An Exhibit Takes Shape....Sort Of

Every year the Laurel Museum features a new exhibit.

When I arrived, the current exhibit was "Buy It Here: Laurel Advertises". The exhibit we opened last February and which will run through this December is "Shake, Rattle 'n' Roll: Laurel in the 1950s".

Right now we're working on an exhibit that compares life in Laurel in 1910 and in 2010. We're tentatively calling it "Snapshots in Time: Our Story 1910/2010".

We know what our goals are with this exhibit:
Explore the many ways we conceive(d) of community in Laurel in 1910 and in 2010.
Have people leave with a deeper appreciation of their community.
Be interesting, engaging, interactive, meaningful, and visually exciting.


That doesn't sound too difficult? Right?

We're plugging along on the exhibit. We've done a lot of the broad research comparing Laurel in 1910 and 2010. But what we're really trying to base the exhibit on is pictures.

For 1910 we have the Sadler images. See a previous blog to learn more about Sadler. The images are great and frustrating.

The really wonderful thing about the Sadler images is that they tell 1 story of Laurel in 1910---one man's story of his family and friends. That allows us to discuss how history is saved and who defines history. This man saved his images, so his story largely defines our visual understanding of Laurel in 1910.

The not so wonderful part about the Sadler images is that they are VERY hard to scan. Apparently glass plate negatives neither like our old scanner or our new one.

I can not tell you all that we've done to try to get them to scan, but suffice it to say that I was taken off the duty of scanning because I could not control my emotions.

My wonderful coworker Monica was put on the task. She has been somewhat successful, but is seeing that success wear-off.

But that's okay. We anticipated that the scanning would be a huge task and it is. Somehow, someway, we WILL have images of 1910. We have them in our collection and we can make it happen.

But what about 2010? We want 2010 to be different--to not just have 1 man's story be the central part of the story. We want everyone in Laurel to help us tell that story.

Remember a while back when I predicted that people would think their story wasn't worth telling? Well, I think I was right.

We've put the word out through flyers, emails, newsletters, newspapers, etc and haven't had much luck. We've seen a trickle start, but definitely nothing overwhelming. I think people always assume that someone else's story is more interesting.

So here's what I have to say to that mentality:

You know you, the one sitting there reading this?I know what you're thinking...I don't have any pictures that are interesting.

Well, I bet you do. As long as they were taken within the greater Laurel area in the last 5 years we're interested. To learn more about exactly what we need, see this slightly confusing, but useful form.

I promise, we want your help. Not the guy sitting next to you in the computer lab at the library, but yours. Well, his too, but definitely yours as well.

And I promise, I won't make you try to use the scanner. All I ask is that you help us tell the story of Laurel today---your story.

A Friendly Ghost Story

This past Sunday at the Laurel Museum we had our Kids Fall Fun Day. Featuring the wonderful world of Pumpkins, this 2 hour event brought about 30 children and their families. We had some fun crafts like pumpkin weaving and pumpkin seed mosaics. We also had a pumpkin patch for children to pick their own pumpkins that they then decorated. We had lots of tasty pumpkin related food--pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin whip, pumpkin butter, etc.

We also told the public that we would be having an age appropriate ghost story. I took up the charge to be the person to tell the age appropriate ghost story. I spoke to one of our wonderful volunteers who is also the vice principal at a local school for some rules on what I could and could not talk about.

Here were my parameters:
It can not be scary.
No one can die.
You can not talk about dead people.
Try to make it related to the history of Laurel and the house.

Hmm. Sounds easy, right?

The ghost story was to begin at 2:15 and right around that time people started trekking to the spot we picked for our ghost story.

As I watched the little ones trickle in, I realize how much of a challenge this will be.

We had kids ranging in age from those who could barely walk to those who were already putting on makeup. It might be a little difficult to reach all of them with the same story.

But that's fine. Who doesn't love a great challenge? Certainly not small museum directors--we live for the challenge!

So I begin telling them the story.

I start by talking about the Museum building and how 4 families would have lived in the house.

I asked them where the people would have worked (The Mill), how old they had to be to start working (8yrs), etc.

I tell them about a little girl who was only 5 yrs old named Samantha who was left alone in the house to do chores while all of her family went to work. Her mean older sister liked to play tricks on her and hide things from her so that she couldn't finish her chores.

My story was interrupted by one boy who insisted Samantha could not have told us this. I asked him why, and he said "Because she's dead". I realized at that point I had never given a date for the story and asked him how he knew she was dead. And he said because this happened like a long time ago. GREAT!

I responded, "Yes, this all happened over 100 years ago." Whew! I almost didn't tell them the date. And I thought, yes, she is dead, but you brought it up so I didn't technically go outside my set parameters.

Now back to the story...

Luckily, the little girl had a friendly ghost named Rebecca who would help her with her chores. Rebecca helped Samantha find the bucket to get water from the river for doing laundry that her mean sister would hide from her before she went to work. Rebecca also helped Samantha find the soap and other things her sister would hide.

All of this concluded with the children coming up one by one to plunge the washer plunger into the clothes bucket three times.

Throughout the experience I tried to keep their attention by asking questions. I asked them things like if any of them ever hid things from their brothers and sisters. I also kept asking them how old the little girl was and how long she had to wait before she could work at the mill.

Some of the kids were really annoyed that the story wasn't scarier. According to our evaluations, others seemed to really enjoy the story.

In the end, it was an interesting experience of us all. I learned that maybe I should plan out the ghost story a little better next time so the kids don't end up doing laundry. But I'm not sure. I think some people liked the "hands-on appropriate for all ages ghost story." We'll see. Maybe Samantha and Rebeccawill make another appearance sometime soon.