History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
Spring 2013
Herter 640
Wednesdays 1:25-3:55
D. Glassberg
Herter 608, 545-1330
glassberg@history.umass.edu
Students in this course will use their research and writing skills to develop exhibits, tours, and
public programming in museums and historic sites. The first half of the course will introduce
some of the issues involved in working with objects and landscapes; the second half will
consist of field projects in which students help develop an interpretive program or exhibit at a
nearby historical institution.
Books on Reserve at the Du Bois Library and available for purchase at Amherst Books, 8 Main
Street, Amherst
G. Anderson, ed. Reinventing the Museum
N. Simon, The Participatory Museum (also available on line)
J. Diamond, Practical Evaluation Guide: Tools for Museums and Other Informal
Educational Settings
B. Serrell, Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach
B. Levy, S. Lloyd, S. Schreiber, Great Tours! Thematic Tours and Guide Training for
Historic Sites
Additional readings will be available on the Moodle site. Useful journals this semester, in
addition to the conventional historical ones, include
Museum 2.0 Blog
Visitor Studies (e-journal)
Museum News (AM1 .A55--complete run at MHC & Forbes Library, Northampton)
History News (E172. A533)
Curator (QH70 .C8)
Winterthur Portfolio (N9. W52)
Public Historian (HN1 .P8)
Journal of American History (for exhibit reviews)
Technology and Culture (T1. T27)
Museum and Society (ejournal)
Field Projects:
Students will be working in teams of two or three, developing an interpretive project for a
nearby historical institution. By the second week of class, you will be asked to rank your
preference among the projects below:
1) The Samuel Harrison House, Pittsfield, MA
This summer the home of Samuel Harrison, a prominent African American who lived in
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History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
Pittsfield in the 19th century, will open to the public after an extensive restoration. Last
fall a team of UMass Public History students met with the Samuel Harrison Society to
propose an interpretive plan for the house, and this spring a team will implement one of
the recommendations, most likely an exhibit on Harrison’s civil rights activism for one of
the rooms on the first floor. It is possible that a second team this semester will work on
implementing another aspect of the interpretive plan.
2) Disability History Project, Whitensville, MA
The UMass Public History Program has proposed to Alternatives Unlimited, an agency
serving people with disabilities throughout central Massachusetts, a multi-faceted
history project for their headquarters in a restored 1820s mill in Whitenville, MA. If the
project is a go, a team of students will begin research that integrates the history of the
mill with the history of people with disabilities in town to produce a Resource Study that
will be the basis for future interpretive products such as a video, museum exhibit, and
walking tour. Alternatively, the team might produce a temporary exhibit of a more
general nature on the history of veterans and disability using on-line resources of the
Disability History Museum (www.disabilitymuseum.org)
3) Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, MA
The Springfield Armory has approached the Public History Program in anticipation of
launching a total make-over of interpretation at the site. Developing such a
comprehensive interpretive plan is beyond the scope of what a team of 2-3 students can
accomplish in a semester, but we hope to do this in a future project that would engage
an entire class. Just last week, the Armory announced that it would be hosting a
temporary exhibit developed in Britain on illegal firearms and gun control, and it might
be possible for a team of students this semester to work on local public programming to
accompany the exhibit (we will find out more about this before committing students to
it).
4) Historic Deerfield, Deerfield: “Biographies in Space” (need to retitle this!)
Historic Deerfield would like to develop tour materials that would follow several
individual lives through the spaces in town where they lived and worked (and were
buried). Still to be determined is how many of these biographies students will do,
whether or not one or more of them will be targeted to children, and the particular form
that the tour materials will take. Most likely is a pdf document that can be downloaded
from the Historic Deerfield website by visitors before they get to town, though a
handheld application might also be possible.
5) Historic Deerfield Folk Art Project--TBA
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History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
Schedule of Topics/Readings:
1/23: Introduction: What is Interpretation?
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951), pp. 119-22.
R. Hill, “The Indian in the Cabinet of Curiosities,” Native Americas (Winter 1995): 58-61.
USNPS, Fundamentals of Interpretation (2007)
David Larson, ed., Meaningful Interpretation: How to Connect Hearts and Minds to
Places, Objects, and Other Resources (2003) See especially “The Interpretive
Process Model”
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/eastern/meaningful_interpretation/index
.htm
Freeman Tilden, "Principles of Interpretation," in Interpreting Our Heritage, pp. 3-10.
