Below is an essay written by Autumn Smith on the best practices in the museum field.
As public historians in today's time and space, it is essentially crucial for museum professionals to fulfill their positions as an authority in their communities. The museum exhibition process is a museum's primary responsibility in presenting its history and collection to the public. The creation of exhibitions requires a delicate process and should be handled with the utmost care and responsibility. The exhibition process has dozens of stages and components required to complete an entire exhibition and prepare it for display. From the first brainstorming to closing day, all exhibition components are planned out during the exhibition process. The exhibition proposal process itself is a tedious process that requires certain practices to be productive. The museum's mission and vision guide exhibitions, but the practices museum professionals use to determine the exhibition's effectiveness. Museum exhibition's different components take careful consideration and numerous overviews to determine content and design's preciseness. The essential museum practices for creating an exhibition are content inclusion and diversity, content historical research, and creating exhibitions that engage. As public historians push past the traditional ways of telling and displaying American history from a singular perspective, museum professionals need to be aware of diversity and inclusion in all the exhibition process steps, telling a more holistic story of history. When developing an exhibition, it is vital to have extensive knowledge of the topic and conduct extensive research to validate accuracy from professional scholastic sources. Exhibitions should creatively tell a story, being able to connect with the audience innovatively.
As society continues to evolve socially, those same effects are felt in the history field. As historians, in 2020, we have begun to see a push for stories of traditionally marginalized groups and individuals pushed forward into the spotlight. The old traditions of presenting United Stated history from a patriarchal and classist perspective have begun to fade away in the public history field. Inclusion and diversity have begun to be a primary factor in the way history is presented today. As museum professionals, our responsibility is to ensure diversity and inclusion on all levels, from the administration to the exhibition, are considered. When creating an exhibition, diversity and inclusion are particularly important because it helps to broaden the perspectives of the content being considered. When creating the content for the Civil War exhibition at the Atlanta History Center "Parceled Freedom," it was important that the content team developed a story that included the perspectives of all races of people who were in America during the Civil War and how they were affected. The content team benefitted in displaying a diverse set of stories focusing on Indigenous people, African Americans, White Americans, and immigrants' stories. Creating exhibitions that display the stories of diversity also attracts a broader audience. The Atlanta History Center's Gordon Jones[1] stated that the Atlanta History Center struggled with attracting diversity, particularly African Americans, and most of that can be attributed to the lack of representation of diversity in the museum. African Americans make up most of the Atlanta population and have made significant historical impacts in Atlanta, but they are minimally represented in a museum about Atlanta. The museum's content does not represent a holistic story of Atlanta. Parceled Freedom offers the museum an exhibition that offers a story that displays the stories that are as diverse as Atlanta and offers the museum a drawing exhibition for a more diverse audience.
An exhibition's content is based on the concept statement created before the content begins to be chosen. "Formulation of the concept, central idea or thesis of an exhibition is a core curatorial responsibility, although it is increasingly shared with other museum professionals as well as other stakeholders including the museum's audience."[2]
The content development of an exhibition is one of the most critical sections of the exhibition process, and the early step of research is one of the most critical phases of an exhibition. The information a museum displays is perceived by the audience as an authority, and displaying accurate information is of the utmost importance. Museums have traditionally been considered the authority on academic topics and are held as top academic sourcing. When creating an exhibition, museum professionals must intensively research their topic and related topics to accurately present their story. When developing exhibitions, content developers should develop compositions of sources that will be used to research their topic. Parceled Freedom developed a bibliography connected to the five major themes chosen to represent the story of the Civil War. When selecting sources for an exhibition, different sources can be utilized, such as books, interviews, articles, academic journals, pictures, and videos. Although the sourcing for exhibitions can be numerous, those sources must all be ethical and credible. Ethical issues can become an issue at many stages of the exhibition process, and preventing this issue at the content level is a priority. The content for Parceled Freedom presents stories of minority groups that have traditionally had their histories falsely presented, and to avoid the ethical issues of misrepresentation, the content team attempted to use sources that were academically and ethically accepted. When presenting the story of Fedrick Douglass, the primary source used was The Narrative of the Life of Fedrick Douglass. Using the Autobiography of Fedrick Douglass as the primary source is crucial because those are the words of Fedrick Douglass himself and offer the most ethical and honest life and experience of him. Although this was a practice of the Parceled Freedom group, there are museums and historical institutions that do not practice such basic ethical standards.
Exhibitions should engage and entice visitors to engage with the story being presented. Exhibitions are what make museums, museums[3]. Visitors come to museums to view the exhibitions and want to be interested in what is being presented. Museum staff should create exhibits that engage and prompt visitors to feel themselves apart of the story. As public historians, it is our responsibility to present history to the public in a way that they find appealing and accepting. When exhibitions create a participatory environment, it helps visitors to be physically intertwined with the story. Most people become believers after experiencing an event rather than being told about the event. The experience visitors receive should be designed by the curator to display the vision trying to be conveyed. Nina Simon writes in The Participatory Museum The best participatory…are scaffolded to help people feel comfortable engaging in the activity."[4] Exhibits should be designed to inform the visitors and help them be receptive to the information being presented.
The exhibition process is an extensive and delicate process that has practices that can be followed to help with the presentation and engagement of exhibitions for the experience of visitors. Creating exhibitions that focus on inclusion and diversity in their content, emphasize historical accuracy through extensive research, and creating exhibits that engage are some of the best practices of a museum's best practices.
