Private History in Public

In Tammy Gordon’s book, Private History in Public, she emphasizes the importance of museum exhibitions both large and small all around the country. She organizes the various museum exhibits into several different categories:

            Academic: sponsored by government or corporate donors where the exhibit is highly managed to determine how the public will see it. An example of this would be almost any exhibit at the Smithsonian. As an example, I included a link to the Smithsonian Museum of American History’s exhibit on the American presidency.  http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/american-presidency This exhibit is sponsored by the US government with donations from government officials, etc. and the purpose is to tell a story of a uniquely American role that was filled by great men who were also average Americans. You can look at some of the items in the collection online; but when you go and see the exhibit in person, there are no negatives spins on any individual represented to be found anywhere. This fits in with the character of an academic exhibit which as Gordon reminds us “regularly stress traditional historical subjects like the affairs of nation states and change over time.” (20)

            Corporate these exhibits are sponsored by a corporation (as can be seen by the name) to market a particular interest. The average museum goer usually would not think of a museum exhibit as attempting to make them purchase anything or do much other than inform them of the history of their company organization. However, the best example that I can think of (which Gordon discusses briefly in the book) would be the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta, Georgia. The reason I decided to use this example is because I have been to this exhibit and I can attest to the success of the corporate goal of getting museum consumers to purchase and support this company’s product. After three floors of this museum which include the history of their company through pop art, artifacts, etc I found myself very eager to purchase a coke by the time I had seen everything. https://www.worldofcoca-cola.com/explore/explore-inside/explore-milestones-refreshment/

            Community exhibits are the type which come in the most varieties and are usually produced by people who have close ties to the subject matter being presented. The curators of these exhibitions usually tend to promote their local heritage. This type of exhibit is one that Gordon discusses very extensively in her book because it is the type that is looked over the most often by the general public. Gordon defines this exhibition as one which is often “motivated by people who have been historically ‘othered’, people whose histories are told by those outside the community… [it is] one way to claim local control over heritage resources and to assert sovereignty.” (40) My own personal example of one of these would be the heritage museum in Hendersonville, NC http://www.hendersoncountymuseum.com/ which tell the story of North Carolinian’s involvement in every war from the American Revolution on and contain artifacts that were donated by members of the community

            Entrepreneurial exhibits “merge trade history with personal history” (25)  as well as “reflect the traditional role of small business as well as the role of the small business person as one who is committed to and reflective of the community.” (60) One of the examples. Gordon included was Chicago’s International Museum of Surgical Science which features several exhibitions not only on surgery but also with subject matter that attempts to go outside the role of a traditional academic exhibit on the history of surgery. The museum differs from corporate and academic museums by presenting its theme in a “endearingly rustic, almost crude, in a cobbled-together way..” which includes items such as Laura Splan’s drawings in her own blood (63)

            Vernacular are even more difficult to pinpoint than community exhibits because they are usually integrated in non-museum settings which require neither the “curator nor the visitor [to] break from the activities of daily life in order to experience the display.” (77) Since these are usually hard to come by, I decided to include a personal example. The town that I used to live (Hendersonville, North Carolina) has a turn of the century pharmacy turned café in its downtown district. For purposes of brevity, I have included the link so the reader could learn more about the history of the establishment themselves. http://mikesonmain.com/about However, what I enjoyed most about the restaurant is their walls still contain artifacts from when the building was used as a pharmacy in 1900 as well as when the store front was used as a soda fountain around the 1950’s (the first of its kind and the only one still operating in Hendersonville.) Below I have featured images from the restaurant. I wasn’t able to find the small exhibition they have with the turn of the century medicinal supplies, however.

. I believe Dr Crepau’s exhibit on the bicentennial would fit in with his category nicely. I was considering it a part of the entrepreneurial exhibit; but settled on this own to be the more appropriate example due of a community exhibit due to the fact that it presents a representation of everyday American life in 1975. It doesn’t really represent a group of others but it tells a story of the American people and how they celebrated the country’s bicentennial. Because there is no government or corporate sponsor that story is being told by Dr Crepeau and the members of the UCF community. However, Dr Crepau’s artifacts which will be encompassed in the  Art in Odd Places event puts the exhibit into the vernacular category due to the fact that it will be presented outside of the traditional museum space and will not force any viewer to break from daily life in order to view it. 

Questions to Consider:
1. Is it possible for a museum exhibition to fit in more than one of the categories introduced by Tammy Gordon?
2. Can a museum exhibit still be considered vernacular if a spectator goes out of their way to view it?
3. Do all of these examples of exhibits still try to sway the view of a spectator?