Category: Uncategorized

By: Nick Harrelson

Historic New England (HNE) was founded in 1910 and is the largest regional historic preservation organization in the nation. HNE has preserved over 100 historic houses across five New England states. In addition to the structures, HNE also preserves thousands of objects. Some came to them with a historic home, and others were donated to HNE for preservation. Many of their collections may be viewed on their public-facing website. However, some of the objects in the museum’s collection may be troubling to modern viewers. Many of the objects were created by Westerners who depicted people of African, Asian, or Native American descent in unflattering ways. Thankfully, Historic New England is reassessing how those objects should be described in their captions for the 21^st century. This reworking of some of their collection has been the focus of my work as an intern for Historic New England. 

I am responsible for reinterpreting two objects in Historic New England’s collection. The first, a piece of wallpaper border manufactured circa 1920, presents a nature scene featuring Native Americans. The second object is a vase made around 1900 in China, depicting a young Chinese boy playing with a fan. Although these two objects look very different from each other, they both present images of people from cultures different from the wealthy White families who displayed them in their homes in Massachusetts in the early 20^th century.

This piece of wallpaper border is from the Simeon Alexander Jr. House in Northfield, MA. It is roughly four by 17 inches. It depicts a nature scene on the banks of a calm flowing river where trees and flowers are in full bloom. A waterfowl flies out of the river and observes this tranquil nature scene.  Two men are sitting by a fire and a cooking pot as they watch this scene. These men are mostly naked, wearing only a loin cloth and bands around their heads with a single feather sticking out in the back. 

In the mid-19^th century, as the United States was expanding West, many White wealthy and middle-class Americans believed that Native Americans were an endangered species, subject to destruction by Anglo-Americans.  The painter George Catlin, fearing the extinction of Native Americans, decided to paint portraits of critical Indigenous people so that future generations would know what they looked like. In 1842, Catlin remarked, “I have, for many years past, contemplated the noble races of red men who are now spread over these trackless forests and boundless prairies, melting away at the approach of civilization.”[i] Western art in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, as did commercially produced materials such as wallpaper, reflected this thinking. The design on this wallpaper places the two indigenous men on the outskirts of civilization. The only refuge left is the edge of nature, where the wild animals roam.

Depicting Native Americans as part of nature was not only an art motif. Similar ideas also shaped the activities of some cultural and social organizations in the early 20th century. For example, the Boy Scouts of America and the Campfire Girls taught children outdoor survival skills, such as starting a fire using only sticks and no matches, and both groups misappropriated Native culture to do this. At campouts, Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls often wore headdresses and slept in teepees. These ceremonies also included “Indian” dances around a fire pit. Such stereotypical and inaccurate depictions reinforced a message that Native Americans and nature were deeply connected.

The East Asian objects in Roseland Cottage reflected Western views on this part of the world in the late 19^th– early 20^th century. Scholar Edward Said coined the term “orientalism” to describe Western views and fascination with Middle and Far East cultures. While there is no evidence that the Bowen/Hunt families misappropriated Asian art or even felt superior to Asian people, the families’ display of Asian art on their mantle reveals their fascination with an “exotic” culture. Let’s look at the vases to understand them better.

A close look at the vases can help us understand them. These porcelain vases were made circa 1900.  They both depict an Asian boy shielding his eyes from the sun with a fan. They can be identified as boys because grown men did not wear their hair in buns. Similar figures of a boy with buns playing with a fan can be seen as far back as China’s Jin Dynasty (265-420). These vases may even be an homage to that period. The Jin was also known as the Chin, the origin of the country’s name, China. It is possible that the vases were meant to show “original China” to the Western Market. 

The vases also have painted flowers that have special meanings in Chinese culture–chrysanthemums on the stem and peonies at the top of the stem. Chrysanthemums hold many meanings, but because the main image is a child, one can assume that it symbolizes a long and prosperous life here. Longevity was assigned to the flower because it blooms in late autumn when many other flowers die. Peonies also have many meanings in Chinese culture. In the context of the different images on the vases, they could represent wealth, peace, or masculinity. Flower symbolism exists throughout human history, but the association of this vase with China prompted me to research flower symbolism in Chinese culture. 

