Whether they celebrate common events, memorialize tragedies and injustices, or communicate socio-political messages, history museums are important conduits for transferring historical knowledge to visitors. The selection of themes, photographs, objects, documents, and other materials that make up an exhibit entails interpretive judgments about cause and effect, perspective, significance, and meaning.
The success of any museum exhibit relies on a team of professionals that includes a curator, historians, education staff, designers, and production personnel. This collaborative process, more than the scholarship and passion of a single individual, is what defines a successful exhibition.
This column, which will appear monthly in Perspectives, examines the broader issues surrounding the exhibition and interpretation of history in museums. It will focus on museum exhibits that push the boundaries of what is considered acceptable, challenging established parameters of exhibition design and scholarship. It will seek to promote innovative work that improves the collaboration between the academy and museums in interpreting our nation’s past. It will also highlight notable achievements by individuals and institutions, innovative programs and major collecting initiatives.
Museums can be unique environments for the presentation of history, because their mission combines research, preservation and interpretation of artifacts. This makes them uniquely positioned to bring complex historical topics to life for a broad audience.
While some museum experiences, such as the Griffith Observatory or the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, have few artifacts or no artifacts at all, many exhibits use a large number of objects to tell stories that engage and inform visitors. These exhibitions are often described as “histolircal” because they combine artifacts with other types of objects to create a visual storytelling experience.
The most effective exhibits are inclusive and visually stimulating, creating drama for the eyes as well as the mind. They are metaphors and visual poetry that spark curiosity rather than limiting it. They are about a deep understanding of an abstract concept, such as home, freedom, faith, democracy or mobility, and how it has impacted the lives of people in the past and present.
The arc of an exhibit should connect a visitor to the past in meaningful ways that are relevant to their own lives. They should be rooted in research and informed by new sources that offer fresh perspectives and broaden our knowledge rather than narrowing it. They should be anchored in the belief that museums serve a valuable public service through their tax-exempt status, and that they should demonstrate this by telling relevant histories to their visitors. Historians should help ensure that this is the case by evaluating and discussing the content of history exhibitions in museums. The purpose of this column is to provide a forum for that discussion. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of these exhibitions, this column will contribute to the development of an intellectually sound discourse on the subject. This discourse will be beneficial to the field and the public at large.