The Little Things

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I was working in Special Collections the other day when I received a phone call from an older-sounding woman asking if Bryn Mawr still sold these beautiful notecards that she had purchased years previously with various watercolor designs on them. After relaying the call to someone who knew the answer to this question, I sat back in my desk chair and began to wonder what and where these notecards could possibly be. My mind instantly flashed to a moment when I had been archiving materials in one of Special Collections’ storage facilities. While in there I had seen shallow boxes filled to the brim with packets of notecards like you would see in stores. After the phone call was finished, I was told that the notecards had been sold on behalf of the Friends of the Library program that stems from the Bryn Mawr College Library. The program gives “friends of the library” the opportunity to contribute monetarily to Bryn Mawr’s library services which in turn employs interns in Special Collections, allows collections to be enhanced with new materials, allows sensitive materials to be conserved, and allows services that BMC students and faculty use to be continued and enhanced. Apparently, the notecards were something that patrons of the Friends of the Library program could purchase to help support Bryn Mawr. Though it seems to have been popular, it actually was a deficit for the College to produce, manufacture, and sell the notecards. As a result, the College had to make the decision to end the notecard sales at the potential expense of patrons that really seemed to enjoy it, and years after it ended, still request them.

This situation relates to this week’s readings in the sense that there are materials out there that have indirectly benefited students that they don’t know about and probably wouldn’t know about if not for random occurrences like the one I experienced. Additionally, the materials in question, the notecards, haven’t been officially archived. The woman who called requesting a specific set of notecards was able to get a version of them that happened to be in the storage facility after someone from Special Collections took their spare time to see if it was in stock. I am also fascinated by the idea of how non-BMC people who actively contribute to some semblance of the College’s wellbeing, and as a student —my wellbeing— view the College and its community members. To them, do we represent the images on the notecards? Sentimentality perhaps? Or are we much more tangible, something that is as multi-faceted and diverse  as the thousands of students that currently permeate this campus? It’s little things like this that get me thinking about the public history of Bryn Mawr and how it is presented as well as interpreted by those who don’t experience it daily but are still active in its existence.

The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Relying on Student Agency

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In the article “‘Cataloguing Fever’ Strikes Student Organizations’, from the February 12, 2004 edition of Bryn Mawr Now, the origins of the partnership between students and Bryn Mawr Information Services to catalogue the books of Rainbow Alliance and Sisterhood is described in the following way:

“”Before Information Services became involved, we wanted to make sure this would be the students’ project, rather than the library’s project,” Goff [Associate Chief Information Officer] says. “Once we got a commitment from the students, we provided a little seed money to kickstart the process. We funded a certain number of student-worker hours for each organization, with the understanding that they would find additional funding if the cataloging couldn’t be finished in one semester.””

Bryn Mawr–like a lot of other colleges, I imagine–continually celebrates student agency.  Students are told, time and time again, that we should take initiative and follow our passions, and that the college will support us in our endeavors.  The times that the college doesn’t live up to that promise aside–and there are plenty of those times, but I’m not going to discuss them here–there are a lot of amazing initiatives organized and executed by students, with the support of college faculty and/ or staff, and there is a lot of privilege in being in a space that provides students the resources they need to realize their ideas and passions.  However, I want to push back on this unquestioning celebration of student agency, not because student agency isn’t vital or powerful but because, too often, encouraging students to take on projects relieves the administration of the responsibility to take on those projects themselves.  The quote above, about making sure that the cataloguing project would be the students’ project rather than the library’s, seems at first aimed at promoting student agency and control–and perhaps it was meant that way–but it rubbed me the wrong way because I interpreted it as yet another instance of the responsibility for preserving and publicizing experiences of marginalized students being thrust upon those same student populations.  Black at Bryn Mawr, for example, is an amazing project and testament to student initiative and achievement, but why did it take students to start that project instead of the administration proactively committing institutional resources to researching and publicizing the histories of black students, staff, and faculty at Bryn Mawr?  Similarly, a lot of the campus public history projects detailed on the National Council of Public History’s campus history as public history working group page seem driven by a faculty member, or students, or both, but with no real initiative taken by the administration to publicize the hidden histories of marginalized groups.  I in no way want colleges to limit student agency, but relying exclusively on student agency not only relieves the administration of its obligation to make the college a more accessible and just place for students; it also ensures that these projects never exist on a long-term basis, because student agency is by definition transient.  Students attend this institution for, on average, four years and then leave, and if a student leaves without another student to carry on their project–as too often happens–then the project is dropped, and students 20 or 30 years later addressing, far too often, the same issues are left to almost reinvent the wheel.  This lack of continuity isn’t students’ fault though, and it shouldn’t be solely students’ responsibility to make sure that attention is paid to the experiences of marginalized groups at Bryn Mawr, or anywhere else.  It should also be the responsibility of the administration, who actually have the resources and continuity to carry on these projects long-term.