Museums today are grappling with how to display and interpret their collections that depict other cultures. In some instances, such as at the British Museum, many collections from “exotic” civilizations were stolen from their original homelands. Moreover, today museums are coming to terms with language that is now considered racist, like Negro and Indian. Historic New England’s work in redescribing their collections reflects these broader efforts to modernize museums and reinterpret collections. When a piece’s provenance is unknown, one must research around an object to better understand it. We ask questions such as: What symbols are present that may have been missed by a Western viewer in the past? What was Western culture like at the time it was collected?  Are there similar objects in other collections? Ultimately, we view objects not just as artwork or collections but as historical records. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in Historic New England’s essential endeavors.

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[i]Stephanie Pratt, American Indians in British Art, 1700-1840, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), 125.

Notes:

• Berkhoffer, Robert. The White Man’s Indian. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
• “Chrysanthemum: The symbol of Vitality in Chinese Culture.” CGTN. Accessed Nov. 14, 2024. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2017-10/18/content_33402698_2.htm.
• Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian. New Havan: Yale University Press, 1998.
• Dirilk, Arif. “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism.” History and Theory 35, no. 4 (1996): 96-118.
• Liu, Mingyu. “Study on Children’s Hair Styles in Children-Playing Picture of Cizhou Kiln in Song and Jin Dynasties.” Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research 537 (2021): 291-296.
• “Miss Constance’s Room.” Historic New England. Accessed Nov. 11, 2024. https://roselandcottage.org/location/miss-constances-room/.
• Pratt, Stephanie. American Indians in British Art, 1700-1840. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.

The Birthplace homes are primarily decorated with replica furniture designed to simply showcase the house by its presumed layout. At present, these sites provide simple information about the homes, the Adams family’s lifestyle, their time during the war, and the family farm, but the information posted within the home does not explore much further. Historical stories and more information about the Adams family are typically provided by Ranger Talks and guided tours through the homes, but such information is not usually available on the self-guided tours. The layout of the John Quincy Adams Birthplace home demonstrates how the home might have looked during the time that they were residing there, but it does not demonstrate how the family truly lived their lives in the home.

The inspiration for my internship project emerged from my visit to the JQA site and an insightful Ranger Talk inspired the idea for my internship project; I hoped to present rich stories within the space itself. The Ranger Talk focused on Abigail Adams’s entrepreneurial savvy and her financial skills that allowed her to take care of the family while John Adams was away during the Revolutionary War.  My project would focus on transforming a space within the JQA Birthplace to reflect Abigail’s entrepreneurial pursuits and describe the story of how she provided for the family financially.

My research now focuses on using one of the backrooms of the JQA, presently interpreted as a dining area, to showcase the many goods that Abigail strategically collected and sold through friends and family members. Abigail Adams crafted goods from her farm production, primarily dairy products, cider, and linen made from flax grown on the farm. Whatever excess materials and products she had from these were stored and then sold to neighbors and family. Additionally, in her letters to John, Abigail sent lists requesting that he send her specific items from his locations in Europe, typically linens, cloths, laces, gloves, and china sets. These were items that she almost singularly used to upsell locally. She kept her non-perishable goods and materials in dressers, trunks, and barrels in the house before she sent them out to be sold. So, the new proposition based on our shift in research, is to reinterpret the dining area in the John Quincy Adams Birthplace home to house examples of items that Abigail sold to portray her efforts to financially provide for her family.

In the reinterpretation proposal, we are including examples of items the Park would require for the display of the room, such as baskets, stoneware, barrels, trunks, and the goods, like fabrics and china sets. This could require using and acquiring more replica pieces. Additionally, the proposal will include the themes, goals, and objectives for the reinterpretation, justification for the reinterpretation based on sources and visitor-experience, exhibit text, and a distilled version of the research. Overall, this reinterpretation proposal is designed to honor the Park’s mission, and commemorate the notable members of the Adams family who have lived at the sites at the Park. By presenting Abigail Adams’ story in the space she spent her time in during the Revolutionary War to mark the 250th celebration of her iconic “Remember the Ladies” letter, we can highlight her notable efforts to support her family in place of her husband.

