When John Cotton Dana wrote The Gloom of the Museum in 1917, American museums were still in their infancy. The image he offered of the museums of the early twentieth century is both disappointing and frustratingly familiar. We’re trying to be too much like Europe, he declared, adding derisively that, like their counterparts across the Atlantic, American museums were too much like, “remote palaces and temples, filled with objects not closely associated with the life of the people who are asked to get pleasure and profit from them, and so arranged and administered to make them seem more remote.”
Dana would be disappointed to discover that much of the public today still levels the same charges against museums that he did almost one hundred years ago. In 2008, an independently-run social commentary website called The Pinky Show posted a video discussion about museums, cleverly titled, “We Love Museums… Do Museums Love Us Back?” Using a tongue-in-cheek cartoon, The Pinky Show criticizes museums today in a way that directly echos Dana, arguing that they are still elitist, mysterious, temple-like institutions.
So what can museums do to change their public image and truly take on a public service roll – to become, as Stephen Weil put it, “outward-looking institutions?” While Dana’s suggestions that museums institute regular opening hours, move to city centers, and depict everyday life provide good starting points, they are not enough. Museums today need to find new ways of reaching into their communities.
The Philip Foster Farm, a living history site located in a rural community outside of Portland, Oregon, is trying to do just that. Under the leadership of Elaine Butler, the Farm’s site manager, and Jamie Damon, the President of the Board, the PFF has worked to engage the community, especially by offering volunteer opportunities to young people. This year, they took their role in the community a step further. They partnered with an online charter school, and are now offering components of the curriculum to select students that include history, public service, customer relations, and trades.
Playing such a new role in a small community can be tricky, though. In my conversation with Elaine Butler, she noted that the PFF’s board and staff do worry about how working with other organizations might affect the site’s reputation. If a student misbehaves, how will that change the image of the Farm? If the charter school, or even the Board of Education, comes under fire, will the Farm get swept along in the negative press? Additionally, because the school-in-a-museum concept is so new, partner organizations have sometimes been skeptical. Elaine laughingly stressed that she has to attend partner meetings armed to the teeth with assurances that she doesn’t want to invade their “turf” or make more work for them.
Nevertheless, Elaine and the Philip Foster Farm are optimistic. Though they only have five students this year, they are hoping to grow to about thirty students for the next academic year. More importantly, Elaine is committed to the PFF’s public service role. Though the Philip Foster Farm is the only museum where she has worked, she intuitively knows that small museum can’t exist without community support. “The strength of the community,” she declared, “is the strength of the organization.”
If there’s a better mantra for the modern, outward-looking museum, I don’t know what it is.
(x-posted in an edited form at Museum Matters)