Going into my final project with these reflections, I want to think about the ways in which I can design a public history project that effectively establishes students and the administration as partners, neither suppressing student agency nor relying on it as the driving force.  What would such a partnership look like, and how can students work with the administration to convince them that such a partnership is valuable?

Narratives and Maps

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One of the things that interested me the most while visiting Erin’s History Truck studio last week was the large map of Kensington that marked where residents’ first memory of the neighborhood took place. The idea of turning a map into sometime so alive with personal memory was really exiting for me, and made the physical space of the neighborhood seem much more alive than a traditional map might. I also appreciated the way that the map included narratives by allowing participants to tell stories about their memories of the spaces.

Narratives of spaces are also employed in Jen Gieseking’s analysis of college space in “Reconstructing Women: scaled portrayals of privilege and gender norms on campus”. Gieseking uses a similar way of thinking about people and space, although she transforms the personal stories into a larger conclusion about the way that people interact with space. Although the History Truck also deals with this interaction of people and space, Gieseking’s article addresses more directly the way that people are shaped by spaces. Although Gieseking uses direct quotes from individuals, the experiences and reactions she records are meant to be collective, and betray something about a universal experience for most Mount Holyoke students.

Both the History Truck and Gieseking’s article ask individuals personal questions about space, but the way they deal with the nature of personal narratives of space is vastly different. Although the History Truck is looking for sometime collective that many people can claim as their own, it also speaks about the specific details and uniqueness of each person’s experiences within the same larger spaces. Although Gieseking is aware of the unique situations of particular MHC students (like the quote 283 from a student who considered herself alienated by her class), she still uses their experience to make a larger point with a more universal conclusion. I realize that Gieseking had a very different purpose in writing about space that a project like the History Truck, but I still wished that Gieseking’s article had brought in the types of individual overlapping experiences that I loved about the map in Erin’s studio. Although they both serve as interesting examples of bringing together individual narratives about space, I am partial to Erin’s map that shows how varied and unique each person’s experience is.

Exhibitions and the Importance of Artifacts

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Laura Schiavo’s article, Object Lessons: Making Meaning from Things in History Museums, got me thinking about the different ways in which the public interacts with history and in which historians interact with the public. Schiavo describes that today’s museums have a tendency toward larger themes and abstract concepts; the artifacts are often drowned out by the concepts they are intended to represent. While Schiavo (and I, as well) respects and appreciates that these types of exhibitions have gone a long way in reframing historical narratives, exposing hidden stories, and giving voices to silenced populations/figures, she argues that “the dominance of themes and stories, rather than collections, can mean a more limited engagement with artifacts.” (48) This is important because of the way in which I feel that many Americans interact with history.

