From the Field: First Person Festival’s Depression-era Stories

Anne Burnett, Program Director at Historic Germantown, shares her reflections on a recent HPP field trip.

On Wednesday, November 4^th, I joined a group of museum professionals as HPP’s guests at the 8^th Annual First Person Arts Festival, held at the Painted Bride Art Center. The focus of the evening’s festivities, the first Festival events I’d attended, was billed as a combination of history, storytelling, song and food; or put another way, an evening that’s both entertaining and delicious—What’s not to like?

Upon arrival at the Painted Bride, our group was ushered into a corner gallery space in the Center, transformed through the creative use of lighting, music, and documentary images projected on the wall, into a Depression-era Speakeasy, featuring tasty hors d’oeuvres and some very brightly-colored gin drinks. From there, we moved to a small meeting space to talk with Festival Director Vicki Solot about how the focus of Depression-era stories came into being from their HPP-funded Discovery Grant. We heard from historian and faculty member at The New School Julia Foulkes as well, as she shared more about the ways in which the project set out to weave art and history together.

We headed next to a dining area where Jack’s Firehouse staff served up an incredible buffet of traditional regional cuisine in a family-style setting. I tried it all, even the booya – a mysterious stew-like dish that smelled delicious. Author Pat Willard’s fascinating talk during dinner,—in which the secrets of making booya and other regional culinary dishes were revealed,—was one of the real highlights of the evening for me. Pat shared her experiences in researching the work of WPA writers assigned to document America’s culinary heritage, for her book America Eats!. I gained a whole new appreciation for the thinking that went into this WPA project: here were writers setting out to document not so much a list of ingredients, or recipes, but the people and stories behind them. Pat’s own stories, collected while retracing the travels of those writers, added a wonderful dimension to the program, carrying America Eats! full circle. Rarely do I leave a book talk and signing without a copy in my bag, and this evening was no exception.

The final program of our evening , “Songs for Any Depression,” highlighted the Depression era’s musical legacy. In their informal introductory discussion, scholars/authors Julia Foulkes and Morris Dickstein did a wonderful job setting the stage for the musical performances that followed, placing the spoken word pieces, musicians and songs in historical and cultural context. For me, the size of the theater made for a very special, intimate experience as Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter Sarah Lee Guthrie and her husband Johnny Irion performed some of Woody’s and their own songs next, followed by equally inspiring sets by Kim and Reggie Harris. [To view these performances, see post below.] It seemed only fitting that the voice of folk music on my radio for so many years now, Gene Shay, would host this portion of the festival.

Overall, I was struck by the creative ways in which the Festival was able to mine the richness of material recorded and documented by the WPA, offering a choice sampling of the many, many personal stories that connect with all of us in some way, as we navigate through similar hard times today.

From the Field: First Person Festival’s "Songs for Any Depression"

Woody Guthrie, an icon of folk music who lived through the Great Depression, came to life through his granddaughter's performance of one of his songs, "Worried Man Blues." This performance was part of the First Person Festival's "Songs for Any Depression."

Philadelphia's own storytellers and folk duo Kim and Reggie Harris also performed at the Festival.

Any Depression."

Reports From the Field: "Germantown Works" Update

David Young, Executive Director of Cliveden of the National Trust, has agreed to share more about his HPP-funded grant.

With funding from the Heritage Philadelphia Program, Historic Germantown Preserved, a consortium of 15 historic sites in one Philadelphia neighborhood, has launched a program initiative to forge new partnerships in the community. The effort, Germantown Works, implements marketing and community engagement strategies first articulated in a year-plus planning process that outlined ways to address the sustainability of small historic sites and house museums.

The initiative is meant to address three “live issues”:

• Germantown as a community at risk with over a quarter of its 46,000 residents living at or below the poverty line;
• Historic sites are struggling to be economically sustainable all over the nation; and
• Engaging new audiences in the work of historic sites and small museums is critical to ensuring their viability.

