Today was BUSY! I picked up right where I left off scanning photos, and I’m almost halfway through the folder. Today was also all about moving things. A set piece is going to be needed for a future exhibit at the African American Museum of Iowa (AAMI). It’s a replica of a wagon that George Washington Carver would have used to ride around the country and teach people about how to farm better and more efficiently.
Also, as far as I can tell, our replica is functional as a wagon, too, at least in theory once we assemble it later in the summer. We moved the pieces of the wagon from out of a storage unit and into the holding area of the museum. It was absolutely filthy, but with a shop vacuum and some wet rags, it cleaned up great!
At the storage unitWe are back on the photograph grind! I scanned photographs today, and for sure will do more scanning tomorrow. All of the photographs that I’m scanning are all related to the history of the Burns United Methodist Church in Des Moines. The church itself was founded in 1866, making it 139 years old! More specifically, I’ve been scanning photos of their Juneteenth celebrations, pictures from their 130th Anniversary book, and their annual classic car show. Tomorrow I’ll (hopefully) be scanning more car show photographs along with ones of an Easter Service.
Scanning photographs is fun! You never know what you’ll find.
I also helped pack up some travelling exhibits the AAMI will be sending out for Juneteenth! Yes, it’s May right now, but Juneteenth is just around the corner!
Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated every year in the United States on June 19th to commemorate the ending of slavery and the freedom of African Americans. While it’s been celebrated by many people around the country for years, since 1866 to be exact, in 2021, it became an official U.S. holiday.
The more I’m doing this, the more I’m starting to realize how much I love this work! My background knowledge from my history classes at Cornell College are really coming in handy here.
Today was, you guessed it, more photo scanning! I didn’t get as far as I would have liked, only getting about halfway through the Classic Car Show photographs, but there were some really iconic cars! My absolute favorite was a tan 70s station wagon van. It had a sunset scene painted on the trunk, and the best part was it had a matching camper trailer to go with it, with another sunset scene painted on the sides! Talk about driving in style!
In the afternoon, I manned the front desk once again! It’s not my favorite part of the internship, but I think it’s important to help whenever and wherever I can. On Friday afternoons, that means helping with the front desk! It’s still really rewarding to see the excitement in people’s eyes when they get to the AAMI.
But it wasn’t all sunshine, unfortunately. Working the front desk is very much a customer service task. I’d like to share a cautionary tale of sorts, but it is INCREDIBLY important to know.
A woman (let’s call her Petunia) came in with a plastic bag and told me that she would like to make an artifact donation. I asked her to wait a moment and called the curator while Petunia sat in the lobby. The curator told me that the AAMI does not accept donations without a previous appointment. I, of course, relayed this to Petunia and offered her the business card of our curator to set up an appointment. Petunia did not take this well. She took the items out of the bag, revealing that her artifacts were… coloring books and some costume jewelry. These items, unsurprisingly, are not things the AAMI are accepting as donations. I relayed this information, once again, and after a long-winded rant on how “Museums have such strict standards!” (and which ones don’t?) Petunia went on her way.
So why am I telling this story? People will often ask me, “How can I best support the AAMI?” and to that I say come and visit, make a monetary donation, or if you’re in the Cedar Rapids area, come volunteer! However, one will notice that in that list, there isn’t anything about donating objects. There is a very good reason for this. We require appointments to discuss object or artifact donations because we must make sure that our artifacts are both relevant to Black history and to the Iowa area. Coloring books, unsurprisingly, do not fit in either category.
The lesson of the story is to NOT just give museums things and assume that they will take them. Collection space, where we keep our artifacts, is limited, so we cannot take everything people give to us. We also cannot take things that simply aren’t clearly museum-ready. For example, photographs are fantastic, oral histories are great, and CERTAIN objects are ok. A good rule of thumb I often use is to ask myself “could I go out and find this exact thing in a store?” if the answer is yes, (of course, with some exceptions), then it’s probably not museum-ready yet.
This week was really good! I’m slowly getting through my photo scanning mission and I’m learning a lot about how museums collect and display things. Cedar Rapids is a really fun place to live and work, so I’m incredibly excited about and grateful for this opportunity!