By Megan Reynolds

The team would go on to beat Montreal again in the semifinals, in a best-of-five series, and face PWHL Minnesota in the finals. Boston unfortunately fell to Minnesota in the championship game, in a 3-0 loss. While Minnesota was crowned the PWHL’s Inaugural Season Walter Cup Champions, Boston still fought hard in their inaugural season and represented the women who came before. The legacy of earlier teams, Massport Jets (1971-1998), Boston/Worcester Blades (2010-2019), and the Boston Pride (2015-2023) helped pave the way for the now Boston Fleet.[1]

With the formation of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) in Summer 2023, the Mark Walter Group and Billie Jean King Enterprises secured hope for the future of women’s professional hockey. Prior to the PWHL, there hadn’t been one unified professional league for women’s hockey. Instead, there were a handful of small leagues playing throughout North America beginning in the early 2000s but none on the same scale as, say, the men’s National Hockey League (NHL). Unlike the NHL, which was founded in 1917, these women’s leagues were messy, struggled financially, and had to fight for ice time. The Massport Jets, the first recognized professional and successful women’s hockey team in the United States, had few other women’s teams to play against; in the 1970s, the Jets primarily played against men. After the Jets disbanded in 1982, women’s hockey at the professional level nearly ceased to exist until the US Women’s Ice Hockey Team won Gold at the 1998 Winter Olympics. These Games saw the first-time women’s ice hockey played at the Olympic level.

In the following decades, various women’s hockey leagues formed across North America, each with its own struggles; in Boston, these included the Boston Blades, Boston Pride, and Boston Fleet. Despite this history, these leagues and teams are still underrepresented within public spaces. Even in Boston, a city that is well-known for its hockey teams and fans, this important sports history has no presence in monuments or museums. 

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An internship with Interpreting Sports has provided me with the tools and methods to recognize when and how women’s sports are constrained from recognition in the public sphere. Through workshops and their book, Interpreting Sports at Museums and Historic Sites (2023), Interpreting Sports educates museum professionals in reinterpreting sports history; they seek to help museums move away from primarily celebratory/commemorative interpretation of sports history, to incorporate socially relevant history.

Celebratory and commemorative interpretations can offer a bridge to exploring the social history of sports; it is important not to eliminate these celebratory narratives entirely. To support this, I have focused on creating workshop slides for Interpreting Sports that introduce social history into the narrative. This work has helped shape my ideas around planning an exhibit to interpret Boston’s four professional women’s hockey teams. Looking ahead, I hope that my capstone project will call out the lack of celebration and commemoration for these four teams. I imagine an exhibition that engages a wide audience, one that offers a balanced interpretation that includes celebration, commemoration, and the socially responsive and culturally relevant stories that humanize players and teams. The exhibit will explore the impact of Title IX – a federal civil rights law passed in 1972 – provided women a more equal opportunity to play sports at federally funded institutes. It will also focus on team histories, players’ introductions to hockey and the obstacles faced along their journeys to professional leagues. This strategy will allow visitors to connect with individual players’ stories, while also offering a narrative that considers broader social context. The final exhibition will be located at The Sports Museum, inside TD Garden. Integrating this exhibit into the already existing stories The Sports Museum tells will increase potential audiences and accessibility. The exhibit’s key audience will be women’s hockey fans – whether women, men, or children – with their enthusiasm and increased interest since the founding of the PWHL.

References:

Harris, Kathryn Leann with Douglas Stark. Interpreting Sports at Museums and Historic Sites. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.

Maurer, Elizabeth L. “Evening the Score: Interpreting the History of Women and Sports.” In Interpreting Sports at Museums and Historic Sites, edited by Kathryn Leann Harris with Douglas Stark, 36-39. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.

Putney, Clifford. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Reid, Patrick A. and Daniel S. Mason. “‘Women Can’t Skate That Fast and Shoot That Hard!’: The First Women’s World Ice Hockey Championship, 1990.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 32, no. 4 (2015): 1678-1696.

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[1] As I was writing this, the Professional Women’s Hockey League announced official names and logos for their Original Six teams. PWHL Boston, as they were known during their inaugural season, is now the Boston Fleet. 