Strategies
Germantown Works uses several strategies to meet these issues. First, coordinated programs on the common theme of “An Industrious Heritage building Commerce and Culture,” are bringing the sites—known largely for connections to colonial, revolutionary, and Victorian history—into greater relevance in the community.

To implement these goals, each site offers programs on the coordinated theme throughout the calendar year showing how each site interpreted programs relating to “work.” This includes farm programs at Wyck and Grumblethorpe and a victory garden run by the World War II-era, ACES Museum. Cliveden has produced a “Careers in Culture” program to have high school students learn about work at the historic site while also learning about resume-writing and interviewing skills. The video below is an example of one of the projects the students dreamed up from their research into Cliveden history.

A second strategy has involved more recent history, with public events exploring little-known 20^th century topics, like the Harlem Renaissance in Germantown and the events of the Civil Rights era. Coverage of one of the conversations with some of the participants can be seen here.

The third strategy has involved live partnerships with Temple University and Germantown High School to introduce young people into history projects that benefit the sites of the consortium. Temple’s American Studies and Public History classes have sent students to Germantown for discussions with sites’ staffs about the work we do, and student projects explore the students’ responses to the issues we face—most the projects will be uploaded to the consortium’s website. This aspect is meant to provide training opportunities for young people in the work of historic sites, through exposure to archival, archaeological, and oral history projects.

Germantown High School students from journalism and history classes have engaged long-time Germantown residents in small-group conversations in historic churches. Each conversation has been videotaped for use on the website.

These conversations, a partnership with area churches called Germantown Speaks, has been very compelling. Fourteen students have been trained in interviewing techniques and developed a set of questions about daily life in the recent past. Students have learned where the dances, concerts, and movie houses were, and how life at the high school was different in the 1930s through the 1960s. Residents have brought their own pictures to scan—and one even brought a lobby sign from an old movie house to stir some memories.

Common Threads
Two common threads have emerged. The conversations have addressed difficult issues in forthright ways. Students have learned about the segregation present in the community, where the tough neighborhoods were, and how the community has coped with violence and racism in telling detail. One interview session involved all women, and each of the women (two of whom brought their daughters) was eager to share a sense of their own journey in life with stories of accomplishment and milestones along the way.

Another common thread was that at some point in each of the four conversations, the student interviewers became the subjects of questions by the seniors. “What are your goals?” “When you are interviewed 40 years from now, how will you characterize your neighborhood?” The senior citizens were as eager to learn about the students’ lives and their sense of place as the students were about the seniors.

The students have commented that “the history was a lot more interesting than they realized” (a real compliment from a teenager!). And they have been surprised at how much the community had similar “live issues” way back when. The result has been that we have all left these conversations a slightly closer community—it is clear, even with so many difficult issues, that people really love Germantown.

And when the 15 historic sites of the community can be seen as relevant and as an advocate for our historic neighborhood and its shared history, then Germantown Works can be considered a success.

In Gratitude

During this season of reflecting on the many things that we are thankful for, HPP has been thinking about what we are grateful for in our professional lives. There are so many things that have made our jobs as history professionals much easier—books, websites, colleagues, projects that have inspired us over the years. (Click on "comments" below to see what HPP staff is grateful for.)

We'd love to hear what you're thankful for, too! What feeds your creativity in the workplace? Where (or to whom) do you look for inspiration? What helps you to do your job better or helps you regain focus when you need it?

Please reply by clicking on the "comments" link and let us know what you're grateful for. We (and your fellow history professionals) would certainly be thankful if you shared!

Performance Review: "Fatebook"

On September 16, HPP took a group of constituents to see FATEBOOK, a Philly Live Arts Festival performance written and directed by Whit McLaughlin of New Paradise Laboratories. The performance experimented with audience and new technology, exploring "what happens when our online relationships collide with our physical ones."

