So, I'm Still Sour About the Barnes Collection...

Oh hello, friends. Look at this fancy little blog we got going on here. I didn't realize I was so late to the party!

...okay yes I did. Don't judge me!

 As you all know (with the exception of Dawne and Victoria because you were not there), I had a lot of feelings after watching "The Art of the Steal" about the Barnes Foundation. A LOT of feelings. Mostly anger, some disappointment, and even a little bit of nausea. Intense, right? Well, I've manged to accumulate a few more!

Brief background: Albert Barnes amassed an incredible collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art in the first half of the 20th century. His will stipulated the art was never to be loaned, sold, or moved from its original home in Merion, PA, approximately 5 miles from Philadelphia. Barnes died, and the art was safe until the 1990s-2000s when the Foundation was in deep debt, and the city of Philadelphia got involved. Long story short, the city, with the help of three main non-profits, utilized every loophole possible to legally move the collection. They cited several reasons as to why the move was right. The foundation's financial situation was dire, they didn't think enough people saw the collection, and they were afraid the building and collection was not being properly maintained. These seem like reasonable concerns, right?

The problem lies in the fact that Barnes' will was completely circumvented for the city to get what they wanted. It had been slowly dismantled bit by bit, decade by decade, until it became completely null and void. My initial anger came from this fact. It was a gross misuse of the justice system. Had the city or charities actually cared about the Barnes Foundation and the collection that Barnes worked so hard to put together, they could have easily put the money used to move it into maintaining it instead.

After further reflection though, I realized that, from a public history stand point, moving the collection was advantageous for the users as well. It made the art accessible by placing it in the center of a cultural hub in downtown Philadelphia. Membership increased from 400 to almost 20,000. There was plenty of parking. The art was finally displayed under professional, museum-grade quality lighting. The original arrangement, which was a defining characteristic of the Barnes collection, was maintained in the new building; it was the only way for visitors to get a sense of how Barnes viewed not only his works, but his understanding of art in general. So I guess notwithstanding the circumvention of Barnes’s will, the creation of the new Barnes museum will allow an incredible number of people to view one of the best art collections in the world, which is ultimately what we as public historians should want to do. Maybe just not by manipulating the legal system, yeah?

Sweet Home, Rhode Island

We also visited Ashton, RI, where my maternal grandmother was born and raised. I found out: one, Ashton is a village located in the town of Cumberland, RI; and two, the row houses and mill she lived and worked in still exist. They are being converted into condos and are completely green (ecologically speaking).

I was thrilled. Even though I knew three-quarters of my heritage was from New England (my father was born and raised in Maine), it was good to see a place. I became more aware of why place is important. The reason people seem so attached to a place makes more sense to me now.

While I'm still not a preservationist to the degree that everything needs to be kept in it's original form, it is important to keep places that can be pointed to and say "This is me. This is home. These are my roots."

Rosy Tomorrow's

I just returned from a trip to Connecticut and visited a very interesting restaurant, Rosy Tomorrow's; image old school T.G.I. Friday's, but identified objects. That is what interested me about the restaurant; they had many interesting object but they told you what the objects were and where they came from.

Rosy Tomorrow's, Danbury, CT

The restaurant is located in Danbury, CT where a large fairgrounds was located. In 1981 the fairgroundsclosed and sold the large figures that decorated the grounds (far left and center highlighted object in the interior photo). There are other objects as well, such as an antique scull (see far right highlighted item in interior photo), and penny arcade machines. The menu gives a description of where the objects came from, what they are, and their manufacture date and place.

This information is when I thought I would post an entry; the owners of the restaurant have created a mini-museum. I loved the place (and the food was good) and will return the next time I'm in Danbury.

UK's National Archives - Web Collaboration

I was doing more research for my paper when one source directed me to this website:
The National Archives Website
To sum it up, Over 2,500 archives in England and Wales joined a single database and put of 32 million records descriptions, 9 million of which can be downloaded (either free or for a fee). This reminds me of OhioLINK, WorldCat, and other large databases, except for one thing: the website is wonderful.