Museums will continue to be a leading academic authority in society, and as the times change with society, museums must change as well. Museums must continue to evaluate their practices as ethical standards change with society and continue to pursue the best practices for their mission and vision.
[1] Gordon Jones, Atlanta History Center September 2020
[2] Nicks and Piacente. The mauel of museum exhibitions. (Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield, 2001) 241
[3] John Summers, Creating exhibits that engage A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations. (Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield, 2018) 3
[4] Nina Simon, The participatory museum. (Santa Cruz: Museum, 2010) 13
As society continues to evolve socially, those same effects are felt in the history field. As historians, in 2020, we have begun to see a push for stories of traditionally marginalized groups and individuals pushed forward into the spotlight. The old traditions of presenting United Stated history from a patriarchal and classist perspective have begun to fade away in the public history field. Inclusion and diversity have begun to be a primary factor in the way history is presented today. As museum professionals, our responsibility is to ensure diversity and inclusion on all levels, from the administration to the exhibition, are considered. When creating an exhibition, diversity and inclusion are particularly important because it helps to broaden the perspectives of the content being considered. When creating the content for the Civil War exhibition at the Atlanta History Center "Parceled Freedom," it was important that the content team developed a story that included the perspectives of all races of people who were in America during the Civil War and how they were affected. The content team benefitted in displaying a diverse set of stories focusing on Indigenous people, African Americans, White Americans, and immigrants' stories. Creating exhibitions that display the stories of diversity also attracts a broader audience. The Atlanta History Center's Gordon Jones[1] stated that the Atlanta History Center struggled with attracting diversity, particularly African Americans, and most of that can be attributed to the lack of representation of diversity in the museum. African Americans make up most of the Atlanta population and have made significant historical impacts in Atlanta, but they are minimally represented in a museum about Atlanta. The museum's content does not represent a holistic story of Atlanta. Parceled Freedom offers the museum an exhibition that offers a story that displays the stories that are as diverse as Atlanta and offers the museum a drawing exhibition for a more diverse audience.
An exhibition's content is based on the concept statement created before the content begins to be chosen. "Formulation of the concept, central idea or thesis of an exhibition is a core curatorial responsibility, although it is increasingly shared with other museum professionals as well as other stakeholders including the museum's audience."[2]
The content development of an exhibition is one of the most critical sections of the exhibition process, and the early step of research is one of the most critical phases of an exhibition. The information a museum displays is perceived by the audience as an authority, and displaying accurate information is of the utmost importance. Museums have traditionally been considered the authority on academic topics and are held as top academic sourcing. When creating an exhibition, museum professionals must intensively research their topic and related topics to accurately present their story. When developing exhibitions, content developers should develop compositions of sources that will be used to research their topic. Parceled Freedom developed a bibliography connected to the five major themes chosen to represent the story of the Civil War. When selecting sources for an exhibition, different sources can be utilized, such as books, interviews, articles, academic journals, pictures, and videos. Although the sourcing for exhibitions can be numerous, those sources must all be ethical and credible. Ethical issues can become an issue at many stages of the exhibition process, and preventing this issue at the content level is a priority. The content for Parceled Freedom presents stories of minority groups that have traditionally had their histories falsely presented, and to avoid the ethical issues of misrepresentation, the content team attempted to use sources that were academically and ethically accepted. When presenting the story of Fedrick Douglass, the primary source used was The Narrative of the Life of Fedrick Douglass. Using the Autobiography of Fedrick Douglass as the primary source is crucial because those are the words of Fedrick Douglass himself and offer the most ethical and honest life and experience of him. Although this was a practice of the Parceled Freedom group, there are museums and historical institutions that do not practice such basic ethical standards.
Exhibitions should engage and entice visitors to engage with the story being presented. Exhibitions are what make museums, museums[3]. Visitors come to museums to view the exhibitions and want to be interested in what is being presented. Museum staff should create exhibits that engage and prompt visitors to feel themselves apart of the story. As public historians, it is our responsibility to present history to the public in a way that they find appealing and accepting. When exhibitions create a participatory environment, it helps visitors to be physically intertwined with the story. Most people become believers after experiencing an event rather than being told about the event. The experience visitors receive should be designed by the curator to display the vision trying to be conveyed. Nina Simon writes in The Participatory Museum The best participatory…are scaffolded to help people feel comfortable engaging in the activity."[4] Exhibits should be designed to inform the visitors and help them be receptive to the information being presented.
The exhibition process is an extensive and delicate process that has practices that can be followed to help with the presentation and engagement of exhibitions for the experience of visitors. Creating exhibitions that focus on inclusion and diversity in their content, emphasize historical accuracy through extensive research, and creating exhibits that engage are some of the best practices of a museum's best practices.
Museums will continue to be a leading academic authority in society, and as the times change with society, museums must change as well. Museums must continue to evaluate their practices as ethical standards change with society and continue to pursue the best practices for their mission and vision.
[1] Gordon Jones, Atlanta History Center September 2020
[2] Nicks and Piacente. The mauel of museum exhibitions. (Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield, 2001) 241
[3] John Summers, Creating exhibits that engage A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations. (Maryland: Rowan and Littlefield, 2018) 3
[4] Nina Simon, The participatory museum. (Santa Cruz: Museum, 2010) 13