our Crandall ancestors in the colonies were Loyalists and had to flee to Canada during the Revolution and there met the Keillors who came over from Yorkshire in 1777 to take over the saltwater hayfields of the Acadians whom the British had kicked out. They told me about my grandfather, James Keillor, who died nine years before I was born. He died at seventy-three, one year older than I am now. He didn’t marry until he was forty-six. I had been married twice when I was forty-six and would soon be married again. He grew up in New Brunswick, where he was a skilled millwright in a

Artists at Pig’s Eye Lake

H i s t o r y n e ws

9

shipyard. He hewed ships’ timbers, but when he was twenty he left and came to Anoka, Minnesota, to help out his sister Mary whose husband, James Hunt, was sick. They had three children and a farm of 160 acres in Ramsey Township. James Keillor came down on the train and got here, whereupon his brother-in-law died of tuberculosis, and so James stayed. He farmed the place until the three Hunt children were grown, and then he went down to the schoolhouse and asked Dora Powell to marry him. She had flirted with him before, and he guessed she was interested. He had no time to waste.

They married, and according to Aunt Eleanor, they came home in the buggy from the courthouse, and they ran into the house and left the horses hitched to the wagon all night.

My grandpa loved to read, and he was seen mowing hay, riding on the mower, reins in one hand, book in the other. He carried my grandmother up the stairs in his arms every night until he was almost seventy. They had eight children. He had a lovely tenor voice, and his favorite hymn was:

‘‘

‘‘

Construction at James J. Hill Mansion, 1891

O Thou, in whose presence my soul takes delight, On whom in affliction I call, My comfort by day and my song in the night, My hope, my salvation, my all!

He loved the telephone and was on the township board that put in telephone poles and strung wire. He was the first man in the township to buy an automobile, and he drove it home and right into the ditch, yelling “Whoa!” He had pulled the steering wheel off, trying to stop the car.

There is a picture of him at age thirty, young and elegant and slim, standing by his team of horses, and one of him at sixty-five, looking old and worn-out, with his hands thick and calloused and his hair white, his beard unkempt. This was the year before the house burned down. His children were in the schoolhouse across the road and saw the flames coming up from the chimney. They always remembered

10

Winter 2015

Minnesota Historical Society

James J. Hill liked to keep the windows open so he could hear what people were saying on the street.

the sight of him raking the ashes, looking for photographs. They’d all burned up.

My uncle Lew told the same stories over and over, and I didn’t tire of hearing them. Anoka was becoming a suburb, the high school was new, new kids arriving every year.

It gave me a sense of citizenship to know that Grandpa had arrived in 1880, seventy years before. We weren’t migrants. I was an oddball, but I had a right to be there, thanks to Grandpa. And I loved that he was a reader and a singer and had a powerful libido, all admirable in my book. I often visited his grave up in Anoka, and now my parents are gone—the two people I used to struggle with subversively and whose lives I was obliged to make difficult—and now I have copies of their love letters, which I never saw when they were alive. This is a startling piece of history, my taciturn father as a farmboy writing to his girlfriend in the big city that he arrived home at 3:45 a.m. from his date with her and had to arise at 8:00 to hitch the horses to the manure spreader and how, on the way home from spreading manure, the team bolted and the spreader overturned and he leaped to safety. And then his last paragraph saying that he hoped that she and he would soon be shopping for bedroom furniture. This is history that moves one deeply, to know that your parents were in love.

T

he history book that moved me most

deeply as a kid was The Diary of Anne Frank, when I was a sophomore in high school. An example of local history. The power of one story compared to the vast sweep of statistics. I was in Amsterdam years later and toured the building on the canal where Otto Frank had his spice and pectin business, where the little band of Jews hid in the Secret Annex, where the teenage girl wrote her journal. A Dutch journalist gave me a tour of the neighborhood, and I asked him how he knew so much about it. He said, “I grew up here. I was born in 1930; I was a year younger than Anne. I went to school a block away from here. I read the Diary, and she writes about hearing the school bell ring. And I was in that school, and sometimes I was chosen to ring that bell.” And that’s why he became a journalist; he found out that an enormous story was taking place nearby that he had no idea was happening at the time.

And now I am at an age when I start to become interesting to historians. A woman wrote to me this summer to say she had a contract with a publisher to write my biography.

I wrote back to say that I’m not interesting enough. She begged to disagree. What happens next, I don’t know. I, of course, want her book to be factually accurate but emotionally generous. She has not committed to that idea.

‘‘

‘‘

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide!

When other helpers fail and comforts flee; Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away.

Change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me!

For a dying man, standing, hanging onto a friend, these words have a power that jingles do not. “When other helpers fail and comforts flee; Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me” was written by someone who’d experienced a little real life. You’d expect the Episcopalians to know the difference between potatoes and cotton candy, but there it was.

Change and decay in all around I see—this is true when you’re seventy-two.

I go and do college assemblies, and I always have the students stand and sing a few songs: “America the Beautiful,” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “Home on the Range,” “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad,” “Shenandoah,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” We sing a cappella, just to give this gang of narcissists the sensation of belonging to a group.

And as I stand in the aisle, singing, I can’t help but see all the students who are holding up cellphones on which they have Googled “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad” and whose Montessori education did not include Dinah in the kitchen with someone who is strumming on the old banjo. No, these children had teachers, people of my generation, who encouraged creativity, and so the children wrote their own songs and never learned, “How often at night when the heavens are bright with the light from the glittering stars, have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed, if their beauty exceeds that of ours.”

People my age scorned the common culture and encouraged little kids to write lousy poetry and heaped praise on it and denied the kids the chance to go through life with magnificent poetry in their heads, like:

‘‘

‘‘

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat.

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

P

eople my age who took themselves too seri-

ously deprived children of this great song, which Julia Ward Howe wrote feverishly one night at the Willard Hotel in Washington. The Willard has been restored beautifully, but the song may vanish in another generation, the only really triumphant song that we old northern liberals know, and we will be poorer for that.

Change and decay in all around I see—and yet, when I went back to Anoka, to my old high school, to see a football game a week ago last Friday, I was moved by how loose and goofy and happy the students were—a whole big cheering section with white streamers and white smoke bombs and kids dressed in white, some in whiteface, sequins, some in white togas—and it was not alcohol-inspired. I know alcohol; I can detect it. This was youth and exuberance and hormones, and it was a far cry from those solemn selfconscious teens of the 1950s, who were trying hard to be in their mid-forties. At the end of the game, three hundred kids piled out of the bleachers, yelling and waving their arms, and dashed onto the field and threw themselves onto a pile in the middle.

We never would’ve done that, and it gave you hope for the world to see all that exuberance.

If that is what it’s like to be young nowadays, I’m all in favor. For this, I Keillor interacts with his fans at the AASLH can forgive them if they Annual Meeting. don’t know “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

I walked through the crowd of kids in white and momentarily felt young too. I walked out of the stadium and onto the street where kids were whooping it up and past my old high school, a warehouse of memory, and just up Jefferson Street is the little house where my parents lived when they were first married. On Main Street is the old post office where Dad worked in the late 1930s, before he went into the army. Behind it is the old Masonic Lodge with the gymnasium where we seventh-grade boys had gym class with Mr. Ziegler, who forced us all to do something we’d never done before: strip naked and take showers with other people. A watershed moment. All my history there, all the material that got twisted and turned into the Lake Wobegon stories, and all around me, this beautiful sea of giddy, restless, goofy kids in exultation, who had no idea who I am. This made me intensely happy. Other people are living the life that used to be mine and doing a better job of it. As Robert Frost said, “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

Eric Mueller

The world I used to know is disappearing around me.

When I was twenty-two I looked forward to that, and now fifty years later, I find it disheartening. I went to an Episcopal church a couple weeks ago where a man was playing guitar, and the congregation stood and sang off a PowerPoint, “Jesus, you’ve been so good to me. Jesus, you’ve been so good to me. Thank you, Lord, for all that you do. You’ve been so good to me.” Not exactly a hymn so much as a jingle for a toothpaste named Jesus, but the place was packed. People were standing and clapping along. My friends who go to that church said that young people don’t care for the old Victorian hymns, too formal, too churchy.

But when my friend Bill Hinkley was dying of leukemia at the veterans’ hospital in Minneapolis, I went to see him, and he asked if I knew “Abide With Me.” And he and I stood, and I held him by the waist so he wouldn’t fall, and we sang:

Garrison Keillor has hosted the radio program A Prairie Home Companion for forty years. He has been honored with Grammy, ACE, and George Foster Peabody awards, the National Humanities Medal, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

H i s t o r y n e ws

11

Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of Ms. Nelson’s address delivered at the

2014 AASLH Annual Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. For full audio of the talk, go to http://on.aaslh.org/AASLH2014CarlsonNelson.

Y

ou know all of those modest Minnesotans that Garrison Keillor writes about? Well, you can set them aside this morning, because I am not one!

I am an unabashed fan of this state in which I was born, raised a family, and spent my career. I am so very proud of Minnesotans’ priorities in education, the arts, health, and well-being. And I love that you, the members of the American Association for State and Local History, are meeting here so we can share all of this with all of you. I am thankful that you are here, sharing your expertise and experiences with your Minnesota colleagues. I sincerely hope that the partnerships and friendships you make here will result in many years of productive collaboration.

In preparation for your visit, I had the great privilege to be hosted by Steve Elliott on my first-ever “back-of-house tour” of the Minnesota History Center.

I have long known that Minnesota is home to one of the leading historical societies in the country, but until that tour, I had not focused on the depth and breadth of the collection and the expertise of its staff. You can imagine my delight at seeing the first published cartoon of Charles Schultz and my sentimentality as I wandered through the toy exhibit recalling the Tonka trucks, troll dolls, and Barbie houses that were so beloved in my own family. But it was the overalls of a late nineteenth-century Scandinavian farmer that caused me to reflect on the eloquence of these seemingly simple, everyday materials. These overalls were held together with so many patches of mismatched cloth there was barely any original fabric visible. They spoke volumes! And I felt a pang of gratitude, indebted to the determined spirit and hard work of those who came before us—the pioneers, the immigrants. But in a sense, we are all immigrants, aren’t we? Sojourners in time. Each life is a journey into the unknown. Each life, regardless of privilege or position, has hardships, heartbreaks, and joys.

