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?

I am interested in what any of you have to say about this issue.

Claudia Nicholson
Curator of Collections
South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre

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