Week Seven: Taking Tours

For week seven of my internship, Dr. Beiler and I visited several local museums. I wanted to see how these museums interpreted local history. What were their interpretive strategies? How did they communicate their narratives to their audience? What lingering ideas or questions were visitors expected to leave with? It was important for me to understand the goals and focus of the other local museums. For one thing, I needed to know how these museums positioned themselves within the community. It was imperative that we find ways to differentiate the Public History Center from other area museums. Why? Well, because – and though this is just a hunch, of course – I cannot see reviewers for the NEH roundly proclaiming “Hey, let’s give money to this museum, the one that wants to create something that already exists in the same city.” Indeed, for the purpose of writing a persuasive grant application, it will be vital for me to demonstrate how we are something new, how there is a need in the community, and how we will offer something different from other museums in central Florida.

Dr. Beiler and I ended up going to two museums on Friday afternoon. The first was the Sanford Museum, located in downtown Sanford looking out onto Lake Monroe. The museum was small – we were only there for fifteen of twenty minutes – but it had many intriguing artifacts. The museum touted Sanford businesses of yesteryear quite well. It also highlighted the entrepreneurs of Sanford as well as all of the pro athletes who emanated from there. Perhaps most interesting though, the museum had a room that recreated the personal library of Henry Sanford, founder of the city and U.S. ambassador to Belgium. The room was striking, and the thought of a nineteenth-century diplomat, back from Washington, Europe or perhaps even sub-Saharan Africa (the Belgian Congo), retiring to his reading room to perusing his collection (in seven languages, no less) is enough to capture the imagination.



Our first stop, the Sanford Museum

The second museum we visited was the Museum of Seminole County History. The museum was bigger, and we spent about thirty or forty minutes there (on a self-guided tour that was supposed to take about an hour and twenty minutes). The museum had many interesting exhibits. The room devoted to the “three lakes and three forts of Seminole County” conjured images of early American settlement in the region. There was a room that explored education – fortunately not too close to what we are envisioning for the PHC. There was also a large facility in the rear of the museum that explored Seminole County’s agricultural heritage. Altogether, the museum was a worthy visit, though I did not leave with a clear sense of their intended message. To be sure, the museum highlighted the development of the county, but there could have been more cohesion between the exhibits.

Altogether, it was an excellent exercise. I am confident that our museum will not simply repeat the narratives of other local museums but instead compliment them by offering a fresh perspective.