Each life contributes to our collective history. It is this “journey” that I’d like to explore with you today in a personal way.

I

was intrigued recently to learn through my grandson, who is attending Harvard, that the college offers a course titled, “Tangible Things: Discovering History through Artworks, Artifacts, Scientific Specimens, and the Stuff around You.” The course description states, “People make history through the things they gather, create, collect, exhibit, exchange, throw away, or ignore.” Reading about the “tangibles” at the university, I was amused to learn that the Harvard museum contains a Mexican tortilla that’s more than a century old! (And I thought my family was the only one that saved stale food.…)

Now, that comment obviously needs some explanation. You see, my grandmother Nellie, according to family lore, didn’t bake bread because she was nervous to use yeast. The neighbors in their small town noted it and were gossiping about it. Sensing her discomfort, my grandfather, who was a traveling salesman, convinced the owner of the reputed best bakery in his territory to give him her recipe, and Nellie set out to follow it precisely. It turned out the recipe was for a day’s worth of sales in the bakery, so she proudly had enough to share with her neighbors. Years later, after my grandparents passed away and we were cleaning their home, we found a tin in the top of the pantry. In it was a blackened, hardened loaf-like object and a note written in my Grandpa’s hand that said, “Nellie’s first bread!”

12

Winter 2015

keynote speaker

Reflections on the

Journey

Eric Mueller

by marilyn Carlson Nelson In that instance, my grandmother became so real to us, as did my grandpa’s love for her and his pride in her success. It was the tin he so lovingly tucked away and the few words in his hand on the yellowed paper that told us much, much more than the dates on their gravestones. My family’s oral tradition was made real when we could touch the tin and hold the original note in our hands. It seems that there is something deep inside us that craves these connections, these items that embody experience. Stories made true!

Stories made real!

From ancient days, when we gathered around the fire to pass on experiences, values, and wisdom, through the generations to modern days when we stroll through museums with our iPads, there is, behind it all, the “Storyteller.” The historian is, in effect, the storyteller of our greater family—keeping us tethered between the past and present—helping us see the patterns, the consequences, and the potentialities of our actions. This is an invaluable insight for anyone—but particularly for us as leaders, who are entrusted with the stewardship of our organizations, or perhaps a department, major project, or community initiative.

H i s t o r y n e ws

13

It is my belief that we are all called upon to be leaders in our workplaces, our homes, our communities. And I also believe that how we lead matters … so much so, I chose it as the title of my book. Interestingly, it was actually a history question from my grandson Jamie that inspired me to reflect on the importance of one’s own history—one’s personal leadership. He asked me if I had been alive during segregation, and I suddenly worried that—even though we are a very close family and I had shared many school events, vacations, and soccer games with him—he may not know me as I hoped he would. He would see me only in my grandmother role and possibly read articles about my time as CEO of Carlson, but he might never know what I cared about, what I had fought for, what mattered most to me. So I decided to write down a few of my life stories about the events, people, and insights that I felt were defining moments in my life. I wanted my grandson to know that history is not a matter of looking in the rearview mirror. I wanted him to know that, ultimately, it is a matter of looking at ourselves in the mirror every day and realizing that the choices we make, make our history.

So allow me for the next few minutes to don the mantle of “Storyteller” and share with you a few experiences from my life that may have relevance in yours. I’ll begin with my grandfather on the other side of the family—the Swedish one—who loved to tell us about arriving in America from Sweden, holding his father’s hand, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a few belongings in a very small wooden trunk. As it was for most immigrants of that time, the small trunk, which held their belongings, also told a story. The contents of those containers spoke of what the immigrants treasured most—and of what they would need to sustain them in their new world. And equally important was what they chose to leave behind.

The great Swedish author, Vilhelm Moberg, describes these trunks in his series of books called The Emigrants.

The books tell the true story of Karl and Katrina Nilsson and their children, who left Sweden to eventually arrive in Minnesota with only their “chest of essentials,” as Moberg puts it: The four oak walls of this chest were for thousands of miles to enclose and protect their essentials; to these planks would be entrusted most of their belongings … and the ancient clothes chest which was about to pass into an altogether new and eventual epoch of its history was given a new name in its old age. Through its new name, it was set apart from all its equal and from all other belongings. It was called the “America Chest.”

Housed at the Minnesota History Center are several “America Chests.” Like the dual face of Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions, these trunks—these tangibles—represent both the sadness and the hopefulness of their owners.

I

n 1998, when my father named me his successor CEO at Carlson, he gave me my own version of a Swedish immigrant’s trunk at a ceremony in front of five thousand employees, customers, suppliers, and partners. For my father, the trunk served as a reminder of where his family

14

Winter 2015

The historian … helps us see the patterns, the consequences, and the potentialities of our actions.

came from, of the hard work, sacrifice, and values that had brought us to the day when he would entrust me with the stewardship of his life’s work—the company that he started in 1938 with fiftyfive dollars he borrowed from his landlord.

For me, as a new CEO, the trunk became a symbol of decisions that I would have to make—what to take forward from the past and what to leave behind—to carry the company into the future. I think of it as Carlson’s “CEO Chest.”

It is our company’s “tangible.” On the occasion of my retirement, I symbolically handed down the trunk to my successor CEO, reminding him that he, too, would need to pack his own chest. I could only hope it would include the values that have sustained the company through the decades and the tools of innovation to propel us forward. But that would be for him to decide, just as it was for me when I began my journey as CEO. In packing my trunk, I knew immediately that we needed to leave behind the past biases about diversity in the business environment, particularly as it applied to women and minorities. For many years before the company became international, my father had the luxury of being able to walk around and look people in their eyes. And for many years, they looked just like him. When I became CEO, we were on the verge of going global. It was a new world. Yet in our company headquarters, there were only two women executives. It brought back memories from the early 1960s. I had just graduated from Smith College with a degree in international economics but no place to use it as a woman. I eventually landed a job with Paine Webber and became the only registered female securities analyst in the state of Minnesota.

In retrospect, I must compliment them for hiring me; it was a pioneering move on their part. It was 1962, before the Civil Rights Act and the woman’s equality movement. It was even before the Equal Opportunity Credit Act of 1974, in which married women were finally granted the right to secure credit in their own name—not their husband’s. But my enthusiasm was dampened a bit when I was instructed to sign my name “M. C. Nelson,” because the CEO assured me that no one would take stock advice from a woman.

So I became M. C. Nelson. I worked hard, took pride in my analyses, and eventually, I was given my own office— which, of course, I thought was reward for my good work.

The trunk served as a reminder…

Minnesota Historical Society

Eric Mueller

Prohibition exhibit. History enthusiasts were augmented by music lovers; both audiences were exposed to the interests of the other. It was a win/win. The History Center forged another highly successful collaboration with the University of Minnesota’s business school, the Carlson School of Management, which resulted in a business plan for an education program that increased revenues by more than 200 percent in the last fiscal year.

Adding value—giving your customers a reason to come back time and again—is always a challenge for any enterprise.

At one time, Carlson’s cruise business faced a similar situation. Many of our passengers had experienced most of our routes but loved the experience and wanted new destinations. Logistically, it just wasn’t possible to reposition the ships every year on new routes. To expand our market, we developed themes that would attract various affinity groups or circles of interest. That way, even if you had been to the Mediterranean ports before, you could take a cruise designed especially for food and wine lovers. We had cruises that featured the music and dance of the various regions and some with experts onboard in art and architecture. We were basically, “making everything old new again” to respond to constantly changing market conditions.

But one market condition I hadn’t anticipated occurred on a beautiful, blue-sky September day thirteen years ago, while I was driving into our headquarters. Never did I think that people living in caves in Afghanistan could bring my global business to its knees. On 9/11, when the skies closed, they might as well have fallen for those who worked in the travel industry. Thankfully, one of the first things I had packed in my CEO Chest was the Carlson Credo, our corporate values:

Then I found out that I had actually been given the office because I had told them I was pregnant. Remember, the workplace—outside of teaching, nursing, and secretarial positions—wasn’t very welcoming for women in general, and certainly not when it came to pregnant women. Many years later, when I told my daughters this story, they were flabbergasted. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t just quit. Why, I was so happy to have the job, they could have called me “George!” What my young daughters were missing at that moment was the historical context, which didn’t justify but did explain the environment in which these inequities existed.

While I was grateful to be the exception, it was also clear to me that, albeit in a small way, I was living history; I was one of many women at that time who took on the needed task of moving into male-dominated territories. I also knew it wasn’t fair treatment, and I vowed to myself that whenever I had the opportunity to make an environment more inclusive, I would do just that. And that’s what I set out to do as CEO of Carlson, by creating a meritocracy through policies and initiatives that gave both men and women an equal chance to succeed or fail. By then, I was very mindful that my actions in this regard were helping to make an impact on history in two ways: by helping to ensure our company’s long-term competitiveness and by the impact it would have on women’s equal rights. Within a few years, I’m proud to say, we did level the playing field, with women in upper management reaching 49 percent.

Today, with so much more data—more history—on the value of diversity, we now know that societies are more stable and economically stronger; children are healthier and better educated; and corporations earn greater returns when women partner alongside men in leadership roles in business, government, and the public sector. But it must be said that, broadly speaking, the struggle for gender equality still has much unfinished business. History is still being written.

In packing my CEO Chest, I also knew that I would need to pack the tools to innovate. I suspect that your trunks are packed with these tools as well. I recognize how challenging it must be for historical societies that depend on the always-vulnerable public dollar and the unpredictability of private funding. Collaboration with other civic groups is certainly one avenue to expand your market, as it has been for Carlson. The Minnesota History Center did just this when it brought in a popular musical ensemble to perform a concert featuring music from the 1920s, to coincide with its

“Whatever you do, do with integrity.

Wherever you go, go as a leader.

Whomever you serve, serve with caring.

Whenever you dream, dream with your all.

And never, ever give up.”