The show's 13 main characters had both a personal and online presence (on Facebook and Twitter); audience members were encouraged to "friend" the characters before seeing the show in order to get to know them better. At the actual show, the FATEBOOK website states:

...[A]udiences experience FATEBOOK by trailing individual characters at will. The action plays out within a labyrinth of screens displaying the shifting cityscapes and intimate spaces in which the characters live. Twelve projectors and 4 live video feeds blur the line between the digital environment and the physical one; performers seem to step in and out of a virtual world filled with pleasure and peril. Thirteen individual stories weave into one looping, shifting world; FATEBOOK allows you to follow the story from the varying perspectives and characters, until a final retelling smashes all expectations.

Click on "comments" below to read some attendees' reflections on the show itself and the application of it to their professional lives.

If you saw the show, please feel free to also submit comments. We'd love to know your thoughts!

Report from the Field: Oakland Museum of California, PART 2

Kathleen McLean, the consulting Creative Director on the Oakland Museum of California History Gallery, is a guest blogger for HPP for this week and last. She can be reached at www.ind-x.org.

Throughout the process of planning, designing, and installing Coming to California, the new Gallery of California History at the Oakland Museum of California, the museum has been committed to testing and prototyping as many exhibit elements as possible, from individual labels and images, to whole sections of the gallery. Cardboard has become one of our major design tools (see photos below), as we erect walls and rooms full-scale in the space, and test exhibit concepts with visitors.

This practice of prototyping, combined with the tight deadline and budget, and a commitment to community co-design, required us to think very differently about the overall exhibition development process. I knew that the typical linear process, which is based on an architecture/engineering model—first conceptual design, then final design, then construction documents, then fabrication and installation—would not work for this project for a number of reasons.

First of all, we didn't really have the budget for it. (What was originally perceived as a serious constraint—not enough money to do a high-quality job—became a creative challenge and liberating factor for the project.) Instead of using external design and fabrication firms, we are using that money to hire local artisans, designers, and fabricators. By bringing the work in-house, we have created a design/build situation, where the people designing the exhibits and the people making the exhibits are, if not the same people, then at least in constant communication, lessening the need for expensive and detailed construction documents. We made a commitment to hire locally, which, besides making communications easier, also reduces our carbon footprint. And, serendipitously, we now are a team of Californians creating a gallery about California.

Also because of budget constraints, we decided to reuse furniture and display elements from the old gallery. Not only is this a great example of sustainable reuse, it also provides a continuity of character and some lingering personality from the previous environment (something sorely missing these days as old exhibitions are swept out the back door like debris, while new exhibitions made of all new resources drop in from who knows where.)

In order to accommodate community participation, exhibit element reuse, and prototyping of concepts and designs, our process is anything but linear. Some elements have been built, while others are still in design, and some are still in concept. Rather than having to finish all the elements at once, regardless of how well thought out they are, we are holding off on the elements that still haven't jelled. And this will hopefully make for a richer overall visitor experience.

While some museums employ the approach of remedial summative evaluation—testing an exhibition with visitors after opening, and "fixing" the exhibition as a result of visitor research—this project takes the practice a step further. Rather than "finishing" everything before opening, and then improving or replacing elements that are not working (either conceptually or physically), we plan to leave some key elements in prototype form for the opening, with a message to visitors describing how they can help us complete the installation.

The details of this notion of a prototype history gallery are still in flux, as we try to determine which elements need to be more robust and complete upon opening, and which can remain more flexible, like labels made of paper, or easily changeable section titles projected onto exhibit walls. While we are still trying to figure out how much of the exhibitry is flexible and changeable, once the new gallery opens in 2010, it will not be considered "completed" or "permanent." Rather, it will be a full-scale 30,000 square foot prototype public space, awaiting the imprints and changes that visitors bring with them over time.


I would like to thank Oakland Museum of California Executive Director Lori Fogarty, and Chief Curator of History Louise Pubols for their assistance in writing this article.

Report from the Field: OMC Slideshow, PART 2

Gold rush tent store ready for prototyping

Paper cut-outs stand in for objects

Paper mockup of a wall layout

Rough mockup of the back of a pickup truck

Sketching out the Depression truck

Exhibit sections get prototyped in full scale

Photos courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California,
© Photographer Terry Carroll

Report from the Field: Oakland Museum of California

Kathleen McLean, the consulting Creative Director on the Oakland Museum of California History Gallery, will be a guest blogger for HPP for this week and next. She can be reached at www.ind-x.org.