1/30
The Institutional Setting: What is a Museum/Historic Site? (Museum History &
Theory)
G. Anderson, Reinventing the Museum (2012), “A Framework: Reinventing the
Museum,” and chapters 1-15.
R. Mason, “Cultural Theory and Museum Studies,” in S. Macdonald, ed. A Companion
to Museum Studies (2006), pp. 17-32. (available on line)
B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Exhibitionary Complexes,” in Karp, Kratz, Szwaja, & YbarraFrausto, eds. Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations (2006),
pp. 36-45.
T. Bennett, “Exhibition, Difference, and the Logic of Culture,” in Karp, Kratz, Szwaja, &
Ybarra-Frausto, eds. Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations
(2006), pp. 46-69.
C. Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History: The Chicago Historical Society and the
Transformation of an American Museum
G. Kulick, "Designing the Past: History Museum Exhibitions from Peale to the Present,"
in W. Leon & R. Rosenzweig, eds. History Museums in the U.S: A Critical
Assessment (1989), pp. 2-37.
N. Harris, "Museums, Merchandising, and Popular Taste," in I. Quimby, ed. Material
Culture and the Study of American Life, pp. 140-74.
M. Wallace, "Visiting the Past: History Museums in the U.S.," in S. Benson, S. Brier, &
R. Rosenzweig, eds. Presenting the Past, pp. 137-61; orig. published in Radical
History Review 25 (1981): 63-96.
C. Duncan, “Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship,” in I. Karp & S. Lavine, eds.
Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, pp. 88-103.
L. Jordanova, “Objects of Knowledge: A Historical Perspective on Museums,” in
P. Vergo, ed. The New Museology, pp. 22-40.
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History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
2/6
AT HISTORIC DEERFIELD: The Institutional Setting in Action
S. Chamberlain & H. Flynt, “Prologue,” Historic Deerfield, Houses & Interiors (1952), p.1
Historic Deerfield, Inc., “Mission Statements,” 1952 and 1992.
B. Greenfield, “Highboys and High Culture: Adapting an American Aesthetic in
Deerfield, MA,” in Out of the Attic: Inventing Antiques in 20th Century New England
(2009), pp. 131-66.
2/13
AT JOSEPH SKINNER MUSEUM, SOUTH HADLEY Interpreting Objects and
Collections (Aaron Miller, Skinner Museum, South Hadley)
Besides seeing the collection, we will practice analyzing artifacts and writing
labels
E. Fleming, "Artifact Analysis,” in T. Schlereth, ed. Material Culture Studies in America.
S. Pearce, “Museum Objects,” I. Hodder, “Contextual Analysis of Symbolic Meanings,”
S. Pearce, “Objects as Meaning,” and S. Pearce, “Thinking About Things,” in S.
Pearce, ed. Interpreting Objects and Collections, pp. 9-12, 19-29, 125-32.
(available on line)
S. Paris and M. Mercer, “Finding Self in Objects: Identity Exploration in Museums,” in
Learning Conversations in Museums, ed. G. Leinhardt, K. Crowley, K. Knutson
(2002), pp. 401-23.
J. Windsor, “Identity Parades,” in J. Elsner & R. Cardinal, eds. The Cultures of
Collecting (1994), pp. 49-67
A. Martin & J. Garrison, “Shaping the Field: The Multidisciplinary Perspectives of
Material Culture,” in Martin and Garrison, eds. American Material Culture: The
Shape of the Field (1997), pp. 1-20.
M. Csikszentmihalyi & E. Rochberg-Halton, "What Things are For," and "The Most
Cherished Objects in the Home," in The Meaning of Things, pp. 20-89.
T. Gordon, Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life
B. Carson & C. Carson, "Things Unspoken: Learning Social History From Artifacts," in J.
Gardner & G. Adams, ed. Ordinary People and Everyday Life (1983), pp.
181-203.
K. Moore, “Stones Can Speak and Objects Sing,” in Moore, Museums and Popular
Culture (1997), pp. 52-72.
