What Is Interpretation?
This article originally appeared in Exchange,
a newsletter published by the Wisconsin Historical
Society. (Volume
24, Number 4, July/August 1982) It is the first in
a series of articles titled Exhibiting
Local Heritage. The series features information
about planning, designing and constructing interpretive
museum exhibits. This article was written by Tom
McKay, retired local history coordinator for the
Wisconsin Historical Society.
Exhibiting Local Heritage is a project to assist
local historical societies in developing better interpretive
exhibit skills. Clearly the place to begin the project
is with the words "interpret" or "interpretive."
Dictionary-style definitions of "interpretive" talk about
explaining the past or creating understanding, but
a quicker way of getting at the meaning of "interpretive" may
be a short thought exercise.
Presume for a moment that Abraham Lincoln came back to life today. He would know nothing of our modern world. He would need to learn about all the things we take for granted as part of today's world, and he would need help. As a member of the local historical society and a civic-minded person with an interest in the past, you are asked to help Mr. Lincoln.
One of the first things Abraham Lincoln encounters in your home is a television set. You identify it by name, a television set, but Mr. Lincoln still knows little about it. You decide to take him to an appliance store and show him many televisions calling each a console or portable, color or black and white, etc. Although he has more information, Mr. Lincoln still understands little about the TV. Next you turn one of the televisions on. He doesn't know how it works, but he sees what it does. A television set delivers messages, pictures and sound.
When Mr. Lincoln mentions that the telegraph was the great communications breakthrough of his day, you suggest a trip to the historical society. There you show him a picture of the old telegraph office, early telephones, radios, and the town's first television. You place each breakthrough in chronological order and explain how and when each came to your town. As you think about television coming to your town, you begin to discuss the effect it had on the community: the closing of the town theater; declining group activities; its recent use as a teaching device in the school. Mr. Lincoln is drawn into the discussion thinking about the effect such a powerful communication device would have had on his life. It certainly would have changed his presidency. As a matter of fact, would he have been president at all?
The task presented by Mr. Lincoln and the TV was interpreting the present to someone from the past. However, most of the principles are the same for your historical society's task of interpreting the past to people from the present. Simply naming an object, a television or a teapot, does little to interpret either the object or the past. Displaying groups of like objects is only slightly more interpretive. In the case of Mr. Lincoln and the TV, explaining or showing what a television does was a way to begin interpretation. Showing the television in relationship to other communications breakthroughs achieved an additional interpretive step. Finally, discussing the effects of the television on local community life made the historical significance of the TV more understandable and specific, and Mr. Lincoln began to raise questions about the effect television would have had on his own life.
Interpretive exhibits don't just display objects; they use objects
to teach history. They do more than name them or group
them or even show their functions. Interpretive exhibits
use objects to help us understand and explain community
history. Good interpretive exhibits present sequences,
study effects, explain relationships, make comparisons,
and raise as well as answer questions. To improve skills
at doing these things in exhibits is the purpose of
Exhibiting Local Heritage.
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