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MyLan Metzger
Kaplan Period 3
AP Lang. B
February 24, 2014
Synthesizing a Museum with Artifacts
Whether it be a trip to Washington, D.C., Chicago, St. Louis, or any other major city, a
family vacation just would not be complete without a trip to a museum. The Smithsonian
museums, the Field Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the City Museum all stand as
vital parts of the identities of the cities they operate in. Museums specialize in art, science,
history, or industry, and then even in smaller branches in each of those subjects as to focus in on
one specific area. Although museums should provide education and truthful information,
ultimately museums must be primarily concerned with financial business in order to obtain the
means for accomplishing other objectives.
Museums must aim to educate their visitors and spread knowledge about culture and
history through their collected and displayed artifacts. Museums provide the opportunity for
visitors to step outside what they already know and learn more about the world around them. By
filling visitors minds with information from the past and present, museums help keep cultures
alive today and into the future. The National Museum of the American Indian prides itself in
protect[ing] and foster[ing] their cultures by reaffirming traditions and beliefs and encouraging
contemporary artistic expression, and empowering the Indian Voice (source C). Museums such
as the National Museum of the American Indian should work to preserve and teach others about
culture, traditions, and beliefs that not all Americans may know about. Extending beyond just
cultures of Native Americans, museums can preserve any part of the past, including the
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diversity of cultures and the continuity of cultural knowledge (source C). Museums need to
focus their aims and artifacts around a central goal: to preserve history and culture through
educating visitors. Without such a goal, museums will struggle to remain afloat. David
Rockefeller recalls a time during which his mother helped run the Museum of Modern Art in
New York City when the museum experience harsh economic turmoil. The economic situation
was actually a result of the educational predicament, the lack of consensus about the
composition of MoMAs permanent collection and the direction of our collecting would take in
the future (source A). Without a central educational goal in message, the museum could not
operate. This message should be particularly concerned with preserving culture and information,
whether that be through science, art, or history.
Because museums have the power to preserve and educate people about cultures of the
past and present, they must strive to do so truthfully and ethically by embracing all parts of
history and the past. Unfortunately, history is not always honorable and uplifting, but that by no
means makes it any less important. Suffering and injustice is part of history, and museums
should not remove that part of history. Richard Handler and Eric Gable at Duke University share
their discontent with the way that Colonial Williamsburg, a museum created to show visitors
what life was like for the first British colonists in America, handles historical unpleasantness
like slavery, disease, and class oppression (Source E). These integral parts of early American
society are all but lost in the replica of colonial Williamsburg, replaced with a sanitized and
selective version of the past (Source E). The museum highlights the positives of the society
while dispelling anything uncomfortable or embarrassing. It tells a selective version of history,
rather than what actually occurred. In order to truly educate viewers, museums cannot block out
certain eras of society by covering them up with better versions of the past; museums must
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remain true to facts of history. The way in which museum artifacts are obtained is also a key
figure in exposing the truth about the past. Sometimes the history of an artifact may also have an
ugly past that needs to be shared. Philippe De Montebello, the director of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York City in 2000, admitted that the museum contains a great many
works of art whose complete ownership is not fully known, not just for the Nazi era, but for other
frames as well (source F). Museums do not always know where their art comes from, but they
should strive to ensure that they have been attained ethically. In this particular instance, there
was concern that the artwork was illegally taken by the Nazis during the Holocaust. If such is
the case, than museums must keep the public informed about all aspects of its collections
(source F). Part of presenting the full truth, even when it is not always a pretty story to tell, is
being honest about where museum pieces come from. Full honesty and openness with
information is a key figure in how a museum should educate its visitors through its collected
artifacts.
While education and truth do have significant meaning in all museums, no museum
would be able to achieve its goals in either area if it did not have financial backing to support it,
making finances the most important concern. As Rockefeller shared, the Museum of Moder Art
experienced this first hand when it struggled with a recurring operating deficit [that] approached
$1 million a year and was worsening (Source A). Large financial issues can continue for years,
as it did at MoMA, causing ongoing problems for museums that could eventually lead it to their
closure. It is extremely difficult for a museum to be concerned with the value of education when
it is struggling to remain open; therefore a museum must find a balance between these two
factors. In her book about museum stores, Mary Miley Theobald explains the importance of
achiev[ing] the proper balance whereby the educational goals maintain their ascendancy and the
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profits grow (source D). When examining the value of possible artifact for display and items
for sale at a museum store, considerations concerning both what is educationally significant for
the customers and what is financially beneficial for the museum, must be made. A former art
museum director admitted that ultimately the financial profit was the driving force behind
decisions in a museum shop, not educational goals. Items were chosen not because of [their]
place within educational context . . . but because of [their] marketability (source D). The
necessity to make money essentially overrides the dream of educating all visitors, because no
visitors could be educated if there were no funds to do so.
The preservation of culture, the value of education, and the necessity for truth are
meaningful goals that must be supported by monetary funds. Without financial necessities,
museums cannot accomplish any aforementioned goals, making finical assets the primary
concerns for museums. Unfortunately and ironically, the worldly desire for money is the enabler
of wholesome and idealistic goals.