British Museum of History Website Review

I was able to visit the British Museum of History website to view what was offered and available at the museum. What I found was an amazing website that is available to the public informing them about the museum and its activities. This is a very well organized website that is simple to navigate, informative to a broad audience while giving an insight to the museum and all exhibits offered there.

The mission statement is not clear but the objective of the museum is simple. ‘The museum was based on the principle that the collection should be put to the public use and be freely accessible. It was also grounded in the enlightenment idea that human cultures can, despite their differences, can understand one another though mutual engagement. The Museum was to be a place there his kind of human cross-cultural investigating could happen.’ By providing, an environment where people can come learn about the world and the cultural history, which is enriching and effective in the information provided. However, this website the museum is able to not only convey but also show the public how they are contributing to the mission statement.

There are many different areas on the website where a person can explore to learn more about what the museum has to offer. From the online tours of different, select exhibits. One of those exhibits right now is the Chinese Jade tours, which shows different pictures of some objects on display and gives a detailed description of the object. It is not a virtual tour but if feels like a privet tour that you are on though your computer. Another similar experience is the videos of exhibits where you can watch and hear about certain exhibits. Both of these parts of the websites gives you a taste about the understanding of the many different cultures around the world yet its only a small bit of the exhibit that is shown. Both will add to the experience of the visitor when they are able to go see the exhibit.

Another part of the web site that I was fascinated to see was the learning section where it is wide range of educational parts for a very broad audience. This was ranging from teachers sections for the classes, students learning from elementary school to college, the families’ education all directing to the furthering of knowledge of the worlds cultures. This was also providing the public to see what research is happening at the museum from the journals, research archives, to the projects happening in connection to the museum and the ability for the public to access to the research libraries. This is mainly directed to the scholarly public but it is open to anyone.

Over all the effectiveness of the website and the content was in perfect support to furthering the purpose of the museum. Go on a take a look at the website and see for yourself what the British Museum of History has to offer, you might find something fascinating. I know I did.

Link to the British Museum of History: http://www.britishmuseum.org/default.aspx

Link to the picture of the British Museum of History: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/British_Museum_from_NE_2.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.dcpslowerschool.co.uk/projects/project_2008/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Dsection%26layout%3Dblog%26id%3D7%26Itemid%3D63&usg=__LwwHJa8QHtUTWZz3ZMyK660062E=&h=1920&w=2560&sz=1074&hl=en&start=21&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=YpkR3sRvgjE0GM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbritish%2Bmuseum%2Bof%2Bhistory%2Bpicture%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26tbs%3Disch:1

Visiting the Exhibit: Baskets, Bonnets & Pincusions

The exhibit I visited is called Baskets, Bonnets and Pincushions: Interpreting the Life and Work of Mary Richardson Walker in the MASC department at the Holland and Terrell Library shows the life of a woman missionary. Curator Jennifer Thigpen and Rachel Johnson both did research and developed the exhibit of Mary Richardson Walker. The objective of the exhibit is sharing the life of missionary in the west as a women missionary and how hard it was to live in the west as a missionary.
Upon entering the Mary Richardson Walker exhibit you’re greeted with a stand that holds a beginning description of her life and a timeline of her entire life. The photos of her and family are underneath in a freestanding glass case. This was setting a tone of your journey though this women’s life as a missionary in Washington State. Even though the exhibit is small and temporary this exhibit is put together in a wonderful manner. The Exhibit is set up so a visitor is can easily navigate and understand. Starting on the left hand side of the exhibit walking around clockwise gives you a glimpse of Mary Richardson Walkers life.
From Mary’s marriage to her death she was a devoted missionary for her whole life. Though the objects at the exhibit you’re able to glimpse into her life from the journals and letters to friends and family. You’re able to look at her hand writing very fine, loopy text on delicate worn paper. The writing of a lonely missionary woman who is far from her original home with a man she meet for a few days before marrying him. Then traveling across the Organ Tail to do missionary work with the native Indians she wrote about everything. Also about her regular day of doing chores, missionary work and having a baby all in a day was in her journal. Beside just these things that were preserved there was trading objects to from the Indians like baskets, little booties and holding baskets. There is also pressed flowers that are samples from the area that she lived in. Probably they were used to help the sick or to cook with. Watercolors that Mary did in her free time of local flowers, butterflies and color wheels. This was something that I never thought a missionary woman would do because they had so much work around the house that was time consuming, raising children, sewing, making clothes and working at the mission. Mary was a hard working woman in the West where there was not many other missionaries besides other white women. If there was then they were a great distance away and rarely were able to see each other which letter at the museum justify with the letters between Mary Richardson Walker and Narcissus Whitman. These women were petite in stature shown by the dresses at the exhibit. Along with the appropriate accessories of bonnets, ribbons, capes and shawls. For missionary women did dress up to fashion but in a more conservative way with more cloth and small attached capes to the dresses by the chest area. Literature is present in the missionary lives which helped the missionaries reach the native Indians. Books of all kinds were in the display cases next to her journals. Especially present was the huge bible that had little bookmarks of christen sayings and pictures. All of these objects present the missionary life in light that is over romanticized by stories and books. This was a hard life that few would choose but Mary did and that makes her extraordinary.
Overall the Mary Richardson Walker exhibit was an amazing to visit because the missionary works in Washington State is not well known. Neither is the life of a missionary where you are able to see how lonely or hard a missionary in the 19th century really was. I recommend this exhibit to anyone who is interested in the Pacific Northwest missionary work or Women missionaries.

