Why do we assign the Museums Go See’em project?
This project is actually a collection of many different ways to capture,
analyze and share history. And, as with most collections, museums
throughout the world are the public and private spaces where a lot of
history is communicated. For the Museums Go See’em project you are
being asked create a public forum to communicate the history you learned from an historic site or
exhibit that reflects New York City history. For this assignment, imagine that you are a guest
curator. And, like a curator, you have limitations such as space, budget and timing. Your task is
to capture and hold the attention of your museum goers. You can do this through visuals, layout,
language and focus. Museum posters that capitalize on all of these qualities: that stand out
visually, engage viewers and take them through a learning journey, are the ones that earn the
highest awards.
Poster
Two tools that historians rely
upon are oral histories and
primary source documents. In
this part of the assignment, you
are trying to reverse engineer (work backwards) to what ordinary inhabitants experienced at the
site you are featuring during the time period the site represents. In museum language this time
period is also called the “date of interpretation.” Though the manor house you’ve toured now
has fluorescent lights, exit signs and intruder alarms, the period of time it is trying to capture
and/or recreate may have been much earlier. You can ask museum staff what the site’s date of
interpretation is. They’ll either give you a range of years or a specific date. If they try to cover
many time periods, for your project, choose one. Your budget and space are limited. As you
imagine your narrator from the past, think about the setting the way it originally existed. The
more informative your narrator’s point of view, and the more believable your representation of
the original time period through that narrator’s story, the higher the value of your postcard as a
primary source will be.
Imaginary Postcard
Chronology is the most traditional way to understand history. For
much of this country’s existence, history was taught using time
lines and relating events, people and places as a sequence of
dates. Chronologies can be compared to enrich our understanding of how events large and small
interact or affect one another. Trends and fashion, cause and effect, and groupings and
oppositions can all be shown richly using the chronology tool. For this museum project, you’re
asked to represent two time lines: one that is local to the site around its date of interpretation
and a second one that reflects events happening outside of your chosen site in New York at large
around the date of interpretation. The dates you choose to include and juxtapose (compare side
by side) can teach your viewers a lot about the site’s history. The more informative and selective
your chosen dates, the greater the value of the time lines.
Timeline
Map
Geography is another traditional tool employed by historians to reflect,
analyze and convey the past. Your site represents a frozen moment in history.
Just as the City is constantly changing now, so did it constantly change in the
past, too. The skyline of New York City has changed in your lifetime and will continue to do so.
Therefore, it’s incumbent upon you, as the curator of this exhibit, to be respectful of the site’s
date of interpretation. That means that your map, traced or hand drawn, needs to reflect the
site’s particular moment in history. Central Park did not appear until 1857-63, the Brooklyn
Bridge was not on any map before 1883. There were no boroughs until 1899. Subways did not
exist before 1904. The Interstate Highway System began in 1954. The more accurate to the time
period represented by your site’s date of interpretation, the more valuable your map will be to
historians. Keeping distances to scale, labeling the map and showing a compass rose, all help the
viewers orient themselves as they learn how your site relates to New York City.
Tool/Object
Material Culture is a more recent addition to the
historian’s toolkit. The objects that individuals create
and use offer many clues to the daily lives of people in
the past. The site you’ve chosen to visit and represent in your project has many tools and/or
objects that are representative of the date of interpretation. Choose one and show your viewers
how it was used, for what purpose and what it reflects about that time in history. The more you
can communicate about the people of that time period through your chosen object, the richer the
experience for your museum viewer.
Museum Project Checklist:
Site visited:
Due date:
Poster:
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Includes postcard, letter or journal entry
Includes clear photo of presenter with site in background
Includes timeline
Includes map
Includes object and explanation/instructions
Is clearly labeled
Imaginary Postcard, Letter or Journal Entry
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The character writing is believable as being from that place and time
The text written describes the site as it was to the visitor then
The text is interesting and personal and adds to our understanding of the site and its time.
Three important facts about the site are included
Timeline
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Three dates representative of the site itself are included
Three dates representative of New Amsterdam/New York around the date of interpretation for the
site are included
Timeline is clear and organized
Timeline dates add to our understanding of the site and its time.
Map
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Map clearly shows relationship of site to New Amsterdam/New York or to midtown Manhattan
Conclusions that help us understand the site can be drawn based on the map.
Map is to scale and representative of the time to which the site has been interpreted.
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Map is labeled, and/or has a key provides a rough scale of distance and indicates “north”
Tool/Object purpose and instructions for use
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Object’s purpose is clear
Instructions for use are easy to follow
Object’s relationship to site is clear
Object is interesting or intriguing to the reader and helps us understand the site and its time.