We have a expensive new permanent museum project in the works for our small town 
historical society headquarters that is focused on a very narrow subject (land 
preservation-our county has 16% of its area under conservation easements). Agreed, that 
our county history was peopled early with those rich enough to have plantations, and 
that there were/are enough rich people left to get sliding-scale zoning passed in the 
late 1960s is a great story, and their foresight has saved us from the exploding urban 
sprawl of our surrounding counties, but it leaves out the history of all the other 
people who made our county what it is today.
    The head of the committee (who is well off) is dedicated to telling this story, to 
the exclusion of the wider county history. He is very narrow in what he feels needs to 
be shown to support his vision, and he is the driving force (and contentious force) 
behind this whole project.  Even tho our board members have had quibbles about the 
project, they are not going to confront this man or try to rein him in because they 
might have to take over.
   At the moment 16 sq. feet of rotating exhibit space is what we have desiginated in 
the whole building (and this is debatable as the chairman feels it would take away from 
his story). As their historical society archivist/curator, I (and the museum design 
team) are frustrated that I/we cannot make this man understand that if the permanent 
exhibits are only to support his story, that two things will be apparent:  1. it will 
limit our audience (most of whom will never own a historic house or own 600 acres of 
land they can put in easement; besides it seems to be a political stand which a hist. 
soc. should not be involved with); & 2. it will dry up the flow of artifacts into our 
society when people know that 99.5% of our artifacts will be in permanent storage and 
never seen, because of the tight focus and permanency of the displays. 
   At this point in the project, a lot of people are almost hoping that the project 
funds appeal will not raise the funds to go into the second stage (at least not in this 
narrow configuration). 
   If indeed this project comes to fruition, what can I or the members of the society 
do to reach possible donors and make them understand that we still do care about their 
artifacts (archival materials will not be affected as I have that well in hand) and 
wish to have them in our collection.  I would hate not to get an artifact tomorrow that 
might be very significant to a new exhibit in the future.  Any other suggestions on 
this would also be appreciated.
M.T. Morris-CCHA, Virginia


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