The National Archives database stands out to me because it looks great, it's very easy to use, and they offer all sorts of extra conveniences (articles, podcasts, locations and hours of operations of each archive in the database, etc.). If you take a second to look at the homepage, they have 6 sections immediately available without scrolling down the page:
1. A section to guide researchers, including video guides and links to their most popular collections (including what preparations you should make). For example, this section about old Irish maps.
2. A link to the catalogue search (linked above), including an option to search for specific archives.
3. A link to the digitized collections for those who just want to view from home instead of plan a trip.
4. A section providing free education resources for teachers and students. Here's a game based on transcribing words from old documents: The Ducking Stool Game. And here's one of the WWII sections, which features Rosie the Riveter slapping Hitler.
5. A source for archivists to find guidance in archival theory and practice, among other professional resources.
6. A section providing help, including info. on training courses, about info. and records management.

While I'm sure other major institutions have quality websites as well, the National Archives site just blew my expectations out of the water. It's very intuitive to use, and it seems very oriented towards the needs of researchers, teachers, students, public history professionals, and the casual browser all at once. And that kind of accessibility is exactly what archives should strive for if they go online.

Dayton Arcade

The Arcade in Downtown Dayton is a building in need of historic preservation....Kathleen, you should save it!  It is a gorgeous, well, was a gorgeous building at one time.  I remember going there as a child when my grandma worked on Main St in Dayton.  We'd go downtown at Christmas time and shop at Lazarus and Elder Beerman and have lunch at the Arcade.

It was so lively, so exciting.  I was just a naive boy from the suburbs, I wasn't used to "big" city things.  The Arcade was so neat, so big and I felt so grown up when we'd go there.  The halls were lined with stores, it was almost like the Greene in Beavercreek but indoors, similar to a mall, but not like a mall at all. In it's prime there were stores and vendors and restaurants and there wasn't an empty store front.  When we'd visit with my grandma there were some vacancies but it was still the center of city activity.

The Arcade has gone through some bad times.  It was closed in the early 1990s and only open a few years at Christmas after it closed.  It was sold in 2008 or 2009 (I think) and has been falling apart for nearly 20 years.  It is so sad that a building on the National Register of Historic Places can't find someone or a group of someones to save it.  It could bring so much life back to the downtown area.  Merchants, food vendors, customers...everyone would benefit from having such a hub downtown again.   

I went through the Arcade again in 2009 and it was so sad.  It was moldy, mildewing, wet and literally breaking apart.  It was so sad.  I could see the old Arcade through the dreary new Arcade.  I can see so many possibilities and so many positives in the building and area, if only I had millions of dollars to save the building.  

There's been talk of tearing the Arcade down, but for what?  A parking lot?  What else would go there?  Building a new building would be ridiculous, buildings alone won't bring the downtown back to life. I think an old, historic, revitalized building would be much more appealing than some new, modern, cold, boring building 

Laverne Cox at Wright State

This evening Laverne Cox spoke at the Nutter Center.  She was amazing!  In case you aren't familiar with Laverne Cox, she is the first trans woman of color to have a leading role on a mainstream scripted television show.  And she is the first trans actress to be nominated for an Emmy award.  Ms Cox actually spoke very little of her television show or her "stardom", what she spoke about was her identity, who she was and growing up as an African American boy in the deep south and feeling different.  She spoke of intersectionality and how all of her identities overlap and intersect to make her who she is. She's not just black, she's not just a woman, she's not just an actress, she's all of those things and more.

Ms Cox was born, I assume in the 1970s, based on her comments.  Her mother was was a single mom trying to raise Ms Cox and her twin brother in Mobile, Alabama.  From an early age Ms Cox knew she was different and from what she said she was quite flamboyant.  She was often bullied and chased because she was not like the other boys.  She loved to dance when she was a young boy and finally in the third grade her mother signed her up for dance classes, but only tap and jazz because ballet was "too gay".  She loved dancing, it was her escape.  In junior high she read about a school in Birmingham, AL, The Alabama School of the Arts.  They had a dance program and Ms Cox decided she would apply, get a scholarship and attend the school.  The only problem was the school only offered ballet, not tap or jazz.  So, she wrote an essay, got accepted for creative writing, took ballet classes and switched her program of study. Being in Birmingham, 4 hours away from her mother, Ms Cox was finally able to dress the way she wanted and could be as feminine as she wanted.  It was in high school in Birmingham where she finally started to feel "normal".

After high school Ms Cox ended up in New York City at the Marymount Manhattan College. College for Ms Cox, like for many others, was a time of self discovery and awakening.  She met many transgender women at the time and without them she said she may have never had the courage to become the woman she is today.