The Credo quickly became the guiding principles for our more than 175,000 hotel, restaurant, and travel employees around the world who were thrown into chaos dealing with closed skies, guests stranded in hotel rooms, and, in New York, dwindling food supplies.

We had taught the Credo to our employees all over the world, in French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, and Hindi.

And on 9/11 and many days after, their actions reflected the Credo’s tenets in astonishing ways, as they tended to our customers’ needs, cared for each other, and stepped in to assist the customers of our largest competitor, which had offices in the World Trade Center. The actions of our employees reinforced for me two things as a leader. In this increasingly connected world, we must work hard to build a common culture, one in which people will make the right choices even when they are not being watched. And this challenging circumstance also reinforced for me that the time to build a culture is not during a crisis.

Left: The Minnesota History Center, has several “America Chests” in its collection.

This ornately painted trunk was brought from Norway, circa 1842.

H i s t o r y n e ws

15

Moments of crisis—whether professional or personal—can be powerful history lessons. If we’re lucky, our individual journeys are long.

So it is prudent, from time to time, to review our packing list to see if new data, new experiences, new beliefs require that we remove from our trunks some of the old ways of thinking.

Communities, too, need to reassess as new facts disprove old customs.

While our values—such as the Carlson Credo—are permanently packed in our trunks, we must be wary of beliefs—beliefs being more temporal, more subject to change with new data and new insights. Values are more enduring. It’s an important distinction. After all, history tells us that at one time: •M any believed that slavery was no more than an economic exchange.

•M any believed that women didn’t have the proper “temperament” to vote.

•M any believed that the races should be separated, and marriage should occur only within the same faith.

•M any even believed at one time that left-handedness was the work of the devil.

And then the time came when we no longer believed these things to be true. So we changed laws; we changed customs; we changed our beliefs. And our values of equal rights and opportunity, justice and fairness, won the day.

Historians help us discern between what is fact and what is fiction—no small challenge in the Internet Age, which has inspired a kind of “stream of consciousness history-making,” full of tweets and selfies. In today’s world, everyone has a platform to express his or her opinions, to model behavior, to be a leader. Think of it: in a way, we have self-appointed ourselves as “leaders;” we actually count our “followers.”

So you have to wonder: was there ever a time when how we lead mattered more than it does now? Each of us has many opportunities every day to make positive change in our workplaces, our homes, and our communities—as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, educators, CEOs, managers, directors, preservationists, and community leaders.

Sometimes these opportunities are grand, at other times, more granular. But they are part of our journey. In the end, our individual histories will be recounted in personal ways, through family stories, mementos, videos, and photos. And, our collective legacy will be documented in history books, displayed in museums, and preserved at historic sites that tell the story of our time together. We owe a great debt to you, the historians, who are not only our link to the past, but an ever-present reminder that we are all living links between the past and the future, that we best pack carefully for the journey.

Historians help us discern between what is fact and what is fiction.

If we are lucky, our journey will be long.

There is one last tangible I’d like to share with you; it is hanging in my closet. It is not my Smith College graduation gown; it is not my wedding gown; it is not a designer gown.

It is the pink and white striped uniform of a hospital candy striper. Pinned to the uniform is a nametag that reads, “Juliet Nelson.” This piece of apron is very precious to me. When

16

Winter 2015

my daughter, Juliet, was in her last year of high school, she, like the other students in her class, was asked to give a senioryear speech. I’d like to read an excerpt from hers: Life is always fragile. What if—just what if—something happened to you today? What would trouble you the most? An abrupt ending? Unfinished studies?

Unplayed games? Unperformed dramas? No. I’m willing to bet it would be unsaid words, incomplete relationships, and unfulfilled promises.

As you can see, Juliet had a very strong sense that she was on her own journey. At the end of her speech, she quoted the Greek poet C. P. Cavafy, who wrote: When you start on your journey to Ithaca, Then pray that the road is long, Full of adventure, full of knowledge.…

That the summer mornings are many, That you will enter ports seen for the first time With such pleasure, with such joy!…

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.

To arrive there is your ultimate goal.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.…

Three months after Juliet delivered this speech, my husband and I dropped her off at Smith College. It was a day very much like today—a coolness in the air, fall colors everywhere. How thrilled she was to decorate her room, hang her new wardrobe in her closet, and introduce us to her dormmates. And then, a couple weeks later, we received a phone call informing us that our Juliet had been killed in a car crash.

There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t yearn for Juliet’s physical presence. Of course, I have many, many precious memories that I replay often, but outside of photographs, those mostly reside in my heart and my mind. There is something very special about the candy striper uniform. I can see it; I can touch it. I can imagine her in it and how very proud I was of her, not just for volunteering her time, but for the person she was. Yes, the past is indeed the past, but this “tangible” is a reminder that it also exists in the present.

Juliet was real. There is her nametag; there is her clothing. I didn’t just dream this wonderful spirit called “Juliet.” She was indeed in this world. She had a young girl’s dreams; she had the beauty of youth; she enriched others’ lives. She so joyfully filled a space in a place and time that was unique only to her— and here is the proof. It lives in this candy striper uniform.

Just as those immigrants’ overalls and trunks are proof; the tortilla, the tweets, and Nellie’s bread. These are all proof of many journeys made real.

In the end, we have many reasons to be grateful to you, our historians. Certainly, you make the past real and relevant in the present and illuminate paths to the future. You teach us that, in the end, this journey we all share is really nothing more than a series of days and choices, and that these choices are ours for the making. Each of us is history in the making, and, therefore, how we lead matters. What a gift you have given us! I thank you. t Marilyn Carlson Nelson is the former Chairman and CEO of Carlson, which includes such brands as Radisson Blu, Radisson Hotels, Park Plaza, Country Inn and Suites, and Carlson Wagonlit Travel.

She is the author of the best-selling book, How We Lead Matters: Reflections on a Life of Leadership (McGraw-Hill, 2008).

Sharing Human Experience The Story of

Hole in the Day

By Anton Treuer Eric Mueller

keynote speaker

Editor’s Note:

This is an edited version of Dr. Treuer’s address delivered at the 2014 AASLH Annual Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota.

For full audio of the talk, go to http://on.aaslh.org/AASLH2014Treuer.

Boozhoo. Miigwech inenimiyeg ji-bi-gaagigidoyaan omaa noongom. Waagosh indigoo. Migizi indoodem.

I introduce myself in Ojibwe because it’s really important to acknowledge the indigenous people of this place, Ojibwe and Dakota, to know that Ojibwe and Dakota languages are still alive, to know that Ojibwe and Dakota people are here. Often we talk about tribal history like it’s ten thousand years of ancient history rather than ten thousand years of history still in the making.

H i s t o r y n e ws

17

“Surrender now.”

I

am honored to discuss my book The Assassination of Hole in the Day with you today. Most Americans have received a

sugar-coated version of Christopher Columbus and the first Thanksgiving, and precious little else to more deeply understand the first people of the land. That’s why the work of so many of you has been so important, shining some light on absent narratives. And as I tell you this story, think about your theme for this conference: that we are greater than the sum of our parts. Think about the bigger picture of what we’re trying to do with this profession. I think you will find that it has a lot more to it than just a local or a state history, that this is some of the most important work of our time. How do we acknowledge and validate everyone’s human experience?

How do we provide tools for everyone in this country to learn about themselves and the rest of the world?

Hole in the Day was an Ojibwe chief from central Minnesota. His life and death provide a perfect window into how the nature of Ojibwe leadership transformed in the nineteenth century and how the land shifted from native

18

Winter 2015

Eric Mueller

Commissioner Dole said,

to non-native hands. Let’s take a deeper look at 1862. This year saw the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota, the day after Christmas in 1862. It was the largest mass execution in the history of the United States, and it took place within the context of the U.S.-Dakota War. It was a brutal war. Our best estimates are that between four hundred and eight hundred white civilians were killed. Thousands of Dakota people were killed and many more displaced. The Dakota communities have never recovered, and it is still something that is very tender for Dakota people today.

At the same time that this was going on, there was a lot happening in central Minnesota with the Ojibwe people. I’ll share a couple of pieces to give you an idea of how complicated this story was. The native people had a lot of power.

In 1862, Hole in the Day had been threatening to take over Fort Ripley. Hole in the Day sent runners all over Ojibwe country, and Ojibwe country is big—Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, part of North Dakota, and from Quebec to Saskatchewan across Canada. He sent runners all over the place. There are actually 125 Ojibwe First Nations in Canada today, to give you an idea. He sent word that there was a war going on between the Dakota and the United States government and the Ojibwe would join. He wrote, “I’m heading down to Fort Ripley, and we’re going to teach them a lesson.” Now, was it his intention to take over Fort Ripley? Hard to say. Was he trying to manipulate and gather force so he could get concessions? Probably. There were all kinds of shenanigans going on in the Indian Affairs Office.

Embezzlement. The Indian agents had been taking goods that they were supposed to distribute to the Ojibwe, and they were selling them for personal profit. Tribal leaders couldn’t get redress from the federal government; their concerns were overshadowed by everything that was starting to go down with the Dakota.

So Hole in the Day was trying to get some attention. And the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, William P. Dole, was coming to Minnesota. That’s kind of like a papal visit; it doesn’t happen all the time. So he got their attention. There were Ojibwe groups from Otter Tail Lake and from Leech Lake who took Hole in the Day at his word, burned down the missions and the Indian agencies, brought their warriors, and started converging on Fort Ripley. And then the

Library of Congress

Commissioner of Indian Affairs showed up. So they called a big conference and sent word to Hole in the Day, “Just come by yourself and parley.” And Commissioner Dole said, “When he shows up by himself, arrest him or shoot him. I don’t care. I want him out of the picture.”

Hole in the Day wasn’t stupid. Here came Commissioner Dole, and here came the United States Army. They had about a hundred soldiers; so Hole in the Day lined up with about a hundred loyal Ojibwe warriors. Commissioner Dole said, “Surrender now.” And the army captain said, “We’re gonna blow you to pieces.” Hole in the Day motioned, and another hundred loyal Ojibwe warriors popped up behind the soldiers, effectively surrounding them and outnumbering them two to one. And Hole in the Day said, “Are you the smartest man that our Great White Father could send in a trying time like this, because if you are the smartest man that our Great White Father has got, then I pity our Great White Father.” That was his quote. What a great quote! So now you’ve got to think it’s just a matter of when the bloodbath is going to start. Right? But then came the courier, and he had a letter from British officials to the United States federal government that said, “You have a chief named Hole in the Day who is talking about some big pan-Indian uprising in Minnesota, and you better do something about this.”

