On 16 Feb 1996, Claudia Nicholson wrote:

> I have become increasingly troubled this past year by the high-profile
> controversies involving history museums and their interpretations of the
> past.
>
> The Enola Gay controversy is only one of the most recent examples.  I have
> also read about some other problems at places like the Library of Congress,
> and the National Museum of American History (Science in Society?).  It
> would seem that some curatorial staffs have gotten carried away with
> current scholarship while misunderstanding that historical understanding
> in the public lags by at least 15 years, and possibly as much as 50!  I am
> wondering if the defense that "this represents current historical scholar-
> ship" is adequate to the bill-paying public.
>
> Please do not mistake my position:  I never read the script for the
> original Enola Gay exhibit and so cannot comment in any rational way on
> what the exhibit was to contain or say.  Likewise, it seems to me that just
> because Freud's theories on personality have largely been discredited by
> the psychiatric community, that is no reason not to present him and his
> works as important to the development of the treatment of mental disorders.
>
> However, I am wondering if it is possible that many of us have forgotten
> our audiences when we prepare exhibits.  Is it possible that we are doing
> our work to impress our colleagues?  At my own institution (the South
> Dakota State Historical Society), we opened an exhibit on Sioux culture
> (Oyate Tawicoh'an, see History News, Autumn 1995) which we believe breaks
> a little bit of new ground in the presentation of living cultures.  I must
> admit, though, that what you all would think of this exhibit was as much
> on my mind as how the public would react to it.  Professional admiration
> is as important to me as whether or not the public "gets it" or even likes
> it.
>
> I am worried that if we do our work to impress our colleagues (academic
> historians OR museum professionals) that the public gets left out of the
> equation and the resulting controversy, a la Enola Gay, is inevitable.  Do
> we do a good enough job of explaining the position of the exhibit to the
> public. . . is it transparent enough?

     As a fulltime museum reviewer (Washington Post), I find this to be
one of the most thoughtful and pertinent postings I've ever seen on
museum-l. There are some very weird epistemological systems in operation
in academia these days. Many of their adherents are so committed to a
given methodology or point of view that they disregard, or even openly
despise, conventional wisdom. They tend to demonize those who hold
opposing, or simply noncongruent, views. As a white male of prewar (WWII)
vintage, I often see the eyes of young curators glaze over when I ask
basic questions about the presentation of an exhibition. And I often see
their brains fuzz up when they try to answer--or avoid--the questions.
    Museums are showbiz, folks, and if you want to sell the audience you
have to bear in mind where the man (and woman and child) in the street is
coming from.

     Hank Burchard * [log in to unmask] * Washington DC