Years ago I spoke with the curator of the Vietnam Memorial and from his
description it is the National Park Service who keeps items left at the
site, not the Smithsonian.  Apparently, they were unprepared for the
"collection" at first, but have now created a storage area and have even
mounted an exhibit of the items.  (I believe the exhibit may have been in
conjunction with the Smithsonian.)

The same story seemed to repeat itself for the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, also in Washington DC.  Its my understanding that they were
not prepared for the numerous donations they received when they opened,
having seen their original mission to be a memorial.  Now they have storage
and use their changing exhibit space not just for outside traveling
exhibits, but for their own collection.

It appears to me that these two examples blur the lines between museum and
memorial.  It even calls into question who is really the collector or who is
creating the collection.  (By the way, I believe the USHM has created a
collections policy, but I don't believe the Vietnam Memorial has, beyond
tossing perishable items).

-Jenny

--
Jenny E. Benjamin, MA
Director, Museum of Vision
EyeCare America
(415) 561-8502
(415) 561-8533 FAX
[log in to unmask]
www.museumofvision.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Carol Reid
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 5:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: memorials


when it comes to memorials and items left at it there is always the problem
of who is going to clean it up? and what do you do with the stuff?. One
cannot just leave flowers etc indefinately as they can pose a health and
safety hazard (tripping etc)as well as looking unsightly after a few days
when they have begun to rot.

The Vietnam Memorial and the Smithsonian have some sort of agreement,
everyday (every 24 hours) the items are collected from the Vietnam and sent
off to the Smithsonian and I believe everything  (flowers excepted) is kept
- if anyone out there is from the Smithsonian maybe they could confirm it.
But there is also a policy in place to keep these memorial offerings and
that is the important thing.

Here in Ottawa Canada, we recently had a "Tomb of the unknown soldier"
erected, an unknown canadian soldier of the first world war who died in
France was brought back and interned in front of our National War Memorial.
We too had spontaneous offering left on the tomb. This is also in front of
the National War Memorial where dozens of services of remembrance and honour
take place through out the year. There is a policy in place that allows all
floral tributes and wreaths to stay in place for 24hrs before they are
gathered up and tossed, as for the objects - the money that is left goes to
one of the local charities, and some (not all) of the objects are sent to us
at the Canadian War Museum. But we do not have to keep everything, it is on
an item by item basis.

Keeping of memorial tributes can leave you with headaches and nightmares you
never knew where coming your way. So I can sympathise with the Chicago
Museum for not allowing any to be left.

Carol Reid
Collections Manager, Archives
Canadian War Museum
[log in to unmask]

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