Image of Mary Richardson Walker link: www.historylink.org/db_images/Spokane_Walker_1933.jpg

New York Times Article: Time-Traveling with the Muses in Boston

In the New York Times I found an article by Holland Cotter who remembers about his two favorite museums during his youth. He revisits the Museum of Fine Art of Boston and the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum of Boston both favorite museums to visit in his youth. In his article, Time-Traveling with the Muses in Boston: On the Fenway, a Habitués Secret Map Uncovers a universe you can Inhabit, he compares the past museums that he knew in his youth to the updated versions of these museums. The two museums are vastly different but both have changed with the times while keeping the museums the same as they were when Holland was a youth.
Holland was first attracted to the museums thought his family and through the Egyptian art in the Museum of Fine Art. By visiting the museum regularly he was able to explore all of the exhibits thoroughly. This museum was a playground where he could spend days observing the art that was on display. He was able learn from the museum “taught me what perspective was. And it taught me what art and specifically painting, was or could be: an embodiment of order, a universe that you could, just through looking, move into and inhabit, where you could set up a life, live and ideal”. Over time from his youth to his older age he still is able to see the old museums exhibits and the new additions to the old museum he remembers.
While the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum started out as an eclectic women’s privet collection and later turned into a museum. Was another stomping ground for Holland during his youth in Boston where visiting this museum was chaotic mixing of masterpieces. He remarked that when he was young this museum was like a “wonder cabinet, exciting exactly for its untrammeled mix of images and styles for the abundances so relentless that no single piece ever came fully into focus, everything was more or lea on a par with everything else” nothing was as grand as the object next to it but still aw-inspiring. It is a pleasant mixture of ‘funky and elegant’ in this museum from all the “Renaissance paintings, to Roman statues, medieval objects and Asian nick-knacks” all of the world arts crammed into a room. Even in Holland’s adult life this museum still has this certain feeling and look that he remembers from his youth walking the halls gazing at the art. But the new things he finds in the museum just add to the wonderful atmosphere of this organized chaos. For this museum still needs to keep up with the demands of the world by adding new wings and section but never taking away.
This article is a definably a time-travel of Holland Cotter back to his childhood experiences in a museum. He is hoping to impart to people that even thought the world is changing, by walking into a museum your able to experience by “looking with love” at art of the world.

Architecture of Museums

Architecture of a museum does not really influence my experience that much because I was more focused on the exhibit at hand. Yet in hindsight I have had experiences where the architecture was both positive and negative e effect on the museums I visit. But comparing the Little Big Horn Museum to the Museum of Natural History museum in New York would be unfair in my opinion, for both have very functional architecture compatible for the purpose of the museum. The Little Big Horn verse the Natural History in New York museums is vastly different in architecture. While the Little Big Horn museum is right by the Battle field and valley thus the architecture is more harmonious with the surroundings. Big windows overlooking the valley gives the museum the natural lighting and feeling of the continuation of the museum through the windows and out to the valley. The architecture purpose was to immerse the visitors with the surrounding area. While the Natural History museum is a large building with large rooms that are lit by artificial lighting. It gives the exhibits a roomy feeling while looking at the artifacts. Also the natural lights of windows might harm the artifacts on display. But sometimes because of the enormity of the rooms it detracts from the exhibit. The bigger the museum the more lost people can get in them takes away from the overall experience if the display because the only thing the visitors would take away from the museum is the lost experience. The architecture of a museum is a double edge sword of having a good influence or a bad experience at a museum. This fine line can be reach but hard to stay on when the exhibits are always changing in the museums.