Hello from California! This is just a note about some of the exciting work going on at the Oakland Museum of California. In the midst of renovating its public spaces and three galleries of art, history, and natural sciences, the museum is experimenting with different ways to incorporate community participation, prototype exhibit elements and galleries, and test the assumptions we all have about some of the "best practices" in the field.

While none of these experiments employs completely out-of-the-box techniques (such as the no-light environment of Dialogue in the Dark, or the water-filled gallery in Klima X), they do challenge long-held assumptions about curatorial and design authority, the exhibition development process, and the amount of money required to create exciting and compelling exhibitions.

This is about new approaches to history exhibition development and focuses on the current process of planning, designing, and installing the new Gallery of California History. The original gallery, which opened to the public in 1969, was conceived by Chief Curator L. Thomas Frye and designed by Gordon Ashby, who had worked with Charles and Ray Eames before setting up his own firm. The gallery installation became internationally known for its innovative new approach to the display of history materials: objects were taken out from under glass vitrines and displayed in aesthetic arrangements on beautifully constructed furniture, with a minimum of curatorial voice and didactic text.

The intention was that quotes and images, combined with an extraordinary density of objects, would encourage visitors to make their own meanings from the groupings of things on display. But the gallery had remained relatively unchanged for 40 years, with the exception of an addition in the 1980s of a section on contemporary California. Even though it still looked pretty good, and some visitors still loved it, it was getting a little worn around the edges. And the field had learned a lot about visitor needs and engagement since then. The museum was ready for a new gallery, one that hopefully built upon the successes of the past.

I joined the redesign project in the middle of design development. Staff had been working on the content program for at least five years. The design firm, selected and contracted through a rigorous RFP process, was at about 80% completion of design development. For many reasons, the exhibit design was leading the content development, and some staff were worried that the gallery would not "hold together" for visitors. I was brought in by Executive Director Lori Fogarty to develop a visitor experience narrative that would lead the design going forward.

Because the budget for the new gallery was modest—about $233 per square foot—the design firm was developing "the type of installation the museum could afford": primarily walls of text and graphics, some collection objects displayed in cases, and a modest use of media. The more we focused on the visitor experience—what visitors would actually do as well as see in the gallery, the more we realized that the proposed design afforded little more than looking and reading.

We decided to "start over" in a sense—to go back to the drawing board and experiment with ways to improve the visitor experience, incorporate more visitor interactivity and participation throughout, and provide more opportunities for visitors to contribute their own content and voices to the story of California. That was two and a half years ago. It is now nine months until opening, and we are totally immersed simultaneously in design, prototyping, fabrication, installation, and working with a variety of community groups and individuals to co-design elements of the new gallery (see photos below).

One of the first things we did was to rethink the Native Californian section at the beginning of the gallery. The proposed designs contained a section on "First Peoples," presenting the traditional anthropological approach to Native people: describing the ceremonies and tools of hunters and gatherers of a bygone era. When the visitor experience core team began meeting with the museum's Native Advisory Council, we had a number of epiphanies.

One advisor mentioned to me at a coffee break that "We are NOT the 'first people.' The first people were the rocks and the animals and the trees." Native people were, he told me, the second and third people. I asked the advisors what they called that pre-contact time period, and they replied, "before the other people came," which is now the name of that first section of the gallery. Soon afterwards, Native artists and videographers joined the exhibit team, and they are leading the development of content and imagery for that section.

Rather than trying to tell all the Native Californian stories at the beginning of the gallery, which is laid out chronologically, Native stories are incorporated throughout the gallery. "After all, we are still here," they remind us. Perhaps what is most significant, the stories are not all about artistic traditions and living in tune with nature. California history is rife with horrific stories of Native genocide and slavery, and the museum has not shied away from including these in the narrative of this place.

