Research Underway

The process of research has really started up! With the focus of education within the National Park Service, I took to The Journal of The National Council on Public History to start. In 2016 they had a special edition for November that dealt with the Park's centennial. In this volume, a wide range of topics was discussed, including education, management, archeology, and outreach. As my research is focused on public education and interaction I read "National Parks for New Audiences: Diversifying Interpretation for Enhanced Contemporary Relevance" by Daniel E. Coslett and Manish Chalana, as well as "Resuscitating the Promise: Reflections on Implementing Innovative and Collaborative History from the Nation's First National Historic Site" by Margo Shea, Maryann Zujewski, and Jonathan Parker. I had originally been planning on doing a self-guided or ranger-led tour experience, and I still might, but "Resuscitating the Promise" has me considering creating a research question and project that relates to broader community work. In this article, the Salem Maritime National Historic Site staff teamed up with local educators to create a program for teachers to experience the park so that can integrate what they learned into the classroom and hopefully bring the class to the park. I will need to spend more time researching the near and far goals of the National Park System, and Seneca Falls especially, to determine how to proceed.

The Public Historian Volume 38 Number 4 Cover
Volume I got my articles from this week

Throughout my research, I have noticed the prevalence of case studies in almost all of the articles. I have also noticed the structure of the article is often framed around the case studies. With the end goal of writing my own thesis, I have been paying much closer attention to the structure and tone people use. It has been interesting how the tone of articles change depending on how involved the author was in the topics being discussed. In "National Parks for New Audiences" the authors were more disconnected and examining what others were doing while the authors of  "Resuscitating the Promise" were directly involved in the project they were discussing.

References:

Coslett, D. E., and M. Chalana. "National Parks for New Audiences: Diversifying Interpretation for Enhanced Contemporary Relevance." The Public Historian38, no. 4 (2016): 101-28. doi:10.1525/tph.2016.38.4.101.

Coslett, D. E., and M. Chalana. "National Parks for New Audiences: Diversifying Interpretation for Enhanced Contemporary Relevance." The Public Historian38, no. 4 (2016): 101-28. doi:10.1525/tph.2016.38.4.101.

Coslett, D. E., and M. Chalana. "National Parks for New Audiences: Diversifying Interpretation for Enhanced Contemporary Relevance." The Public Historian 38, no. 4 (2016): 101-28. doi:10.1525/tph.2016.38.4.101.

Shea, M., M. Zujewski, and J. Parker. "Resuscitating the Promise: Reflections on Implementing Innovative and Collaborative History from the Nations First National Historic Site." The Public Historian 38, no. 4 (2016): 129-48. doi:10.1525/tph.2016.38.4.129.

Shea, M., M. Zujewski, and J. Parker. "Resuscitating the Promise: Reflections on Implementing Innovative and Collaborative History from the Nations First National Historic Site." The Public Historian38, no. 4 (2016): 129-48. doi:10.1525/tph.2016.38.4.129.

Shea, M., M. Zujewski, and J. Parker. "Resuscitating the Promise: Reflections on Implementing Innovative and Collaborative History from the Nations First National Historic Site." The Public Historian38, no. 4 (2016): 129-48. doi:10.1525/tph.2016.38.4.129.

New Semester, New Progress, New Goals

This is the beginning of my final semester here at RIT, and also the beginning of the homeward stretch towards completing my thesis.  As this is my first post of the semester, I thought it would be appropriate to take this opportunity to provide an update on what I was able to accomplish over the winter break, and what I still have yet to accomplish.

To briefly review, I am exploring the ways in which the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit can be redesigned to represent native cultures more accurately and fully. This exploration will take several forms including exhibit surveys, research into the history of Native American collections and representation in American museums and suggested methods for the redesign of Native American exhibits that have been put forth by museum professionals, historians, and civil rights activists over the past 25 years, an interview with the Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits at the RMSC, and several visitor observation sessions.  The intended result of this work will be a series of recommendations for the RMSC’s collections and exhibitions staff to consider as they work to redesign Native Peoples over the next several years.

Over break I was able to return to the RMSC to speak with Kathryn Murano, Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits, in order to gain a better understanding of the thematic direction she and the RMSC see Native Peoples moving towards over the next few years.  While I was there, I also conducted a brief visitor observation session, which provided some interesting insights/considerations for me to look into as I continue my work (for example, young children need steps-ups to view the dioramas in the exhibit, however they are an impediment to people who need to use wheelchairs or walkers-- this is important to consider when making recommendations of how to better accommodate all visitors within the space, so they can all learn from and enjoy the exhibit equally).