She spoke of the fear she had and still experiences at times today walking down the street.  Men heckling her or whistling at her then realizing she's a transgender woman.  She said more than once when she was speaking that she still gets scared that something could happen to her because of who she is.

She's not only a role model for the trans community but for women as well.  She's very well spoken and educated on feminist issues and knew perhaps every statistic possible relating to transgender people as well as women.

Laverne Cox's story is pretty amazing when you stop to think about it.  She was born an African American boy in the deep south.  Her mother was single and struggled to raise her and her brother. She made up her mind at an early age what she wanted her career to be and she put steps in place to make it happen.  If all that isn't enough she was brave enough to come to terms with the fact that she is a woman, and not a man.  She has torn down barriers her whole life and done it with more class than most people will ever experience.

I could listen to her speak all day. She knows how to get her point across and has facts and statistics to back her up.

As I sat and listened to her speak I couldn't help but think how historical the evening was, it could have been a public history event....almost.  Never in my life would I have thought that I would be sitting and listening to a transgender woman speak at a university.  I may sound old, but in my undergrad years I didn't even know what transgender meant, I barely knew any gay people.  It was a different world.  Sure, there were stories about people having sex-change operations as they were called back in the day, but it wasn't as main stream as it is now. I don't think there were any television shows that dealt with the topics of gay or transgender.  Will and Grace didn't come out until my last year of college or after.  It was an exciting evening.  It was an honor, really to hear her speak.

How Dungeons & Dragons Can Help You Be a Better Museum Worker

Time to share secrets: I sometimes play Dungeons & Dragons, and usually I'm the Dungeon Master leading the game. Perhaps you've heard of D&D as a game designed to produce satan-worshipers and school shooters, or maybe you know that it's a form of interactive story-telling fused with tactical strategy gaming. Regardless, there are at least a few reasons I can think of why all museum people should play D&D (especially as Dungeon Master (DM), essentially the narrator).

• Creative, evocative story-telling: D&D is a game played primarily in the imagination. While dry erase boards with maps and little figures are often used, the greatest purpose of the DM is to create an engaging story in a living setting and in a few words to paint a picture so vivid that all other players--with varying interests, personalities, and levels of patience--can imagine themselves within the story. This translates to museums because the exhibit designers must too attempt to recreate an engaging picture of history, one that draws in a variety of different people. The audience must feel connected to the history being shared, and often the text writers have only a few words for a lot of meaning. DMing will help you practice being both succinct and descriptive to better engage your audience.

• Enhanced Problem-Solving: DMs always need to think on the fly. In games, things often go awry from the original plan (be it because of player actions or die rolling), and as a result, DMs find it necessary to improvise and problem-solve on the fly. A character "accidentally" murdered the "chosen one"? Time to get the mental gears turning. Players, too, must problem solve all the time. Not only does the DM provide puzzles all throughout, but most situations can be solved in multiple, unexpected ways. For example, an orc guards a door. You could fight it, stealthily knock it out, cast a sleep spell, talk your way inside, disguise yourself, fly to the roof...the list goes on. This kind of creativity and "seat-of-the-pants" problem-solving can be a great help in a pinch when, say, a water main bursts. You'll feel like MacGyver when you turn a shoelace, a paperclip, and a half-eaten sandwich into your artifacts' salvation.

• The Ability to Prepare for (almost) Anything: DMs know one thing above all else: if you build it, they will circumvent. Know matter how much you prepare, the players will always find a hole in your plans and weasel through for results you'd never expect. Despite the philosophical repercussions of this inevitability, DMs gain a great deal of skill from trying, and that skill builds a natural ability spots potential issues that need to be prepared for. This can be wonderful when creating disaster preparedness or performing preventative conservation. Even more wonderful for anticipating such things as, say, parents lifting their children into an open B-52. People enjoy "breaking the game," as it were; it makes them feel like they've experienced something special. With this skill, you can anticipate that and either stop it, or, use it to your advantage to give your audience a truly satisfying experience.

I could go on about these and other benefits all day, and while you could build these skills in other ways, I ask you one thing: In what other way can you contribute to your work experience while tossing explosive-ridden goblins via catapult to a floating citadel to prevent the planet's annihilation via lava rain?