In another section of the gallery, currently called "Forces of Change" which deals with the period from 1960 to 1975, we are taking a slightly different approach to the notion of community co-design. Because this was a truly iconic and intense time in California, and because it contains so many different and powerful stories, early conceptual development was extremely difficult. What should we include and what should we leave out? We started by combining several sections from the previous exhibition plan, and realized there was no way we could jam all of the ideas we had identified into the available space. Dozens of design concepts ended in the recycling bin, as we struggled to distill the content.

We finally thought we had an elegant solution: one dramatically lit iconic object from each of over a dozen different identity movements and political groups. We drew it up and wrote it up and presented it to the museum's Latino, African American, Asian-Pacific, and Teacher's Advisory Councils for their review and comment. "Hmmmm . . ." they all said. "This is elegant and dramatic, but it doesn't accurately depict the chaotic and diverse spirit of the times." So it was back to the drawing board. Ultimately, the passion and eloquence of Advisory Council members, many of whom had lived through those times themselves, helped us realize that this was the perfect opportunity to experiment with another community co-design element.

We identified 24 people from across California who lived through the 60s and early 70s, and invited them to design and create small niche displays depicting their personal experiences and memories of that time. They attended several workshops with us to explore potential design ideas and installation constraints. We're currently in the process of mocking up each niche with its creator, and experimenting with different ways to visually convey their stories. And we continue to struggle with trying to provide support and assistance without controlling their design process.

I would like to thank Oakland Museum of California Executive Director Lori Fogarty, and Chief Curator of History Louise Pubols for their assistance in writing this article.

Next week, Kathy's post will describe the prototyping, decision, and development process she and the Oakland Museum staff are using in their design process.

Report from the Field: OMC Slideshow

An iteration of June Lee's 1960s "Forces of Change" niche

Cardboard mockup of a '60s niche

Chief Curator Louise Pubols planning in the gallery

Chief Preparator Steve Briscoe planning the installation

Multiple stages of design and construction

Wood prototype of Native Californian exhibit

Designer Gordon Chun testing out a sit-in pipe

A wood mockup with paint swatches lets visitors in on the design process

Photos courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California,

© Photographer Terry Carroll

HPP Announces a New Website

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and Heritage Philadelphia Program are proud to announce our new website: www.pcah.us/heritage. With a cleaner design that easily links to the Center's other initiatives, we hope you find it helpful and easier to use.

If you have not yet seen them, our new guidelines and applications are posted there as well. Please take note of this year's deadlines listed in the guidelines.

Check back for updated events and news. And don't forget to change your bookmarks!

Review: The Underground Tour, Seattle

I would also highly recommend The Underground Tour to anyone visiting this city. There is so much wonderful (and corrupt and bawdy) history in this town buried below the surface; the Underground Tour unearths it all, though…

In 1889, Seattle had an enormous fire (which started when a carpenter’s assistant over-boiled the glue so that it overflowed onto the fire) that devastated the entire 30-block metropolis. The townspeople decided it was a wonderful excuse to rebuild the city (already chock full of logistical problems, such as outhouses located in the tidal plains—which overflowed twice daily with the tides). And their hearts were in the right place, but they certainly went about the rebuilding in a backwards way.

All the new buildings were constructed directly on top of the burned buildings, and the streets were then raised 15 feet to the height of the new buildings (yes, in that order); the sidewalks were last on the list of repairs, so ladders were used to climb down from the street to the buildings for quite some time. This new construction left chambers and tunnels beneath the city where the less-than-savory business interactions took place (gambling, prostitution, whiskey distribution to the Speakeasies (run by the Seattle police, of course), etc.). The tour is a fascinating one and the guides do a wonderful job of keeping the tourists amused with the jokes and unsavory innuendos sprinkled throughout the tour.