Popular history, that which is seen in the mainstream media, is centered largely around an obsession with objects and artifacts. As I write, a copy of “History of the World in 1000 Objects” sits on my coffee table. American Pickers, a History Channel TV show focusing on two men who hunt for Americana relics to resell (though, to them, the story behind such items is far more valuable), has garnered a tremendous audience and many similar shows have sprung up in what was revealed as fertile ground. I’ve seen every manner of media, books to podcasts to Facebook groups, focusing on “do you remember what this was?” or “this item hearkens back to a time when…” There is something fundamentally grounding about items and objects. It takes an abstract memory or history and concretizes it, making it real to the viewer. An ancient Egyptian really was buried in this sarcophagus. A medieval nobleman actually used this signet ring to seal his documents. The abstract is difficult to wrap one’s mind around and even more difficult to make meaning from. Objects and artifacts bring abstract concepts of acculturation, class struggles, industrialization, and conquest (among countless others) down to earth and into focus.

That is not to say that objects should be the focus of exhibits and that conceptual presentations aren’t relevant to the public. Schiavo explains that “an idea-driven exhibition does not necessarily mean one where objects cannot have a bolder role to play.” (49) It is important to retain the conceptual drive of exhibitions, in order to continue reframing historical narratives and presenting more complex ideas and viewpoints to the public at large. However, historians need to meet the public in the middle and recognize the power of objects and artifacts to bolster and concretize the story that is being told. In fact, those objects could be integral to the retelling of that very story: “[American Stories] is the first history exhibition I have seen in a long time where it is the objects that motivate the text, instead of the other way around.” (50) There is no hard and fast divide between a conceptual exhibition and an artifact-driven exhibition. Either one without the other can fundamentally cripple the story being displayed. Artifacts pique the viewer’s interest in the concepts being argued. Those concepts widen the viewer’s perspective (ideally) and allow them to think more deeply and critically about the historical event. The artifact, then, concretizes that abstract thought and gives the viewer a relic off of which to build their understanding of that event.

Mental Mapping Bryn Mawr

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Bryn Mawr Now: Cataloging Fever’ Strikes Student Organizations and (Re)constructing women: scaled portrayals of privilege and gender norms on campus made me stop and think for a second about how the two pieces were related….

Coming from my background as a traditional aged student who has lived (and will live) all four of my undergraduate years on the Bryn Mawr Campus, I was thinking about how my privileges have effected the space that I inhabit. How does my body navigate Bryn Mawr? The first thing I thought about was my physical ability- for the most part, I can get around BMC pretty well. I have access to most of the spaces on campus, and I can get around without help. But do I actively use all of the spaces that I can arguably get into? No- and that’s where our social stratification begins. The things that I chose to do/am given the ability to do on campus affects the spaces on campus that I view as ‘mine.’

I think about the spaces that I inhabit to be ‘mine’- that is, I feel a partial ownership for them. For example, being an HA, whenever I see trash on my hall I pick it up. It may not be my trash, but it’s ‘my’ space, which I feel responsible for. In opposition, I thought of the time when I was SGA secretary- I had access to the SGA Offices in the SGA House. I would go into the office space when I needed to get away and do work, but I also would occasionally feel like that space wasn’t ‘mine.’ Upon reflection, I think this is because only few students have the access to this space, and because of the limited access (although I had more accessibility to the space) I had less claim to the space. Communal space is founded on living together, and taking care of things together, whereas spaces that only support limited access by certain students are given as a privilege, which I know is a temporary space. This temporary space, to me, doesn’t feel like it’s mine, in contrast to a space that I have to share with a larger group of people. This expands my mental map of Bryn Mawr significantly, rather than spaces I am actually ‘in charge of’ or have ‘ownership’ of.

As I was teasing out this idea of space and my mental map of Bryn Mawr, I was also playing around with the idea of ownership. What does ownership mean in the context of a undergraduate narrative? One thing that I thought of was May Day gifts, which tied my thoughts back to “Bryn Mawr Now: Cataloging Fever’ Strikes Student Organizations.” Although student organizations have an interest in cataloging items such as books, the greater Bryn Mawr population contributes to a cataloging project that (I would argue) the vast majority of them don’t know that they are participating in- May Day Gifts. Each May Day gift comes with a list of the previous owners, and occasionally a little note with it. It is up to the owner to find a new owner who will hopefully pass on the item to another student, who will pass it on to another, and so on. Although this is a process that wasn’t addressed in the article, I still think that it has value in regards to our campus culture, and how we find value in such items.