Now, remember the context. In 1862, the Civil War was not going very well for the North. The U.S.-Dakota War was freaking everybody out, to say the least, and the Ojibwe had a very different geopolitical and geographic situation, because they straddled the U.S.-Canadian border. Remember the British were financially supporting the Confederacy and would’ve been very happy to see anything that would threaten the sovereignty of the Union. So now you’ve got to

imagine U.S. policymakers thinking, “Are we really going to fight Ojibwe people and chase them into Canada?”

And bear in mind the greatest weakness for tribal people in conflicts with the United States government was not their military prowess or even the technological disadvantage—that started to emerge more after the Civil War. It was the fact that they had to fight “with a kid on each hip.”

Look at something like Tecumseh and the attack on Prophetstown. People had to run out of the village to get their families to safety, and all the soldiers had to do was just burn up all the corn. That really weakened the native resistance. Or slaughter thirty million buffalo on the plains, and folks like Crazy Horse, undefeated, come into the fort and surrender. So this was the weakness, even for Pontiac, who staged an initially successful tribal military action but was eventually defeated. So now you are looking at the possibility of a native group that could actually put their children in a safety zone, where they wouldn’t have to worry about feeding them, and field what would really be for the first time more like a professional native army that didn’t have to worry about things like their kids.

So Commissioner Dole, who I’m sure was wishing for his nice armchair back in Washington, D.C., said, “You know what? Give him what he wants; make it go away. And I’m out of here.” And he left. So there were some new guys appointed, and Hole in the Day said, “Boys, sit down; take out your paper. This is what the treaty’s going to say.” Tribal leadership dictated terms for a new treaty—kind of unbelievable terms, if you think about it. The Indian agents were fired. The annuities were paid immediately. If the Dakota annuities had arrived even one day sooner, the entire U.S.-Dakota War could have been prevented. The Ojibwe annuities were paid immediately. Hole in the Day was given personal remuneration for the burning of his house by U.S. soldiers. He got everything that he asked for. In an adversarial environment, pushing on a different front and threatening militarily, he

Hole in the Day

Eric Mueller

And said, “Are you the smartest man that our Great White Father could send in a trying time like this, because if you are the smartest man that our Great White Father has got, then I pity our Great White Father.”

Left: Enraptured attendees listen to stories about the Native American leader, Hole in the Day Above: Hole in the Day, Ojibwe leader

H i s t o r y n e ws

19

20

Winter 2015

Now imagine there’s a history of the French in Minnesota. The French guys came early, through the 1700s, and they had a very different way of relating to native people. They only sent men inland, saying “You marry native women, and you cement your relationship with native groups.” And they did. And they made lots of babies. They sent the boys to Europe for formal education; they kept the girls in the country and used them as bargaining chips in arranged marriages, a French custom. It went on for decades. When the British kicked the French out of North America, they really only kicked the French government and army out of North America. They left all their people behind—Frenchspeaking Québécois in Canada, French-speaking people in Louisiana, and so forth. When the British were trying to replace French trade networks, who did they hire? They hired all these mixed bloods who were Catholic, educated in Europe, fluent in French, fluent in English, fluent in Ojibwe. Twenty-five years later there was the American Revolution, and the Americans were trying to replace British trade networks. And whom do they hire? Same people. So when you’re looking at the Minnesota treaty period, it is dominated by mixed-blood, Catholic, French, and Ojibwe people who didn’t identify themselves as Ojibwe. They may have looked a lot like me, but they didn’t see themselves as village Indians. And their political and their financial loyalties were definitely not village Indian.

So Hole in the Day looked at all of these guys, the mixedbloods, and now they were running the American Fur Company. And he said, “You know what? You guys look pretty brown to me. I’m putting you on the tribal rolls.

You’re Indians now.” That’s what he did. And that bought him a lot of love, so much love that he could shoot someone in cold blood and they’d say, “Go back home to your family.” So much that when it was treaty time he usually got the concessions he wanted. He was outrageous and offensive at times. Like Hole in the Day’s first foray into tribal politics. He went up to this treaty negotiation in Fond du Lac; there’s two hundred Ojibwe chiefs there. He showed up a day late and said, “You know what? It doesn’t matter what the rest of these guys have to say; I’m grand chief of all the Ojibwe Indians. If I say, ‘Sell,’ they’re gonna sell, and if I say, ‘No,’ you’re gonna get nothing. So why don’t you come and talk to me and me alone?” That’s exactly what they did.

In Ojibwe culture when somebody was outrageous, you sat there quietly and gave them enough rope to hang themselves. But in American culture if you didn’t protest and filibuster and make a big stink, you must’ve been in agreement. And Hole in the Day knew how to manipulate both these worlds.

Photos Eric Mueller

got his terms. Crazy. And there’s no way to understand that if you don’t look at the greater context of British and American and Ojibwe and Dakota relationships. There’s a lot to the story. And it’s like that with a lot of these stories; they’re not simple, but they are fascinating.

Hole in the Day received a Colt .44 as a gift from the President of the United States, Franklin Pierce. To make a long story short, about fifteen years before anybody else in Minnesota, he had one of these. He used it all the time; it always kept popping up. The Ojibwe and Dakota really were friends many, many more years than they were enemies, but there was a period when they were fighting. One time Hole in the Day was ambushed outside St. Paul by a bunch of Dakota. He pulled out his .44 and boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. He killed them all. No one had ever seen anything like that.

There was another time he was in a bar fight. Crow Wing was the northernmost white town on the Mississippi River, and for a long period of time, it was half populated by native people. Hole in the Day claimed to be chief of several villages and the hamlet of Crow Wing. Some of the white people said, “Yes, he’s our chief.” This was a big change, as Ojibwe leadership usually revolved around a single village. For someone to claim leadership over more than one was different.

I suppose, left alone for a long period of time, this was the beginning of nation-building in a larger sense for the Ojibwe.

Hole in the Day was in a bar there and was talking to some of the traders, and he had a love-hate relationship with them.

Hole in the Day pulled out his .44 and shot one of the traders dead, in cold blood. He then went to the Indian agent and said, “I killed him dead. I meant to do it. He deserved it. I didn’t like him. And I just want you to know that I think so much of you, and I have so much respect for you as our Indian agent, that I’m willing to submit to your authority and any kind of punishment that you think is appropriate to mete out. You go right ahead.” And the Indian agent said, “No, that’s okay; go back to your family.” Now, Hole in the Day probably wasn’t really submitting, and there was a lot of backstory. Hole in the Day had traveled to Washington, D.C., a number of times. Like many chiefs in an impossible time, he knew that there was no way back. There was no way to reclaim everything. There would only be a way forward.

So he sought to preserve power going forward. And a lot of the things he did, even today, infuriate and sometimes amaze native people. As the treaty period started, the money at first flowed to tribal leaders who dispersed it to their own people.

Eventually that changed. The role of financial arbiter shifted to non-native hands. It was a major power shift when that happened, but Hole in the Day held on longer than most leaders in this regard, so he got money.

In 1867, he went to Washington, D.C., negotiating a major treaty that would relocate most of his people from central Minnesota to White Earth, in northwestern Minnesota. He negotiated the treaty. And there was a young white woman who wanted to interview him. He said, “Well, come to my hotel room, and I’ll take your interview.” And she did. And I don’t know who seduced whom, but it went down. Hole in the Day left for home; she followed him.

She caught extra trains and caught up with him in Chicago.

They were married by the time they made it to Minnesota.

They go up to central Minnesota, and Hole in the Day opened the door to his house—he had a house (not a wigwam) on a private land grant. He pushed her in the door, where Hole in the Day’s other Ojibwe wives were waiting.

She stayed; they had a baby together.

Who had motive? Who didn’t have motive? In 1863, he wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln saying, “I understand you want to get land from the Red Lake Ojibwe.

I’ll go there and represent the United States government, and I’ll get you the land.” Lincoln wrote back, “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” Hole in the Wall showed up there anyway and said, “Well, my name is Bagone-giizhig. I’m grand chief of all the Ojibwe Indians, and I’m here to represent tribal people. You’re not getting any land.” Red Lakers were sitting there with their war clubs; “Who the hell is this guy?” They walked him out; they parleyed. They walked him back in, and he sat there for the rest of the negotiation.

The Red Lakers negotiated their own treaty. But Hole in the Day was just an unbelievable manipulator, and very successful. He offended the Leech Lake leadership, telling them he was going to attack Fort Ripley and then letting them take all these risks, but never attacking it. The treaty of Fond du

Lac? He showed up a day late, but they gave him the chief’s stipend from the Mille Lacs Ojibwe. That made them pretty mad. And there is no such thing as a grand chief of all the Ojibwe Indians, so the Mille Lacs leadership was always offended by him making such claims.

He had fundamental rifts with other Ojibwe leaders in his immediate circle, including White Cloud. There was John Johnson. He was an Episcopal missionary, a native guy. In 1862, Johnson was so scared he threw his kids in a canoe and started pulling it down the Gull River. This was in summer, but it was kind of late summer, and it was cold enough that two of his kids died from exposure. He held Hole in the Day personally responsible and said, “There will never be peace in Minnesota until he is disposed of.” There was Clement Beaulieu. He was one of these mixed-blood traders, and they were best friends. Hole in the Day lined his pocket until it became pretty clear that eventually the Ojibwe would run out of land to sell, and then there wouldn’t be a way to line everyone’s pocket. As that happened, there was a shift. Hole in the Day said, “The mixed bloods can’t be going to White Earth. They are vying for my position as chief, and I’m gonna stop ’em.” There was Charles Ruffee, who wanted to be Indian Agent. Man. There were so many people who wanted him gone. Well, we’re just gonna run out of time to tell you everything. You have to go out there and buy that book if you want to know who killed him. t Dr. Anton Treuer is Executive Director of the American Indian Resource Center at Bemidji State University. He is the author of thirteen books, including The Assassination of Hole in the Day (Borealis Book, 2011), which won the AASLH Award of Merit in 2012.

