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] >