Institutional Support and Resistance

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While browsing the website of the History Truck, I was interested in the contradiction between the truck’s ideology and funding sources, a problem certainly not unique to it that plagues all non-profits. Currently in Philadelphia there is a huge campaign against Temple University’s new stadium which will further gentrify North Philadelphia. Community members and students are coming together to protest this, and I noticed that the truck held an event discussing the issue.

This is interesting because I wonder what the margins of acceptable opinion are for getting funding from Temple, and how the truck interacts with activist campaigns. Does it try to be non-partisan? This is kind of what the title and description suggests, but the free breakfast program folks are Black power activists and are included in this panel. I am curious as to what extent the non profit industrial complex impacts the truck and its actual ability to fulfill the mission of “Connecting neighbors who would have never built a relationship otherwise” and “Empower communities to work together to address issues within neighborhoods.” The truck seems like an inherently activist project according to its mission statement, but how that works in practice is always fraught. Can they directly support and tell the stories of anti-gentrification activists? How has gentrification affected the people who run the truck? A lot of times folks involved in historic preservation are also gentrifiers, as one can see in the history of Eastern State Penitentiary’s preservation. I am also interested in how the fire exhibit deals with the legacy of the MOVE bombing, and why they pick certain neighborhoods and subjects to visit and document.

The most interesting element of the truck for me is that it is a truck. Displaying history in motion is a really fascinating idea, because history moves and changes. In a museum environment it seems sterile and static. I also think the truck shows a real concern for the community, because by necessity it involves outreach and community relationships. It reminds me of library on wheels project, sort of. We talked a lot about the space of the archive, and how it changes the experience, but this is an even more dramatic space than Bob’s archive or the one I worked in. How do you tell stories in such a small space? How many people even fit into the truck? I can’t imagine too many, which makes it personal and intimate. Overall, the project seems really visionary and changes the experience of visiting a museum completely through both space and content, but I am skeptical of most non profits in practice and the truck is no exception.

Understanding Campus History: A Final Project Provocation

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With Erin Bernard, March 2016.Monica's notes, 29 March.Mapping Chinatown North, 29 March.FullSizeRender

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I cannot assume that I have solved any problems by asking questions and listening…but I can say I am attempting to shift the type of resources that future historians have to understand this moment in time in Philadelphia.”

— Erin Bernard, “Of angels, doves, and oral history: Ethics and trucking in Philadelphia,” Art & the Public Sphere 4.1-2 (2015): 109.

What would it mean to replace “Philadelphia” in this sentence with “Bryn Mawr College,” and how might your projects reflect that?

Whose Story?

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Professor Mercado and I spoke earlier this week about our upcoming visit to the Philadelphia History Truck and about other Philly based initiatives. I was explaining a story about the Gloria Casarez mural on 12th and Locust in which the Philly Mural Arts Program censored the design so as not to include the word dyke as a part of the “Philadelphia Dyke March” (PDM) banner featured in the mural. As a long time PDM activist (who maintains our organizational memory) it personally feels like an ESSENTIAL part of the recorded history of this mural. Professor Mercado casually mentioned the process of push and pull about what contextual information needs to be documented & where. Why do I feel like that needs to be documented while at the same time not having the organizational structure to maintain a public record?

The omission of “dyke” felt so important to me as Gloria’s vision for founding of PDM was as a radical collective who have reclaimed “dyke” for almost 20 years. But what if it only means something to me? What if the larger movement wouldn’t really gain much from adding half a letter on to a mural that is already a major accomplishment. Why am I so concerned? Am I just imagining that omissions like these are signals of the deep foundational injustice within my own LGBT community? I have been replaying this notion of irrelevance to the larger story over and over this week and the readings certainly spoke to my internal ethical dilemma. What if no one even notices the altered history of the mural. Who are you accountable to and what say do you really have when someone other org is funding your work? Public historians like Bernard seemed to often struggle with how to comfort and simultaneously empower change makers in the face of their invisible emotion work.