In an adversarial environment, “pushing on a different front and threatening militarily, he

his terms. Crazy.”

got

H i s t o r y n e ws

21

By Rick Beard

I t ’s A b o u t

A Revolution in Interpreting the Past This is the second in a series of essays commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of AASLH.

“Interpretation was a word very much in the air at the time, but nobody knew how to define it very exactly.…

It was not a word in common parlance, [but it] was coming to be a very important idea.”

1

— Holman Swinney Founding Director, Strong Museum Describing his first job in 1954

22

Winter 2015

I

n 1990, the American Association for State and Local History met in Washington, D.C., to celebrate its first fifty years of service. One of the conference highlights—a special Golden Anniversary panel—brought together several of the profession’s longtime leaders to reminiscence about key moments in the association’s history.

Those attending could not fail to appreciate the extent to which AASLH had evolved over a half century. A smaller number probably noted the above comment by one panelist describing the state of the profession’s thinking about interpretation when he accepted his first job in 1954.

The organization’s fiftieth anniversary coincided with a period of ferment within the history museum community.

Interpretation had become much more than just a word “in common parlance.” It was “more than presentation,” noted one participant at the Common Agenda for History Museums conference, held three years earlier. “[I]t is education [that] … implies a pedagogical strategy uniting the object, the historian, and the visitor.” Historians working in museums were rejecting old approaches to history that, in the words of Cary Carson, Colonial Williamsburg’s vice-president of research, “left too many new questions unasked and unanswered.” The new history, he argued, “made better sense of who we were and where we thought

the Story! we had come from.” It placed a new emphasis on inclusivity and interpretation that was reliant on “real everyday life” and its relevance to contemporary issues. “A great many smart people,” Carson concluded, “finally understand that history lessons are as open to argument as are works of art, literature, sociology, political science, and all the other present-minded disciplines that shape our cultural values and set our civic agenda.”2 For many history institutions, this new more inclusive approach to interpretation offered a dynamic rationale for reshaping core values and galvanizing ambitious plans to expand physical facilities and redefine educational aspirations. Multimillion-dollar building programs were creating facilities, the centerpieces of which were long-term exhibition installations narrating an American past that would have been nearly unrecognizable to an earlier generation. By 1990, Washington, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Virginia, Texas, Missouri, New Jersey, Indiana, and North Carolina, as well as Atlanta, Richmond, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Rochester, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., were among those states and cities that had either created or were contemplating creating new or significantly expanded history museums and the exhibitions to fill them.

The experience of the Atlanta History Center between 1989 and 2001 illustrates the changes underway. Over forty million dollars in capital funds (virtually all from nongovernmental sources) paid for a new museum that opened in 1993 and an addition completed less than eight years later; four temporary and four core exhibitions; a parking deck; a garden center; the renovation of a multipurpose building for use as an archival research center; the restoration of a historic mansion; and numerous physical improvements to thirty-three acres of gardens and grounds. The institution building in Atlanta was hardly unique. Americans made extraordinary investments in their history museums during the last years of the twentieth century.3

A Changing of the Guard

T

he new interpretive approach, “uniting the object, the historian, and the visitor,” that began to take precedence in the last fifteen years of the twentieth century differed sharply from the preceding generation’s approach. AASLH’s founders were too often ruled by their own predilections for research and collecting at the expense of public engagement.

Their tentative steps toward broader outreach were too often stymied by institutional inertia, which, in the words

of one astute observer, encouraged “an almost complete separation between learning about the past and confronting its meaning for the present and the near future.” History institutions “were chiefly handmaidens to academics, closed to the general public … and as far removed from the marketplace of ideas as they could get.”4 The public was encouraged to read and listen, but to do very little look, with ing. Artifacts—“sterile, mute, teaching , undertook devices of dubious merit,” according to one prominent historian—were rarely several part of the equation. Interpretive inno, vation was clearly not going to emerge from within the academy, libraries, most notably the or archives. Instead, history museums of joined historic sites and parks in leading the formulation of “a pedagogical strata of egy” that integrated artifacts and visual that media with concise historical narratives and explanatory texts. The resulting stories achieved the interpretive goals of the association’s the new generation of museum profesgrowing sionals and also appeared to match the 5 interests of expanding audiences.

These first moves toward a broader interpretive agenda had their critics.

Walter Muir Whitehall, the longtime director and librarian of the Boston Athenaeum, had scorned the “organization men” of AASLH as early as 1962 for pandering to the “touching national belief that the more people one can induce to mill about in a limited space the better” and belittling the “so-called ‘visual aids to learning’ that are currently so much the fad.”

Gawkers in museums, he argued, too easily lapsed “into the passive role of onlookers who are incapable of thought, imagination, or literary expression.” Within a decade, events thoroughly discredited Whitehall’s antagonistic views, as the interpretive history exhibition began to come of age.6

AASLH NEH national initiatives publication series state histories enhanced importance to the field.

The Impact of the Bicentennial

T

he commemoration of the American bicentennial in 1976, unlike those for the more recent anniversaries of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, played a significant role in increasing the public’s appetite for history. Museum exhibitions, publications, lectures, broadly targeted public education efforts, and some H i s t o r y n e ws

23

I t’s A bout

the

S tory!

Gone was the traditional focus on political history… In its place were narratives of the common folk, the civil rights and women’s movements, and genealogy.

24

of the most elaborate fireworks displays in American history all helped heighten public enthusiasm for ambitious new efforts to tell the nation’s stories.

AASLH, with the enthusiastic support of the recently established National Endowment for the Humanities, undertook several national initiatives, most notably the publication of a series of state histories that enhanced the association’s growing importance to the field.

The nation’s most celebrated museum complex, the Smithsonian Institution, also made major contributions to the bicentennial effort. A long-term installation in the Arts and Industries Building celebrated the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. And the National Portrait Gallery and Museum of History and Technology (today’s National Museum of American History) both created artifact-intensive exhibitions. The exhibits—on the technological genius at work in the post-Civil War United States and on the web of cultural ties that linked America’s diverse immigrant populations to other nations—represented major contributions to the public’s understanding of the American past.

These exhibitions, as well as other less ambitious ones mounted around the country during the bicentennial, manifested an evolving historical sensibility and a reliance on artifacts that were at the heart of an interpretive revolution within history institutions. The enthusiastic public response to the bicentennial suggested that the history museum community might tap into a far larger audience than had previously been anticipated, particularly if its members told more inclusive stories in engaging fashion.

Key Ingredients for an Interpretive Revolution

T

he 1976 bicentennial became the catalyst for an alliance between a new generation of leaders and a transformative funding agency that would produce a revolution in interpretation embraced by many within the history museum community. The generation of professionals who led the revolution had been graduate students during the 1960s and early 1970s, a period of social unrest that led many Americans to recalibrate their thinking about their nation’s past. Committed to the study of the lives and material culture of the middle and lower classes, the history of women and minorities, and other topics in the expansive world of the new social history, these newly minted historians quickly discovered that by the mid-1970s, the supply of available teaching posts was shrinking dramatically.

Many newly minted PhDs, unable to find a place in the academy, turned to history museums, historic sites, archives, and libraries for career alternatives. In 2002, an informal survey of a dozen members of this generation uncovered a common career trajectory—“an early love of history, then plans of becoming a college professor, work on an advanced degree in history or a related field, followed by careers in museums, historical societies, archives,

Winter 2015

or in other public history functions, for which they initially had no formal training.” As the survey’s creator discovered, “Not one among them had ever imagined his or her career path. But to a person, not one expressed regret over the way things worked out.”7 This new generation of leaders was well aware that with opportunities came challenges. “We face a past more broadly defined than that expected by our public or examined by our predecessor-curators twenty-five years ago,” one noted.

“The organized ‘public’ past belongs to more of us than ever before.” These “revolutionaries” possessed a degree of intellectual specialization and expertise that emboldened them to tell more broad-based and inclusive stories. The training and intellectual grounding of these men and (too rarely) women virtually commanded them to redefine how their institutions interpreted the past. Gone was the traditional focus on political history as practiced by “great white men.” In its place were narratives of the common folk, the civil rights and women’s movements, and genealogy, all topics that also held considerable appeal for the institutions’ growing public audiences. As newcomers, these history museum executives did not always encounter an institutional environment ripe for change, but they soon found willing allies to help push the aggressive new agendas that they and the governance boards that hired them embraced.8 The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) became an indispensable force for change within the history museum community. Created in the mid-1960s, the agency floundered for nearly a decade before establishing a standard for interpretive innovation and public engagement that owed much to the inspirational legacy of the bicentennial.

Leaders in the agency’s museum program, which consistently awarded up to $500,000 in grants for major exhibitions, made clear that they were seeking to fund projects that married cutting-edge history with a commitment to realizing a broader interpretive mission than was customary.

The endowment’s support played a major role in underwriting interpretive exhibitions at dozens of institutions throughout the United States. The Brooklyn Historical Society, Richmond’s Valentine Museum, the Virginia Historical Society, Baltimore’s City Life Museum, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Missouri Historical Society, the Oakland Museum, the Chicago Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York, Pittsburgh’s Heinz History Center, and Rochester’s Strong Museum were just some of the most prominent among them. The endowment’s museum program underwrote exhibitions that dramatically redefined what history museums could bring to a community and, in doing so, helped enhance their profiles.

The NEH imprimatur was an important recognition of interpretive excellence and frequently prompted individuals, foundations, corporations, and other government agencies to provide additional support.