J. Prown, "Style as Evidence," Winterthur Portfolio (1980): 197-210.
P. Zimmerman, "Workmanship as Evidence," Winterthur Portfolio (1981), pp. 283-307.
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History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
D. Washburn, “Doll Play and Real Life in American Culture, 1900-1980,” in American
Material Culture: The Shape of the Field ed. A. Martin & J.Garrison (1997), pp.
105-34.
J. Baudrillard, “The Systems of Collecting ” and J. Windsor, “Identity Parades,” in J.
Elsner & R. Cardinal, eds. The Cultures of Collecting (1994), pp. 7-24, 49-67.
B. Danet & T. Katriel, “No Two Alike: Play and Aesthetics in Collecting,” R. Belk & M.
Wallendorf, “Of Mice and Men: Gender and Identity in Collecting,” and R. Belk,
“Collectors and Collecting,” in S. Pearce, ed. Interpreting Objects and
Collections, pp. 220-53, 317-26
2/20
Visitor Studies and Evaluation
J. Diamond, Practical Evaluation Guide: Tools for Museums and Other Informal
Educational Settings
G. Anderson, Reinventing the Museum, ch. 25-26.
J. Falk & L. Dierking, Learning From Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of
Meaning (2000)
R. Korn, “Visitor Studies and History,” Mosaic: Newsletter of the Center on HistoryMaking in America 1 (Spring/Summer 1992): 10-11.
V. Beer, "Great Expectations: Do Museums Know What Visitors are Doing?" Curator 30
(1987): 206-15.
D.G. Hayward & A. Jensen, “Enhancing a Sense of the Past: Perception of Visitors and
Interpreters,” The Interpreter 12 (October 1981): 4-12.
D.G. Hayward & J.W. Larkin, "Evaluating Visitor Experiences and Exhibit Effectiveness
at Old Sturbridge Village," Museum Studies Journal 1 (Fall 1983): 42-51.
C. Perrin, “The Communicative Circle: Museums as Communities,” in Museums and
Communities, pp. 182-220.
P. McManus, "Oh, Yes, They Do: How Museum Visitors Read Labels and Interact With
Exhibit Texts," Curator 32 (1989): 174-89.
N. Merriman, “Museum Visiting as a Cultural Phenomenon,” in P. Vergo, ed. The New
Museology, pp. 149-171.
http://www.nps.gov/hfc/pdf/imi/visitor-use-and-eval.pdf
2/27: Using Interpretive Media: Exhibit Design
B. Serrell, Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach
G. Anderson, Reinventing the Museum, ch.
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History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
J. Tchen, “Creating a Dialogic Museum: The Chinatown History Museum Experiment,”
in I. Karp, et al, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture,
pp. 285-326.
B. Smith, “A Woman’s Audience: A Case Study of Applied Feminist Theories,” in A.
Levin, ed. Gender, Sexuality, and Museums (2010), pp. 65-70.
K. Ames, B. Branco, L.T. Frye, eds. Ideas and Images: Developing Interpretive History
Exhibits (1992)
R. Rosenzweig & W. Leon, eds. History Museums in the U.S. (1989)
M. Ettema, "History Museums and the Culture of Materialism," and W. Leon, "A Broader
Vision: Exhibits That Change the Way Visitors Look at the Past," in J. Blatti, Past
Meets Present (1990), pp. 62-85, 133-52.
S. Lubar, “Exhibiting Memories,” in A. Henderson & A. Kaeppler, eds. Exhibiting
Dilemmas:Issues of Representation at the Smithsonian (1997), pp. 15-27.
S. Greenblatt, "Resonance and Wonder," in I. Karp & S. Lavine, eds., Exhibiting
Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (1991), pp. 42-56.
3/6:
Using Interpretive Media: Tours, Markers, and the Power of Place (Cynthia
Dickinson, Emily Dickinson Museum)
Dickinson Museum Visitor Studies Assignment due today
B. Levy, S. Lloyd, S. Schreiber, Great Tours! Thematic Tours and Guide Training for
Historic Sites
P. Longsworth & G. Farmer, “When Love First Began: The Private World of the
Evergreens, Amherst, Massachusetts,” Nineteenth Century (Spring 2001)
J. Donnelly, Interpreting Historic House Museums
M. Potteiger & J. Purinton, “Openings,” in Landscape Narratives: Design Practices for
Telling Stories (1998)
D. Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (1995)
L. Lippard, “Sniper’s Nest: Anti-Amnesia,” Z Magazine 5 (December 1992): 63-6.
P. Potter & M. Leone, “Establishing the Roots of Historical Consciousness in
Annapolis,” in Museums and Communities, pp. 476-505.