I also visited the Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, NY, which I intend to compare/contrast to Native Peoples, not only because it offers an example of Native Americans representing themselves in a museum space, but because it reflects newer trends in exhibition design in general, and provides a number of interesting solutions/ideas that could be incorporated into Native Peoples.

With regards to my remaining goals, beyond the actual thesis writing process, I would like to visit the RMSC again in February in order to complete one last round of visitor observations.  I intend to visit on a weekend, as I haven’t visited the exhibit during the weekend yet (my previous visits occurred over a holiday weekend in the afternoon and on a Friday morning), and I want to see if the museum attracts a slightly different visitor pool on the weekends than during the week, and if so, what their interactions with and in the exhibit are like.

In addition, I intend to virtually “tour” several exhibits from the National Museum of the American Indian or NMAI (which has branches in both New York City and Washington, DC), in order to see how a museum focused solely on Native American representation (some might argue the museum of Native American representation) presents various themes and topics, both from an intellectual (content) and technical (design) standpoint.

I look forward to continuing the thesis process and seeing it completed in the (very) near future.

Winter Break Plans:

The work I do on my thesis over winter break depends mainly on what sort of feedback I get next week during critiques. Hopefully, I will have minimal changes to make to my literature review so I can focus my energy on break to doing more research on Massimo and Lella Vignelli and the history of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies. I am planning to complete the first draft of the section of my thesis focusing on the history of the Vignelli's, the establishment of the Vignelli Center at RIT, and a description of the scope of collections at the Vignelli Center. If I am way ahead of the game then I will also make plans to interview Jennifer Whitlock over winter break, but I won't know until after the critiques next week.

Defrosting Native Peoples of the Americas

Before I get to the assigned prompt of this post, I feel that it is important to announce that I have slightly shifted the topic of my thesis work.  Again.  I believe this is either the third or fourth time I have done this since I began to work on this project, but as I conduct more research, I keep finding myself forced to further refine and alter my topic.  To review, I had originally intended the focus of my project to be on the ways in which the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC) could alter or redesign its Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit to conform to the museum’s mission and visitor expectations, and ultimately whether or not the exhibit belonged in the museum at all, or if its contents should be deaccessioned and transferred to another, more appropriate institution.  However, it has been pointed out to me that, given the nature and history of the Native American collections held by the RMSC, this exhibit will, at least for the foreseeable future, be a part of the museum, and deaccessioning its contents and the rest of the collection is not a viable option at this time.  Between this revelation and points raised within my sources, I now intend to focus on how the RMSC can “unfreeze” Native Peoples of the Americas and modernize it to make it better match the other exhibits at the RMSC, rather than trying to force it to conform with the mission, present or future, of the institution.

This brings me to my research, which has not so much taught me anything new as it has confirmed my prior knowledge regarding the origins and methods of display of Native Americans in science and natural history museums.  18th, 19th, and early 20th century European and white American ethnocentrism and perceived racial superiority resulted in the placement of Native American remains and artifacts into science and natural history museums so they could be preserved for later study.  However, the anthropologists and scientists who did this were only interested in preserving native cultures at a point of pre-European contact, thus essentially (and in most cases, inaccurately) “freezing” Native American cultures at a given point in time, making it seem as if members of those cultures were not still alive, well, and adapting to a rapidly evolving world.

While the authors of most of my sources rightly call for the “unfreezing” of exhibits on Native Americans and greater inclusion of Native American voices in the exhibition design and redesign process, they offer no practical suggestions for museums and exhibition designers who would like to move forward with defrosting their Native American exhibits.  No mention is made of ways to rewrite wall text, or integrate modern examples of native cultures alongside static presentations of their predecessors.  What this means for my research moving forward is that I will have to devise my own methods for the RMSC to use to unfreeze Native Peoples of the Americas, based on input from museum staff, members of local Native American organizations, and visitors to the exhibit, as well as my own knowledge of exhibition design and visitor engagement techniques.  I would also like to include a possible exhibit layout or some other visual form of proposal for changes to the exhibit, in addition to just a list of recommendations of what to do to the exhibit.