Gloria's Mural

Part of Gloria’s Mural edited post production to get ride of “Dyke March” Continue reading →

Wall Text and Objects

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In reading “Making Meaning from Things in History Museums” I found myself questioning a lot of the statements made about history museums. For instance, Schiavo citing Conn states, “Museums—some of them anyway—may not need objects anymore, but without objects we may miss the delights and surprises that come with looking.” I think many history museums actually find the objects in their collection central to the work that they do. Perhaps the objects do not drive the stated mission of the museum, but they often drive the work of the curators and general staff of the museums. Often, exhibitions or programs are designed because the museum staff has great pride in a particular item in the collection that they want to showcase to the public.

I did appreciate in this article the discussion of wall text. Last year, I worked to design an exhibition at Bryn Mawr. The majority of time spent in this class was writing and editing wall texts. I agree with this article that reading ideas on a wall is not as exciting as visually understanding concepts through object interaction, as an “object wall” facilitates (Schiavo 51). In my class, I was often the only one arguing for little (or no) wall text. I think that usually it is the case that those who love the research surrounding the objects assume that putting that research on the wall is best. They do not believe that without the “lengthy labels with didactic lessons” there is actually more room for meaning making. I think the audience is there at the museum for the objects, not really for the lengthy content. They can get that anywhere now with technology. The objects are what make the museum special. We are visual creatures who would rather be shown something than told it.

Haha Cultural Appropriation is still not okay?

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In Of angels, doves and oral history by Erin Bernard, he says, “How can we grapple with our own aesthetic intentions and the needs of our community relations?” Which made me think about a conversation I had about the relationship between artists and cultural appropriation, which was prompted by the picture below.

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The person I was having the conversation with was struggling with the idea of cultural appropriation being a bad thing in the context of art. She thought it was a shame that there were so many beautiful things in the world that artists should be able to use. She asked if an artist donated money to a cause relevant to what that artist was interested in, would it then be appropriate to appropriate their culture? My own personal belief is that the idea that the artist’s desire for a certain aesthetic over the legitimization that objects and symbols in culture have more value and importance than an outsider may know, comes from a misunderstanding of power and privilege. Which leads me to these pictures:

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The first one is Tyra Banks from an America’s Next Top Model photo shoot, and the next is from a photo shoot that Kylie Jenner did for a magazine. Why they thought these photos would be appropriate, I don’t know. And though I doubt Kylie and Tyra were trying to make art that would for the purpose of preserving public history, I think this is a gross reminder that as artists entering somebody else’s community, there can be serious damage done if there is no care to do the art ethically and with respect and understanding. I believe Hayden talks about acknowledging power and structural inequality, but I believe the methods he speaks of, like body memory, can sometimes be used in questionable ways. Added with Schiavo’s idea of how to make meaning in museums, a lot of things could happen.

I had difficulties adding pictures to this post, so I had a friend help me out. After seeing the second picture of Kylie, she told me about a museum that she went to where one of the special exhibits they hosted was about disability. In order to see the exhibit, you had to be in a wheelchair. There were a lot of winding paths to take, and the idea was you would see how hard it was to be in a wheelchair. But, my friend pointed out, will that experience really show you how it’s like to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life? Does sleeping outside for one night show you what it’s like to be homeless? (Tyra said she was inspired to do her photo shoot after she spent one night outside to see what it was like to be homeless. She says she now really understands.) However it is possible that experiences like these create more awareness, which is desirable. But is it worth it?

A quote from Hayden, “Citizens surveyed about history will often speak disparagingly of memorized dates, great men, “boring stuff from school” disconnected from their own lives, families, neighborhoods, and work.”, pg 45-46. Which made me write in the margins, “Is history that doesn’t serve to help people understand their own lives and lived experiences worthless?” Which brings us back to the question, who are we making history for? Is it for the people who are able to walk around exhibits and need to “experience” “oppression” in order to learn, or is if for the people who already know what that oppression feels like?

I’m pretty sure Hayden and Bernard would agree with me, so I don’t really know who I’m arguing against. But here we are.