I agree with you.  I think that in the case of the KKK uniforms, your
museum succeeded in making someone think about what was on exhibit.  You
didn't take the exhibit down based on her  visual assessment and personal
opinion (nor should it have come down).  Nor was your museum trying to
glorify the KKK.  There were labels for her to read- she obviously chose
not to.  Most museums are just trying to do the best they can.  We can't
please everyone all the time and we shouldn't even try.  No one can force
museum visitors to read labels-  therefore we can't be responsible for
their possible flawed interpretations should they choose not to read a
label.

So, in response to that type of visitor, I would thank them for their
opinion, encourage them to read the labels, try to answer questions,  and
then move on to the next visitor.

----------
From:   Nicholson, Claudia[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, January 22, 1998 2:05 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: VANDALISING UNPOPULAR STATUES ETC. - using the pieces
inmuseums

Harry Needham has raised an interesting point when he noted that the
museum gets accused of "glorifying" Hitler because they show the
decapitated head of a Hitler statue in the museum.

I ran into the same problem in South Dakota.  An exhibit of a Ku Klux
Klan robe brought a sharp response from some visitors, including one who
bothered to write her anger.  She accused us of "glorifying" the Klan
because we showed the outfit.  We thought that it would be good to point
out that the Klan was not simply an organization of the American
South--that it was active in the northern parts of the country too, and
in the case of South Dakota, went after foreigners and Catholics.

Unfortunately, many visitors still think that what museums do is glorify
the past.  Anything that we show, therefore, is out for the public to
see so that they might revel in the ever-upward spiral of civilization.
Although the context and explanatory labeling of any potentially
controversial object in a museum exhibit can very carefully show why the
object is not there to be glorified, if the visitor does not read the
label or pay attention to the context, they can make an incorrect
assumption.

Once again, I will ask the question:  how do museums really educate the
public to what we are trying to do?  How do we get visitors in a
questioning frame of mind when they come through our doors?  How can we
get them to question--and then seek to find the answer--when they see
something in our galleries that they think is inappropriate?  How do we
get them to understand that, at least in history museums, we are tying
to talk about both the good and the bad of the past?

Claudia J. Nicholson
Curator
Museum Collections Department
Minnesota Historical Society
345 Kellogg Blvd. W.
St. Paul, MN  55102-1906
  Tel.:  612/297-7442
  FAX: 612/297-2967
  E-mail:  [log in to unmask]

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