By Emsie Lovejoy

In the fall semester of 2023, I had the pleasure of undertaking an internship at the Gibson House Museum, a Gilded Age townhouse in Boston’s Back Bay.  Based upon my interest in working with their physical collection and learning about their collections management system, curator Meghan Holmes suggested that I might tackle the project of designing room guides for their internal use.  The room guides would act as a resource for Gibson House tour guides and staff, to quickly find answers to visitor questions about objects in the collection.  It was something that had been on the “want to do” list for a long time but hadn’t made it to the top of the list yet.  The Gibson House Museum staff is quite small, and there is no shortage of projects in the works on any given day.  One of the first big lessons for me was that things happen slowly at small museums like this, and they can’t be rushed. 

One of the most important aspects of the project was that it was always intended to be ongoing.  The expectation was never that I would come in and do all the room guides.  Rather, I was going to lay the foundation, but after my semester the GHM would still be adding to them.  So, it was crucial that whatever I came up with be both easy to update, and easy to replicate: the systems I designed would need to be straightforward enough for someone else to pick up where I left off, with a minimal learning curve.  

I made a few trial runs at formats that were ultimately too difficult to reorganize before I was forced to admit that what I was really trying to do was reinvent the spreadsheet.  So, I made a spreadsheet.  I moved the process to Google Sheets with the idea that the text could be finished and arranged there and then migrated to a polished document with the photographs once it was finalized.  However, since images can in fact be included in Sheets, and it offers endless opportunities to add, remove, and re-arrange without creating extra work, we ultimately decided to leave the final RG in spreadsheet format.  Aesthetically it might have been more satisfying to take that last step of copying things over to a different format, but realistically it would have added a lot more work for me, and whoever picks up the project next.

The other reason flexibility was so critical to this project is that we couldn’t know at the beginning how many things that seemed obvious would need to be rethought.  During the process of creating the final format, Meghan and I had many conversations about identifying the most important characteristics of an object for the purposes of a finding guide.  Yes, everything would have a photo, but would it be faster to find a specific object if it were organized by category? If so, what were the categories? Or should it be ordered by location in the room? If by location, was a list format actually the most useful, or should we find a way to map the space? Was there a way to organize objects according to how frequently visitors ask about them? As we tested out different classifications and configurations, it quickly became clear that the ease of using a program that would sort material for us was the only way to go.  If every time we had wanted to try a new method of categorization I had been reorganizing manually, we simply wouldn’t have tested out as many possibilities.  Trial and error gave us, I think, an excellent final product, but without that flexibility trial and error would have been out of reach.  Presumably, this will continue to be a factor for the next people working on this, since one of the major decisions we made was that the format should be approached on a case-by-case basis and adapted to the needs of a given space, rather than trying to impose a single structure on every room in the house.

To that end, rather than a rigid blueprint, what I finally produced for the GHM is more like a menu.  The plan is to place binders in each room, in out-of-the-way locations where they will not be especially noticeable.  Each of the binders will include:

1. A list of Top 5 Objects, those which prompt the most visitor questions
2. Full room guide organized by category

Depending on the room and the specific needs of the space, the binders may also contain:

3. Maps of object-dense areas, with the corresponding Map Keys
4. Lists divided by region of the room, to be determined on a case-by-case basis
5. Lists of types of objects (i.e. silver pieces in the Dining Room)

All of the paintings will be represented on a separate, visitor-accessible sheet, to cut down on the amount of material to sort through in the room guides.

Knowing that I would not be completing the room guides project, I created online templates for each of these ‘menu’ items, which I have handed over to the GHM.  I also produced a detailed instruction manual for their use and some context for thinking through the sorts of questions we confronted throughout the process.  A further consideration in making these materials is how they will be used going forward.  The room guides are likely to be something that gets worked on in fits and starts when they have the time between other projects, so we wanted these systems to be straightforward enough that one could come back to it without having to relearn anything significant.

At the end of my semester with the Gibson House, I felt entirely satisfied with the materials I handed off to them.  I finished one room guide that uses all of the elements listed above, so we all got to see the finished product and get a sense of how to use it, and the responses that I received from the museum staff were extremely positive. 

References:
“Room Guide,” Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.  Accessed September 2023.