Problems and Procedures in Modernizing Ethnological Exhibits

Abstract

NEARLY a half century ago Franz Boas, in answer to scientific criticism of his efforts to popularize the results of ethnological research in the exhibits of the American Museum of Natural History, aptly defined the museum's responsibility to its public as that of furnishing healthy entertainment and instruction (1907:920-21). When the history of anthropology in the museums of this country is recorded perhaps the writer will characterize the present period as one in which the larger, longer-established institutions were seeking to redesign their exhibits to render them more instructive and more entertaining to the millions of school children and casual visitors who comprised the very great majority of the viewers of their exhibits. This trend is typified by current activity in exhibits planning and preparation at such museums as the Chicago Natural History Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University Museum at Philadelphia as well as at my home institution, the United States National Museum. In some of these museums exhibits which have been on view for nearly a half century are being remodeled or, more commonly, are being totally replaced by new series of modernized exhibits. During the extended period the old exhibits were displayed, anthropological knowledge increased greatly. Cultural data were more completely analyzed and more meaningfully synthesized. During this same period the public which uses museums became acquainted with more and more attractive methods of graphic presentation of ideas in the world outside museum walls. Americans witnessed the perfection of colored, talking motion pictures; of eye-arresting magazine advertising and store window display; of pictorial news magazines covering the fields of art and science as well as politics; of popularly priced, handsomely illustrated books and leaflets on art and science; and, finally, the introduction of television into millions of homes. Yet during this period exhibition techniques in the anthropological halls of many larger museums remained exceedingly conservative if not actually static. While we were in effect seeking to hold the attention of new generations of museum visitors by polishing the old Rolls Royce our visitors were vainly looking for some evidence of streamlining. Although the beginnings of the movement to apply modern exhibition techniques in the development of ethnological exhibits date from the depression years when WPA and PWA workers with aptitude for and experience in exhibit layout and preparation were available, most of the larger museums were not prepared to make extensive use of these resources of talent and manpower. They lacked detailed plans for revising their ethnological exhibits on a large scale. Many curators, who had obtained their appointments on the