Challenges and Opportunities

T

he NEH’s massive investment in history museums, which was critical to the interpretive revolution of the 1980s and 1990s, brought with it unintended consequences. In a working paper prepared for the Common

A Revolution in Interpreting the Past

Agenda for History Museums conference in 1987, Nicholas Westbrook of the Minnesota Historical Society raised several caution flags. Noting that the NEH-fueled emphasis on interpretive rather than typological exhibitions had led to a focus on specific exhibition development at the expense of systematic collections research, Westbrook worried that with “lives” rather than “things” at the center of exhibition narratives, collecting the “context” was often becoming at least as important as collecting the object itself. History museums, Westbrook argued, divided the world “into virtually unrelated spheres based on geography.” At the moment that American society was becoming less and less regional, history museum interpretation was narrowing its focus in ways that threatened to produce “a legacy of self-inflicted parochialism.”9 Others shared these concerns, and, before too long, some museum leaders began to question whether the enthusiasm for the highly interpretive core exhibitions that had so excited both the NEH and much of their professional community had been misplaced. The first signs of trouble emerged in 1995, when the failure of the Valentine Museum’s ambitious riverfront expansion in Richmond, Virginia, led to a drastic institutional retrenchment that for a time threatened the museum’s continued existence. Two years later, Baltimore’s City Life Museum declared bankruptcy and closed, due in part to attendance projections that proved to be overly optimistic and inexcusably illusory.

The fate of both these institutions—poster children for the interpretive revolution—represented the worst-case scenario.

Other history organizations faced less severe but nonetheless troubling intimations that the revolution in interpretation, while intellectually laudable, was not as crowd-pleasing as anticipated. In 1999, an informal survey by this author of a dozen large history museums, all of which had recently made major investments in infrastructure and exhibition development, uncovered only one that had enjoyed any appreciable growth in attendance and membership. The Strong Museum in Rochester, New York, dramatically improved its fortunes when it underwent an institutional makeover that transformed it into “a hands-on history center for children and families,” a decidedly different sort of creature than most other history museums. One or two of those institutions surveyed enjoyed a temporary spike in attendance directly attributable to specific exhibitions. The Chicago Historical Society, for example, attracted the largest crowds in its history when it featured Treasures from Mount Vernon and Norman Rockwell for a three-month period in the winter and spring of 2000. A year earlier, however, an exhibition of rarely seen Abraham Lincoln memorabilia had failed to attract significant crowds to the institution.

The attendance pattern at the Atlanta History Center typified the experience of many of the new history museums.

The year Atlanta’s new museum opened, attendance grew by 50 percent, from 80,000 to 120,000. During the next decade, with the exception of the six months surrounding the 1996 Olympics (when 150,000 people visited), annual attendance fluctuated between 111,000 and 121,000, despite an annual marketing budget exceeding $500,000 and a heightened institutional profile.

The Atlanta History Center’s experience was hardly unique. In too many instances, the public’s response to the new exhibition programs was at best lukewarm. Museum professionals became concerned that the enthusiasm for history so evident in the bicentennial era had waned. However, these concerns were temporarily allayed by the publication, in 1998, of The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. The book’s authors—Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen—had conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 Americans, discovering, in the authors’ words, that “Americans feel at home with the past; day to day, hour to hour, the past is present in their lives.” Not only did they feel at home with the past, but, as the study’s data revealed, they were actively engaged with it. Even better, from the history museum community’s perspective, the survey data indicated that history museums were the most trustworthy source of information about the past, topping personal accounts by relatives, eyewitness accounts, college professors, high school teachers, nonfiction books, and popular media (in descending order).10 While buoyed by the survey respondents’ confidence in the trustworthiness of their institu“The we tions, many leaders in the prosurveyed especially fessional community could not avoid concluding that stagnant attendance figures suggested as a way of that their institutions were somehow missing the point.

One of the survey’s coauthors heartily endorsed this conclusion. “We professionals,” noted , Roy Rosenzweig, “have been , deeply invested in stories about and the nation-state, institutions, and social groups—unlike .” the people we surveyed, who – Roy Rosenzweig especially valued the past as The Presence of the Past a way of answering questions about identity, immortality, and responsibility.”11 In an essay published a year after The Presence of the Past, one of the museum field’s most insightful and cogent thinkers suggested that the history museum community was indeed “missing the point.” The community, argued Harold Skramstad, had embraced “a fundamental belief that collecting, research, and interpretation efforts … are intrinsic social goods and that those members of the public who choose not to attend museum exhibitions … do so because they are not quite up to the intellectual or aesthetic challenge.”12 Skramstad’s critique was well targeted. The very nature of the interpretive revolution of the 1980s and 1990s had privileged the input of the scholar and museum professional over that of the general public. The resulting exhibitions were impressively “credentialed” educational vehicles that possessed considerable didactic value. Unfortunately, they proved far less valuable as invitations to repeat visitation by local and regional audiences. If you’d seen it once, you’d seen it—no need to visit again.

people

valued the past answering questions about identity immortality responsibility

H i s t o r y n e ws

25

History museums were the most

trustworthy source of information about the past,

topping personal accounts by relatives, eyewitness accounts, college professors, high school teachers, nonfiction books, and popular media.

Was it time for another revolution— a new agenda? Harold Skramstad certainly thought so. Museums, he declared, needed to design and deliver “experiences that have the power to inspire and change the way people see both the world and the possibility of their own lives.” It was time for museums to focus on helping to create a new world in which people of all ages could “reach in” to museums through experiences that offered personal value and meaning while also broadening visitors’ perceptions of the world.13 Yes, the stories were still important.

But perhaps the audience was about to become even more meaningful. t

Rick Beard, currently an independent historian and author, is a past member of the AASLH Council and formerly served in senior management positions at the Hudson River Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, the Atlanta History Center, the New York Historical Society, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. He can be reached at reric@mindspring.com. This is the second in a series of essays commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of AASLH.

AASLH

2 Nicholas Westbrook, “Needs and Opportunities: Interpretation and Collections,” in Lonn W. Tyler, ed., A Common Agenda for History Museums: Conference Proceedings (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1987), 19; and Carson, “Front and Center,” 90-92.

3 The author served as executive director of the Atlanta History Center from 1992 to 2002. In the twelve years since his departure, the organization has raised more than sixty million dollars for a second addition to the museum and a longterm exhibition on the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, further work on a master site plan, the replacement of the now over-two-decade-old core exhibition on Atlanta history, and the restoration of the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama and its relocation to a new facility on the History Center campus.

4

Carson, “Front and Center,” 71, 75.

5

Ibid., 75, 78, 79.

6

Ibid., 80.

Charles F. Bryan Jr., “Am I a Historian?” History News 57, no. 3 (Summer, 2002): 6.

7

8

Westbrook, “Needs and Opportunities,” 23.

9

Ibid., 19-20.

Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 91.

10

11

Ibid., 205.

Harold Skramstad, “An Agenda for American Museums in the Twenty-First Century,” Daedalus 128, no. 3 (Summer 1999): 116.

12

13

Ibid., 128.

Institutional Partners $1,000+

Kentucky Historical Society Frankfort, KY

Alabama Department of Archives and History Montgomery, AL

Massachusetts Historical Society Boston, MA

American Swedish Institute Minneapolis, MN

Michigan Historical Center Lansing, MI

Arizona Historical Society Tucson, AZ

Minnesota Historical Society St. Paul, MN

Patron Members

Atlanta History Center Atlanta, GA

Missouri History Museum St. Louis, MO

$250+

Belle Meade Plantation Nashville, TN

Museum of History and Industry Seattle, WA

Acknowledges and appreciates these Institutional Partners and Patrons for their extraordinary support:

Bob Beatty Franklin, TN

David Janssen Cedar Rapids, IA

Billings Farm & Museum Woodstock, VT

Nantucket Historical Association Nantucket, MA

Ellsworth Brown Madison, WI

Joni Jones Annapolis, MD

Cincinnati Museum Center Cincinnati, OH

National Trust for Historic Preservation Washington, DC

Jacqui Sue Conley Arvada, CO

Katherine Kane Hartford, CT

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Williamsburg, VA

Nebraska State Historical Society Lincoln, NE

Karen Cooper Minneapolis, MN

Russell Lewis Chicago, IL

Conner Prairie Fishers, IN

North Carolina Office of Archives and History Raleigh, NC

Georgianna Contiguglia Denver, CO

Lorraine McConaghy Kirkland, WA

First Division Museum at Cantigny Wheaton, IL

Ohio History Connection Columbus, OH

David Crosson San Francisco, CA

Davinder Pal Singh Panjab, India

Florida Division of Historical Resources Tallahassee, FL

Old Sturbridge Village Sturbridge, MA

Stephen Elliott St. Paul, MN

Jean Svandlenak Kansas City, MO

Hagley Museum & Library Wilmington, DE

Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission Harrisburg, PA

Lori Gundlach Fairview Park, OH

Richard E. Turley Salt Lake City, UT

The Hermitage Nashville, TN

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library Lexington, MA Senator John Heinz History Center Pittsburgh, PA

Jeff Hirsch Philadelphia, PA

Bev Tyler Setauket, NY

Historic House Trust of New York City New York, NY History New York, NY

The Sixth Floor Museum Dallas, TX

Lynne Ireland Lincoln, NE

Robert Wolz Key West, FL

History Colorado Denver, CO

Strawbery Banke Museum Portsmouth, NH

Idaho State Historical Society Boise, ID

The Strong Rochester, NY

Illinois State Museum Springfield, IL

Tennessee State Museum Nashville, TN

Indiana Historical Society Indianapolis, IN

William J. Clinton Foundation Little Rock, AR

Indiana State Museum Indianapolis, IN

Wisconsin Historical Society Madison, WI

As an AASLH member, you are part of a national partnership committed to establishing and promoting best practices and standards for the field of state and local history.

26

1 Holman Swinney, “Realizing the Intentions: AASLH, 1956-1976,” in Frederick L. Rath, ed., Local History, National Heritage: Reflections on the History of AASLH (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1991), 49, 57. By 1964, one of Swinney’s fellow panelists—Frederick L. Rath Jr., founding director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation—had formulated a definition of this “very important idea” that remains elegantly concise and convincing a half century later. Interpretation, Rath suggested, was “inspired revelation, based on sound scholarship and designed to make people think for themselves about meanings and ideas and relationships, past and present.” Cary Carson, “Front and Center: Local History Comes of Age,” in Rath, ed., Local History, National Heritage, 81.

Winter 2015

Congratulations to All Our Winners!