G. Dubrow, “Claiming Public Space for Women’s History in Boston: A Proposal for
Preservation, Public Art, and Public Historical Interpretation,” Frontiers 13 (1992):
111-48.
M. Bowman, “Performing Southern History for the Tourist Gaze: Antebellum Home Tour
Guide Performances,” in Exceptional Spaces: Essays in Performance and
History ed. D. Pollock (1998), p. 142-58.
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History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
3/13
Using Interpretive Media: Social Media and Visitor Engagement
N. Simon, The Participatory Museum (2010)
L. Tallon & K. Walker, eds. Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience (2008)
3/20
SPRING BREAK
3/27
Using Interpretive Media: Audio, Video, and Object Theater (Steve Bressler,
Monadnock Media)
Analysis of substantial audiovisual installation somewhere
Week of 4/1
Museum Education: Interpreting History for Children
R. Vukelich, “Time Language for Interpreting History Collections to Children,” Museum
Studies Journal (Fall 1984): 43-50.
C. Robinson & W. Leon, “A Priority on Process: The Indianapolis Children’s Museum
and ‘Mysteries in History’,” in K. Ames, B. Branco, L.T. Frye, eds. Ideas and
Images: Developing Interpretive History Exhibits
E. Rosenthal, J. Blankman-Hetrick, “Conversations Across Time: Family Learning in a
Living History Museum, “ in Learning Conversations in Museums, ed. G.
Leinhardt, K. Crowley, K. Knutson (2002), pp. 305-29.
4/10: Using Interpretive Media: Demonstrations, Performance, and Living History
K. Chavez, “Site-Specific Performance at Historic Sites: Resources, Bibliography, and
Examples,” (John Nicholas Brown Center, 2005)
B. Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, “Plimoth Plantation,” in Destination Culture: Tourism,
Museums, and Hertitage (1998), pp. 189-200.
R. Handler & E. Gable, The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at
Colonial Williamsburg
C. Carson, Lost in the Fun House: A Commentary on Anthropologists First Contact with
History Museums,” Journal of American History 81 (1994): 137-50. (JSTOR)
“Colonial Williamsburg: Planning and Public History,” special issue of The Public
Historian 20 (Summer 1998): 5-105. (JSTOR)
B. Goodacre & G. Baldwin, “The Visitors,” and “The Interpreters,” in Living in the Past:
Reconstruction, Recreation, Reenactment, and Education at Museums and
Historic Sites (2002), pp. 91-136.
W. Leon & M. Piatt, "Living History," in History Museums in the U.S., pp. 64-97.
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History 662: Museum/Historic Site Interpretation
D. MacCannell, “Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist
Settings,” American Journal of Sociology 79 (November 1973): 589-603.
R. Ronsheim, "Is the Past Dead?" Museum News 53 (November 1974): 16-18, 62.
J. Anderson, "Living History," American Quarterly 34 (1982): 290-306, or Anderson,
Time Machines: The World of Living History (1984)
B. West, “The Making of the English Working Past,” in R. Lumley, ed. The Museum
Time Machine: Putting Cultures on Display, pp. 36-62.
4/17: No class: UMass on Wednesday schedule
Work on final projects
4/24
Managing the Museum
M. Schwarzer, “Women in the Temple: Gender and Leadership in Museums” in A.
Levin, ed. Gender, Sexuality, and Museums (2010), pp. 65-70.
G. Anderson, Reinventing the Museum, ch. 37-44.
5/1:
Course overview: Lessons from the Field
Assignment: Come to class with a list of “10 best practices” in interpretation, with
enough copies to distribute.
Friday 5/3: Women’s History Conference in Honor of Joyce Berkman
Week of 5/6: Final project presentations to department and invited guests, with final
reflection papers due May 9 (10-15 pages, relating what you learned in your field
project experience to scholarly literature on museum and historic site interpretation)
MONDAY 6/3: "Listen my children and you shall hear": Balancing History and Myth in
Massachusetts Public History' 2013 Massachusetts History Conference, Hogan
Conference Center, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA
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