Effective Museum Aspects

There are so many museums that I have visited each was effective in their own way besides what is on exhibit it is in my opinion is the staff that makes a museum very effective. In many ways the staff can make or break a visitors experience to a museum. Yes museums usually have the representation of ‘ssshhhh show respect this is a museum you need to be quiet’ with security and guides giving the glare of death if you make a loud sound. But I have never run into any staff of a museum acting like that. Very friendly, helpful, full of information of the exhibits and of the museum these museum staff is there for the visitor regardless of what museum a visitor is at.

With large museums there still is the helpful staff that is there to help but I find that smaller museums (that are out of the mainstream) or when visiting a bigger museums on none eventful day both have better staff. Yes going to a museum you is there to appreciate the exhibit you wanted to visit but the staff is able to give you a more in-depth look at the exhibit and answering your questions. Depending on the staff you can get a personal tour of the museum. In my personal experiences I can rightfully blame my mom for many of those tours and I’m grateful in hindsight for they were very insightful. My favorite private tour was when I visited the John Steinbeck museum in California on a Wednesday morning (with my mom) and Aaron one of the staff at the front desk took us around to each exhibit including all the extra tidbits. Funny thing was before I visited the Museum I have only read one of his books after that visit I have read five more.

Contextual Approach in a Museum

Creating a museum needs to be set around the objects used. But the use of these objects needs to be within a context to share the rich legend surrounding the objects used in the museum. Yet taking those objects out of context is taking a big risk in stretching the truth and retelling a completely different story. Pearce is explaining in her article to keep all objects within the contextual approach within the exhibits of a museum and not the by classification that was used before. The classification approach was helpful in the past for museums to show objects in a grouping way of telling a history of common objects. While the contextual approach grouping objects together which have the same intellectual significance. Without the contextual grouping the meaning or story being told will be disordered and misleading to the visitors at any museum. So yes I believe that a contextual approach should be used in museums to effectively to show the objects on exhibit there. I have seen the Bodies exhibit but I was not interested in looking at the dead spices of body parts. But that is the only museum that I can think of which I have been to which is where the contextual approach is very usable in. It was an informative exhibit in which people can observe what the inner parts of a body looks like. Without any derogatory objections or protests in which the use of the human body in the exhibit is used. By keeping the information as a third person and basic facts of the bodies used kept the exhibit educational. I think the people creating the exhibit in the museums were able to achieve the goal of informative exhibit. Even though I didn’t enjoy the exhibit I saw their accomplishment.

Seeing a Muesum

All kinds of history, from any culture, that ranges from natural to technological to civilization people can learn from a book. But a book can only give a person only a part of a historical experience. By going to a museum the physical experience of the artifacts brings about a new outlook of a subject. Reading about an ancient Egyptian mummy being discovered in a book is magical. Yet, actually seeing a real mummy in a museum while walking around it, looking at the hieroglyphics decorating the sarcophagi and viewing the linen wrapped body brings about a better appreciation for the mummy. By viewing physical artifacts brings awe and admiration to the preservation of knowledge. This is a physical and visual reassurance of history to me.

Whenever I go to a museum I usually have an interest in one or more exhibits of which I have done research about or have learned about. Seeing those artifacts is like putting a face with a name but its experience the readings to physical artifacts. I get a feeling of amazement and satisfaction. That is what I experience whenever I visit a museum and see artifacts that I probably would never have a chance to see.

Not only do I enjoy my experience at a museum but I also like to people watch in a museum. To see how they react to something new or exciting like observing little kids with wide eyes who say ‘wow’ when they are told that an Egyptian mummy is over thousands of years old or hearing people exclaim “I never knew that”. That brings a smile to my face. Because not matter how much I already know I am still learning as does any visitor who decides to spend an afternoon visiting a museum.

Photo is a image from the Royal British Columbia Museum Exhibit Treasures : The Worlds Culture of the Britsih Museum. http://www.blogaholics.ca/wp/uploads/Coffin.jpg