Hello-
As you may know, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco is entertaining
the prospects of opening a History Museum to take the place of the M.H.
de Young Museum if and when it moves to a new location.  Therefore, I am
writing to inform you of the challenges we are facing
and to ask for suggestions on possible advisors, partners,
collaborators.

The following is a brief statement regarding the challenges we are
facing in planning for this new museum:

When studying history, there are challenges for children and adults in
understanding: the notion of time, visualizing a sense of place,
differentiating between then and now, imagining what people were like
then, visualizing what it once was, recognizing things are always
changing.  A critical component in assisting children and adults to
comprehend history is to have them participate actively in recognizing
and recording their own history.

In a school or college setting, historians and educators have solved
this by a curriculum approach that directs the study of history through
themes that introduce daily life, technology, moral dilemmas,
literature, music, the arts, inventions, and so on to make history more
concrete and relevant to students' lives.

History curators and educators at history, science, art and children's
museums have taken this many steps further by creating exhibitions with
sensory and interactive experiences and programs that bring history
alive to visitors, be they children, families, adults; be they
beginning learners or expert learners.

Also, who's history will be told: 1)the comparative histories of
Europeans, Native American Indians, Latin, Spanish, Chinese,
Asian-American, and African-American people to the present day Bay Area
residents who continue to make history, with a special emphasis on
children's history; 2) the role of the artist in documenting history;
3)the role of M.H. de Young and other collectors and how they shaped SF
history; 4) SF's contribution to national and global histories; and
finally 5) the history of the Fine Arts Museums themselves.

This suggests that an advisory team of people should advise the FAM
staff in this endeavor to create the SF History Museum.  They could be:

1.  The California State Superintendent of Instruction
2.  The head of the California History Association
3.  Instruction Specialists from the California State University system
4.  Local history museum curators, educators and exhibit designers (SF
Main Library, California History Museum, SF History Archives, Oakland
Museum of California, etc.)
5.  National history museum curators, educators, and exhibit designers
(Ellis Island Museum, Holocaust Museum, Boston Children's Museum, Field
Museum of Natural History, American Museum of History, Smithsonian,
Toronto Museum of History, etc.)
6.  Experts in the field of Oral History
7.  Organizations that provide programs, workshops, and publications
regarding issues of history (Anti-defemation League, SPICE, the Hoover
Institute, etc.)

If you, or anyone you know, can help in contacting people in these
areas, I would appreciate hearing from you.  With your suggestions for
contacts, I would appreciate if you could give me some background on
those you are suggesting and tell me why you are recommending them.

Thank you for your help!

Deborah Bain
Education Department
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
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