The tour was established by William Speidel, an historian and preservationist who revealed the history of Seattle in his book Sons of Profits (a book that immediately hit the city’s banned books list and remains there to this day). In 1962, he was responsible for instigating the campaign for the preservation of Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle because the city wanted to level its oldest neighborhood to build condominiums. He successfully saved the district and subsequently created one of the first National Historic Registered Districts in the country while also saving the country’s largest collection of Victorian-Romanesque buildings. That campaign led to the development of Speidel’s Underground Tour in 1965, which takes place in Pioneer Square.

Mary Gen Davies loves being Program Associate at the Heritage Philadelphia Program, but she is seriously considering moving to the Pacific Northwest.

Museum Review: Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle

Should you ever visit Seattle (or be lucky enough to live there), please promise me this: you will go see the Wing Luke Asian Museum. Never mind the Space Needle and the original Starbucks coffee shop, THIS is where the city’s incredible history resides.

The Wing Luke is the only museum in the US dedicated to telling the stories of the Asian Pacific American experience, and they tell these stories profoundly, portraying the people’s experiences in the beauty and simplicity these very cultures embody. The permanent exhibit “Honoring Our Journey,” covers all aspects of the Asian Pacific American experience from harrowing journeys to discrimination upon arrival and the strong community bonds that held them together through it all. At its inception in 1967, the museum was strictly dedicated to Asian folk art, but later expanded its mission; the museum now explores both civil rights and social justice issues while continuing to focus on contemporary art.

The Wing Luke is also a recent Smithsonian affiliate, the first in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2008, when the Wing Luke moved into its current home—the East Yong Kick Building—in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, preservation was high on the list of priorities. Much of the wood in the galleries and comprising the main staircase are original from when it was built in 1910. They also preserved the adjoining hotel and grocery store and now offer guided tours.

Should you go to this museum, do your best to schedule enough time to go on this “Hotel Experience” tour (included with the regular $12.95 price of admission). It’s a Pacific Northwest version of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in NYC, refurbished and interpreted just as simply and profoundly as its New York sibling.

There was minimal use of technology, and when it was used, it fit seamlessly into the hotel’s bare-bones rooms. For instance, below is a video taken in the “kitchen” of the hotel where the visitors were able to hear and see what those early 20^th century Asian immigrants might have been cooking. (Look carefully at the end of the 25-second clip to see a chicken foot in the wok.)

If you’re unable to make it to the West Coast anytime soon, you can also check out this 7.5 minute video about the Wing Luke:

Mary Gen Davies loves being Program Associate at the Heritage Philadelphia Program, but she is seriously considering moving to the Pacific Northwest.

VSA Fall Regional Workshops in Philly

The Visitor Studies Association is hosting two workshops in Philadelphia this fall. Their announcement follows:

Are you an informal educator looking to measure the impact of your work? Do you need data to show how your program is making a difference? The Visitor Studies Association (VSA) invites members and non-members to participate in one or two introductory workshops on evaluation and/or developing a logic model. These workshops are part of VSA’s regional workshop series. Sign up for one or both. They will be held at The Franklin Institute on November 16th. Multiple attendees from a single institution receive discounted registration fees. Practitioners as well as evaluators are welcome! For more information, visit the website.

Evaluation 101, November 16, 2009, 9am -12pm
Presenters: Saul Rockman and Jennifer Borland
This workshops offers practitioners as well as evaluators an introduction to the range of issues and approaches to formative and summative evaluation. The workshop is based on the content of an existing, freely-available and accessible website focused on evaluation in informal settings. Participants explore components of evaluation strategies and review labs on the site that are available for post-workshop reference.

Logic Model Workshop, November 16, 2009, 1-4pm
Presenter: Joe E. Heimlich
This workshop introduces techniques useful in facilitating diverse stakeholder groups through the development of a logic model. Using a thought-provoking, practical, and fun format, the workshop leader facilitates participation in a Mock Logic Development Stakeholder Meeting. Interspersed “sidebar discussions” allow reflection on the group process. Workshop content includes introduction of relevant theory, research findings, and lessons learned from experience. Knowledge about facilitating stakeholder groups is enhanced by exploration of concepts like granulation, flow, linking, clustering, forks in the road, identifying audiences, and “hot spots.”