The Albert B. Corey Award The Fort Daniel Foundation, Lawrenceville, Georgia

C A L I F ORN IA Ernest Marquez, Santa Monica, for outstanding scholarship and leadership in preserving and interpreting Southern California history

Fullerton College

San Marino Historical Society and Elizabeth Pomeroy, San Marino, for the publication San Marino: A Centennial History

CONNECTICUT

Association, Studio Maelstrom, TAG Historical Consultants, Landmark Impressions, and Stephanie Inman Designs, Boise, for the exhibit Historic South Boise Trolley Station Plaza

Gunn Memorial Museum, Washington, for the exhibit Coming to America: Washington’s Swedish Immigrants

IOWA

Peter and Jane Montague Benes, Enfield, for a lifetime of promoting and preserving the history of New England through the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife

Jerome L. Thompson, Des Moines, for over three decades of exceptional service to the history community of Iowa

DIS TRICT OF COLUMBIA

Brucemore, Inc., Cedar Rapids, for the stabilization and conservation of the Grant Wood Sleeping Porch

Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, D.C., for the exhibit Voices of the Vigil

ILL INOIS

DELAWARE

The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, for the exhibit The Left Front: Radical Art in the “Red Decade,” 1929 –1940

The Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, Dover, for the project The DeBraak and its Atlantic World

Elmhurst Historical Museum, Elmhurst, for the exhibit Carl Sandburg in Elmhurst

Delaware Historical Society and The Delaware Division of Historical and Awa r d Cultural Affairs, Wilmington, for the exhibit Forging Faith, Building Freedom: African American Faith Experiences in Delaware, 1800 –1980

HIP

KANSAS Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area, Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, Watkins Museum of History, and Lawrence Public Library, Lawrence, for #QR1863: A Twitter Reenactment of Quantrill’s Raid

HIP Awa r d

F LORIDA Fullerton College

The Gatekeeper’s Museum and North Lake Tahoe Historical Society, Tahoe City, for the exhibit Ursus Among Us: The American Black Bear in the Tahoe Basin Oakland Museum of California and San Francisco Estuary Institute, Oakland, for the exhibit Above and Below: Stories from Our Changing Bay

HIP Awa r d

C OLOR ADO Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District, Colorado Springs, for the Pikes Peak Regional History Symposium project History Colorado, Denver, for the exhibit Living West

Jan H. Johannes Sr., Orange Park, for his dedication to preserving and sharing the history of Nassau County

G EORGIA Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, for the Party with the Past program

KENTUCK Y Atlanta History Center

Fullerton College, Brea, for the exhibit Legends and Legacies: The First 100 Years of Fullerton College

Atlanta History

Center Telfair Museums, Savannah, for the Slavery and Freedom in Savannah project

IDAHO Terri Schorzman, Boise, for her dedication to preserving the history of the City of Boise and inspiring appreciation for the past in her community Boise City Department of Arts and History, Boise City Department of Parks and Recreation, Southeast Boise Neighborhood

Sisters of Loretto, Nerinx, for the Sisters of Loretto Heritage Center Tracy E. K’Meyer, Louisville, for the publication From Brown to Meredith: The Long Struggle for School Desegregation in Louisville, Kentucky, 1954–2007 Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort, for the HistoryMobile exhibit Torn Within and Threatened Without: Kentuckians in the Civil War Era

MAINE Leslie Rounds and the Saco Museum, Saco, for the exhibit “I My Needle Ply with Skill”—Maine Schoolgirl Needlework of the Federal Era

H i s t o r y n e ws

27

Ghlee E. Woodworth, Newburyport, for the Newburyport Clipper Heritage Trail Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, Lexington, for the publication Curiosities of the Craft: Treasures from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Collection

NEBRASKA

M I N N E S OTA

Thomas R. Buecker, Lincoln, for the publication A Brave Soldier and Honest Gentleman: Lt. James E. H. Foster in the West, 1873 –1881

Labor Education Service, University of Minnesota, Randy Croce, Dan Ganley, David Riehle, John Sielaff, and Victoria Woodcock, Minneapolis, for the documentary and website Who Built Our Capitol? The Lives and Work of the Men and Women Who Built the Minnesota State Capitol Building

NEW YORK Laurence M. Hauptman, New Paltz, for the publication In the Shadow of Kinzua: The Seneca Nation of Indians since World War II

Mark F. Peterson, Winona, for his exceptional leadership of the Winona County Historical Society and his dedication to preserving the history of the county

NEW MEXICO New Mexico History Museum and Palace of the Governors and New Mexico Humanities Council, Santa Fe, for the exhibit Cowboys, Real and Imagined

John W. Decker, St. Cloud, for his years of exceptional service and dedication to the Stearns History Museum

Clifford Canku and Michael Simon, St. Paul,

28

Winter 2015

Minnesota Historical Society Press

NOR TH CAROLINA

Kenney and Saylor

Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, for the publication Northern Lights: The Stories of Minnesota’s Past

and John G. Riley Museum Lynley Dunham-Cole and Warren County Historical Society, Lebanon, for the exhibit Following the Tracks of the Underground Railroad in Warren County

Museum of the Mississippi Delta, Greenwood, for the exhibit War Comes to the Mississippi Delta

Detroit Historical Society, Detroit, for the Past>Forward exhibitions

Dave Kenney and Thomas Saylor, St. Paul, for the publication Minnesota in the ’70s

Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, Moorhead, for the exhibit Prairie Daughters: The Art and Lives of Annie Stein and Orabel Thortvedt

MISSISSIPPI

Keith R. Widder, East Lansing, for the publication Beyond Pontiac’s Shadow: Michilimackinac and the Anglo-Indian War of 1763

Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, for Play the Past

State University May 4 Visitor Center exhibit

Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, for the website Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865

Detroit Historical Society, Denver Brunsman, Joel Stone, and Douglas D. Fisher, Detroit, for the publication Border Crossings: The Detroit River Region in the War of 1812

Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, for the program The Dred Scott Family and the National Debate Over Slavery

for the publication The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters: Dakota Kasˆkapi Okicize Wowapi

MISSOURI

M I C H I GA N

Kent State University

M A S S A C H U SETTS

North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, for the exhibit Watergate: Political Scandal and the Presidency

OH IO Sandusky Library, Sandusky, for the documentary Under the Baton: Music at Old Cedar Point Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, for the Ohio Village Time Share program Kent State University, Kent, for the Kent

Schierhorn, LaBelle, Barnes

Ann Schierhorn, David LaBelle, Althemese Barnes, Kent, Ohio, and John G. Riley Museum, Tallahassee, Florida, for the exhibit They Led the Way

PENNSYLVA N IA Charles B. Oellig, Annville, for his dedication to preserving and interpreting the history of the Pennsylvania National Guard Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, Philadelphia, for the Upstairs Downstairs tour Pennsylvania College of Technology, Williamsport, for the Penn College History Trail Cliveden, Philadelphia, for the Emancipating Cliveden project

Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion

Gettysburg Seminary Ridge Museum, Gettysburg, for the development of the museum Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum, Lancaster, for the exhibit The Lancaster Long Rifle Thomas B. Hagen and Erie Insurance Company, Erie, for the publication The Historic Tibbals House — 1842 Thomas White, Pittsburgh, for the publication Witches of Pennsylvania: Occult History and Lore Senator John Heinz History Center and Samuel W. Black, Pittsburgh, for the publication The Civil War in Pennsylvania: The African American Experience

U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, for the exhibit A Great Civil War: Battles that Defined a Nation, 1863

Entrepreneurs and the Workers of the Soot: A History of the Foundry in Springfield, Vermont

RHODE I SLAN D

Rokeby Museum, Ferrisburgh, for the exhibit Free and Safe: The Underground Railroad in Vermont

Newport Restoration Foundation, Newport, for the Rough Point Valance VIP project

VIRGINIA

T E N N E SS EE

William L. Lawrence, Gloucester, for his dedication to preserving the history of Gloucester County

Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, for the Freedom’s Call essay contest

Christopher M. Calkins, Rice, for his dedication to preserving the Civil War battlefield landscape of Virginia

U TA H

Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion

Brigham City Museum of Art and History, Brigham City, for the project Outside the Homeland: The Intermountain Indian School

Robert Russa Moton Museum, Petersburg, for the exhibit The Moton School Story: Children of Courage

WASHINGTON

V ERM ON T Springfield Art and Historical Society, Alan E. Fusonie, and Donna Jean Fusonie, Springfield, for the publication The

Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, Bainbridge Island, for the exhibit The Overland Westerners

Lucy Ostrander and Don Sellers, Bainbridge Island, for the documentary Honor and Sacrifice: The Roy Matsumoto Story

HIP Awa r d

WEST VIRGIN IA Traveling 219 Project, Dunmore, for the website Traveling 219: The Seneca Trail

WISCONSIN Ward Irish Music Archives, Milwaukee, for the Irish Sheet Music Archives website Wisconsin Historical Society Press, Jesse J. Gant, and Nicholas J. Hoffman, Madison, for the publication Wheel Fever: How Wisconsin Became a Great Bicycling State Neenah Historical Society, Neenah, for the exhibit Take Cover, Neenah: Backyard Family Fallout Shelters in Cold War America The Civil War Museum, Kenosha, for the multimedia experience Seeing the Elephant

H istoric al M arker s • i nterpretive s igns • c oMMeMor ative p l aques r esearcH

and

p lanning • c ontent d evelopMent • W riting and editing • i llustration • g rapHic d esign a luMinuM • c ast • d igital • p orcelain • steel

801-942-5812 • www.InterpretiveGraphics.com H i s t o r y n e ws

29

Book Reviews > Attention and Value: Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors

By Stephen Bitgood (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2013), 213 pp.

Reviewed by Raney Bench

A

ttention and Value: Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors,

by Stephen Bitgood, uses a scientific approach to better understand what captures and sustains visitor attention in exhibitions. According to the author, “Much has been written about visitor attention, yet a comprehensive treatment of the subject still does not exist. Given the importance of this topic, both scholars and museum professionals need more careful research and reflection to understand better how attention phenomena relate to viewing exhibitions” (9).

Bitgood begins by summarizing several important attention studies published in the past, as a means of providing historical background and examining some of

30

Winter 2015

the challenges of visitor attention studies.

