Exhibiting Recent History
This article originally appeared
in Exchange,
a newsletter published by the Wisconsin
Historical Society. (Volume 45, Number
2, 2003) It is the 10th in a series
of articles titled Public
Appeal. The series deals with public
programming and public information. It was
written by Tom McKay, retired local history
coordinator for the Wisconsin Historical
Society.
History is a path from the past to the present. It helps people understand their own lives and present-day communities in the light of the events that have come before. However, history can lose part of this value if the path ends too far back in the past. Historical societies can enhance the public appeal and educational value of local history by including the recent past in their collections and exhibits.
In many historical societies, the history and artifacts of the 19th and early
20th centuries predominate in exhibits. Their exhibits about education or business
highlight one-room schools or general stores. By the simple fact of their age,
these parts of local history may seem "more" historic. Yet, local
historical societies collected many of the materials in these exhibits in the
1950s, 60s or 70s — times when one-room schools, general stores, horse-drawn
agricultural implements, or manual typewriters were part of the recent past.
The societies that collected such artifacts drew part of their vitality from
the direct connection of this history to the lives of their members, leaders
and volunteers.
Translating the type of collecting historical
societies did 40 years ago to the present,
the education artifacts collected today
might be cheerleader outfits or slide
rules from the 1970s. Shop signs or shirt
boxes from downtown stores at the time
the shopping mall opened might represent
the history of business in the recent
past. Artifacts of this type can help
engage the interest and encourage the
participation of people in their 40s
and 50s as historical society members,
and Star Wars lunch boxes or photographs
from the construction of a wooden play
park might attract the attention of even
younger people in the community.
A reciprocal relationship exists between
collections and exhibits. The way in
which a historical society collects can
increase the possibilities for incorporating
recent history into exhibits, and the
way in which a historical society chooses
its exhibits can stimulate collecting
materials of recent history. An exhibit
about the old gristmill that served the
community in the nineteenth century could
be interesting, informative and important
to understanding local history. The same
exhibit could be just as informative
and important, but add the opportunity
to appeal to a broader spectrum of people
if it included the mill's history, the
era after the mill burned when the pond
was a place for ice skating, and the
decision to remove the dam and turn the
waterway back to a trout stream.
A historical society already might have in its collection the flour bags, millwrights tools, and gristmill photographs to do a mill exhibit. Bringing the story into the recent past could send the society looking for newer ice skates than the ones in its collection or pamphlets and posters, pro and con, about removing the dam. Without expanding the exhibit to include more recent events, the society might never have thought to collect these items. Both the act of collecting and the completed exhibit have the potential to broaden the range of people interested in the society, from trout fisherman to the couple who met skating on the pond to the school class studying ecology.
Many historical societies stay alert
to celebrating historical anniversaries
in their programs and exhibits, but they
tend to look 50, 100 or 150 years into
the past. The 25th anniversary of the
local Little League team that won the
sectional championship might be a good
occasion for a small exhibit, and the
people most connected to the exhibit
would be in their 30s. The 10-year anniversary
of a huge snowstorm would be a good time
for an exhibit to look back at the most
notable local storms of the past century
or since the founding of the community.
Planning exhibits that include elements of the recent past expands the potential constituency of a historical society. Other efforts to represent recent history in historical society collections can have the same positive result. Such collecting will be the subject of the next column in this series.
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