He supplies several models for organizing and making sense of research, as well as summaries of new research findings based on studies conducted with college students attending courses taught by the author. Lastly, Bitgood provides “guidance on how to apply the attention-value model to the design and development of visitor experiences” (19).

The author relies on previous studies, conducted with his colleagues, to argue that visitor attention is based on costs (physical or mental fatigue) versus benefits (learning and engagement) when deciding whether or not to engage deeply with an exhibit element, object, or label.

Referring to this as the “attention-value model,” he suggests that there are three stages of visitor engagement: capture, focus, and engagement (12).

The first half of the book is research analysis. It incorporates a lot of jargon and can be difficult to wade through.

The studies, conducted with college students from Jacksonville State University in Alabama, take place in a laboratory.

Generally, students were offered extra credit to participate in experiments, where the lengths of time taken to observe, study, or explain an object were measured against interest and choice.

These lab conditions are not reflective of how museum visitors function and focus in a public setting, and while there were

some interesting findings, the author does not measure these data against real-life visitor behavior.

The second portion of the book is much more useful for professionals in the field looking for recommendations to better engage visitors. In particular, the research and findings on the use of gallery guides, including maps, was very interesting. The author also provides some specific recommendations that can be useful in understanding museum visitors. Additionally, Bitgood includes suggestions from visitor studies conducted in museums about wayfinding and orientation, noting that when visitors are well oriented, they can better focus on interpretive messages. At the end of the book, an appendix offers a useful checklist for managing visitor attention. Overall, the book is useful and interesting, although it could benefit from being more readerfriendly. t Raney Bench is the Director of the Seal Cove Auto Museum in Seal Cove, Maine. Bench has a master’s degree in museum studies from

the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and serves as the Maine state team leader for the AASLH Leadership in History Awards. She can be reached at raneym@yahoo.com.

“History Is Bunk”: Assembling the Past at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village

By Jessie Swigger (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 232 pp.

Reviewed by Cindy Olsen

T

here are several publications that examine the history of The Henry Ford. “History Is Bunk”: Assembling the Past at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village might be one of the few that looks solely at the development of Greenfield Village, rather than the whole multi-venue complex. Author Jessie Swigger explores the long history of Greenfield Village from its conception by Henry Ford through its progression since his death in 1947.

She argues that its interpretation of the past evolved as a dialogue between a number of players—including Ford, later

administrators, and visitors. She contrasts the development and interpretation of Greenfield Village with that of Colonial Williamsburg and Old Sturbridge Village, both outdoor history sites created by wealthy American industrialists in this same era that are still operating today.

The book is broken into two parts. In “The Ford Years,” Swigger delves into

Ensure that your property remains a vital part of our historic landscape so that others may understand, appreciate and enjoy this celebrated way of life.

Keep history alive New England Insurance Services P.O. Box 63 • Weatogue, CT 06089 Phone (888) 844-8288 • Fax (860) 844-8274 neisinc.com Member of New England Museum Association Member of Connecticut League of History Organizations

History news

31

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY Acknowledges and appreciates these Endowment Donors for their extraordinary support:

Dr. William T. Alderson Society $50,000+

Ms. Terry L. Davis Nashville, TN Mr. John & Ms. Anita Durel Baltimore, MD

Ms. Sylvia Alderson Winston–Salem, NC Anonymous

Mr. Stephen Elliott St. Paul, MN

Mr. John Frisbee (Deceased) Concord, NH

Mr. Dennis Fiori Boston, MA

National Endowment for the Humanities Washington, DC

Mr. Leslie H. Fishel (Deceased) Madison, WI

Mr. Dennis & Ms. Trudy O’Toole Monticello, NM

Ms. Barbara Franco Harrisburg, PA

AASLH President’s Society

Mr. James B. Gardner Washington, DC

$10,000 – $49,999

Historic Annapolis Foundation Annapolis, MD

Mr. Edward P. Alexander (Deceased) Washington, DC AltaMira Press Lanham, MD Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Williamsburg, VA The J. Paul Getty Trust Los Angeles, CA Mr. & Mrs. Charles F. Bryan, Jr. Richmond, VA Ms. Sandra Sageser Clark Holt, MI The History Channel New York, NY Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation Marshalltown, IA

Friends of the Endowment Society $5,000 – $9,999

Indiana Historical Society Indianapolis, IN Mr. Russell Lewis & Ms. Mary Jane jacob Chicago, IL Maryland Historical Society Baltimore, MD Missouri History Museum St. Louis, MO Ms. Candace Tangorra Matelic Pawleys Island, SC Ms. Kathleen S. & Mr. James L. Mullins Grosse Pointe Shores, MI National Heritage Museum Lexington, MA Nebraska State Historical Society Lincoln, NE Ms. Laura Roberts & Mr. Edward Belove Cambridge, MA Ms. Ruby Rogers Cincinnati, OH

Atlanta History Center Atlanta, GA

Mr. Jim & Ms. Janet Vaughan Washington, DC

Mr. Rick Beard New York, NY Mr. & Mrs. Salvatore Cilella Atlanta, GA Mr. David Crosson & Ms. Natalie Hala San Francisco, CA

Mr. George L. Vogt Portland, OR Ms. Jeanne & Mr. Bill Watson Orinda, CA

AASLH also thanks the following individuals for their leadership as members of the AASLH Legacy Society. The Legacy Society provides AASLH members an opportunity to donate to the endowment via estate planning.

Ms. Sylvia Alderson Winston–Salem, NC

Mr. J. Kevin Graffagnino Barre, VT

Anonymous

Mr. John A. Herbst Indianapolis, IN

Mr. Bob & Ms. Candy Beatty Franklin, TN Mr. Robert M. & Ms. Claudia H. Brown Missoula, MT Mr. & Mrs. Charles F. Bryan Jr. Richmond, VA Ms. Linda Caldwell Etowah, TN Ms. Mary Case & Mr. Will Lowe Washington, DC Mr. & Mrs. Salvatore Cilella Atlanta, GA Ms. Terry L. Davis Nashville, TN Mr. Stephen & Ms. Diane Elliott St. Paul, MN Mr. John Frisbee (Deceased) Concord, NH

32

Winter 2015

Mr. H. G. Jones Chapel Hill, NC Ms. Katherine Kane West Hartford, CT Ms. Kathleen S. & Mr. James L. Mullins Grosse Pointe Shores, MI Mr. Dennis A. O’Toole Monticello, NM Ms. Ruby Rogers Cincinnati, OH Mr. David J. Russo Ontario, Canada Mr. Will ticknor Las Cruces, NM Mr. George L. Vogt Portland, OR

Book Reviews > Ford’s creation of a country village, with buildings associated with innovators he admired, in order to promote his concept of the origins of the self-made man. The author dives deeply into the types of men Ford deemed “self-made,” and how he, as chair of the board, directly influenced Greenfield Village based on his vision.

In “Greenfield Village After Ford,” the author discusses how external and internal forces shaped the interpretation of Greenfield Village. If used as a case study, it could serve as a model for today’s museum professionals dealing with transition in large outdoor historic sites. The one disappointment in this section is the extended focus on Dearborn Mayor Orville Hubbard. The author argues that in the mid-twentieth century, racist attitudes in Dearborn excluded the largely African American residents of nearby Detroit from visiting Greenfield Village.

However, the drawn-out emphasis on Mayor Hubbard proves to be a distraction from the larger story.

One of the most interesting themes running throughout the book is the examination of different types of visitor studies that started at Greenfield Village in the early years and continue to shape the interpretation today. These range from recording daily happenings in the Greenfield Village Journal starting in 1934, to visitor surveys in the mid-twentieth century, to the more formal audience studies conducted today.

History Is Bunk is a solid history of Greenfield Village and, in particular, Henry Ford’s original concept for his living history museum. If the reader is willing to search for deeper themes, it serves as an interesting case study for history professionals on how external forces and visitors shape the interpretation of historic sites over time. t Cindy Olsen is the Director of Material Culture at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House. She has fifteen years’ experience working in museums and historic sites. She serves on the AASLH Historic House Affinity Group and on the American Alliance of Museums’ Curators Committee. She can be reached at colsen@ fordhouse.org.

Engage More. Spend Less.

Deliver Great Online Learning and Events LearningTimes™ is the global leader of webcasting and online learning solutions for museums, libraries, educational institutions, non-profits, and associations. We help you plan, produce, and deliver cost-effective online conferences, live web events, continuing professional education, and podcasts.

Online Conferences Host your annual conference online and save time and money while extending your reach to new audiences.

Live Web Events Bring your gallery talks, guest speakers, and professional development programs online.

Podcast Tours Offer exciting map-based mobile and online guided audio and video tours.

We are committed to helping museums extend their educational missions beyond the walls that house their collections and define their galleries. Contact us today. 1-888-222-9749 www.learningtimes.com.

Proud Producer and Sponsor of the AASLH Online Conference and History News Online Community

1717 Church Street • Nashville, TN 37203-2991 Periodical

The only national standards program designed specifically for history organizations.

No Deadline. No Application.

No Eligibility Requirements.

tools.aaslh.org/steps

Introducing the Interpreting History Series

978-0-7591-2326-7 • $29.95 Paper 978-0-7591-2325-0 • $75.00 Cloth 978-0-7591-2327-4 • $28.99 eBook

978-0-7591-2279-6 • $32.00 Paper 978-0-7591-2278-9 • $80.00 Cloth 978-0-7591-2280-2 • $31.99 eBook

978-0-7591-2338-0 • $29.95 Paper 978-0-7591-2337-3 • $75.00 Cloth 978-0-7591-2339-7 • $28.99 eBook

978-0-7591-2373-1 • $32.00 Paper 978-0-7591-2372-4 • $85.00 Cloth 978-0-7591-2374-8 • $31.99 eBook

978-0-7591-2432-5 • $30.00 Paper 978-0-7591-2431-8 • $75.00 Cloth 978-0-7591-2433-2 • $29.99 eBook

AASLH members always save 25%. If ordering online, use code RLAASLH14 by 12-31-14

Order online at www.rowman.com Call us at 1-800-462-6420