Tag: The Wider World

On Education and the Vote

On Education and the Vote

Museums have, for many decades now, been sites of learning and exploration for people of all ages, economic classes, and educational levels. The idea of informal learning spaces assisting with civic education of newly arrived Americans has its roots in a Progressive Era ethos of 

Transitioning into the Wider World

Transitioning into the Wider World

I’ve been putting off writing this post, and it’s probably because it’s hard to say goodbye. I hope that readers don’t mind the diaristic style of this last post from me, and I hope that my fellow graduates feel it speaks to their experience as well. 

Self-Care for Museum Students

Self-Care for Museum Students

March is going to be a very, very busy month for me. So busy that I’m writing and pre-scheduling this post in January so that I don’t have to think about it. Since January is also kind of busy, this is post going to be lighter on analysis than most, but it’s also going to be on-topic. How do we take care of ourselves as museum professionals and grad students?

– I have learned from other grad students that it’s important to stock up on frozen meals for a few weeks before final papers and projects are due each semester. I often feel guilty about it at the time, thinking that I’m setting myself up to be unhealthy by not buying fresh foods, but during the couple of weeks that are really crunch time, it helps a lot to have well-rounded meals on hand. Remember you can always eat a salad and save the TV dinner for another time if the mood strikes, but you can’t save a salad for after the semester if you’ve already bought the ingredients.

– Don’t forget to take at least one session off every time you go to a conference (I learned this one the hard way). If you are at a hotel, chill in your room or go to the hotel pool or gym. If you’re commuting to the conference, take a walk or go to a nearby cafe. The amount that you’ll feel rejuvenated will be well worth the “missed” time.

– Speaking of taking time off, it’s important to take time for yourself when juggling school, work, and homework, too! Almost everyone will tell you this. I still struggle with feeling guilty for taking time for myself, some of the time, but I know that it works. I watch TV, swim, knit, or spend time with friends. Find the activities that help you take your mind off your to-do list and the things that you get excited about, and prioritize not losing touch with those things.
– Last but not least, go to museums for fun! It can be hard to turn work-brain off, and of course it’s valuable to analyze the exhibits that you see in other museums, but I think that having positive, non-work-related experiences in museums can be really restorative and energizing for museum professionals. After all, these are the places we’re passionate about.
Update from actual March: I am, as predicted, quite busy right now, and I have been for over a month and don’t see myself getting less busy for a while. In the interest of taking some things off of my plate, I’m going to stop posting The Wider World posts for a few months. The rest of the blog will update as normal!
Does the Status Quo Myth Hold Us Back? Part 1 of 2

Does the Status Quo Myth Hold Us Back? Part 1 of 2

Recent events, including Ferguson, the killing of Eric Garner, and the Black Lives Matter movement, have reminded many museums and museum professionals that we are situated in communities, and we need to figure out how to respond when our community is in crisis. For some, 

Visitor Studies in the Wild?

Visitor Studies in the Wild?

Raise your hand if you expect to be asked, “So, what do you do?” or “What are you studying?” more than once in the next couple of weeks. This is the season for parties with people you don’t know very well, friends of friends and 

Darkness Illuminates — Guest Post by Tufts Undergraduate Jenny Allison

Darkness Illuminates — Guest Post by Tufts Undergraduate Jenny Allison

A little over a month ago, I posted some of my own reactions to participating in the Slave Dwelling Project’s overnight at the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford.

Accuracy vs. Authenticity in Slave Quarters — Reflections and A Call To Action

Now, as the year draws to a close, The Slave Dwelling Project has posted a great 2014 wrap-up including descriptions of the many sites that Joe McGill, the project’s founder and leader, visited.

Below is a response to the Royall House and Slave Quarters overnight by Jenny Allison, a Tufts undergraduate who also participated.

-Tegan

“Okay, everybody ready? Turn your lights off.”

 

The darkness is absolute. Everyone in the room falls silent; our breaths are raggedy from the cold scratching at our throats. The only illumination is a hazy purple-ish color, seeping in from the neighbor’s porch lights.

 

“The family who lived here wouldn’t have even had this amount of light,” Gracelaw, one of my companions, mentions. “They had no neighbors. It was just their family for 500 square acres.”

 

If anyone would know, Gracelaw would. She serves on the volunteer board of the Royall House, a preserved colonial estate and corresponding slave quarters in Medford, Massachusetts. The estate is a working museum; local area residents can visit and learn about the Royall family, who inhabited the mansion over multiple generations.

 

But at night, the rooms are cold and dark. No electric lights cast illumination over the sparse wooden furniture. In the small kitchen, our flashlights gleam eerily over rows of identical engraved silver plates. In the pale reflected light, I stare at the boxy wooden table and wonder who might have sat there on other cold nights, staring at a candle or speaking in hushed tones.

 

“The slaves were here every night long after their masters had retired to bed,” Gracelaw continues. “They were always the last to go to bed and the first to rise.” She gestures to a meager pile of what looks like scratchy cotton pillows, lumped haphazardly in one corner. “One or two might have even slept in here.”

 

My breath steams in the light of my headlamp, and I wonder how people were able to sleep when it was so chilly every night. After all, I am here, at least in part, to commemorate their experience: I am here to honor the hundreds of slaves who slept every night in these very spaces. And I do mean hundreds—the Royall family documented roughly 500 slaves in their possession over the course of a few decades.

 

In the slave quarters themselves, there is electric light and heat; our actual sleeping experience is quite comfortable. Lying in the darkness, surrounded by the quiet breathing of a handful of other Tufts students and our adult companions, I do not feel distressed. Though the history below my sleeping bag is sobering, it is difficult to feel agitated when so many people surround me. Being able to share a heavy experience with even one companion lightens its burden. Part of this makes me hopeful—hopeful that slaves were able to find true comfort in their enslaved companions, their families, their children. There is power in sharing, especially when it comes to pain, and that power should not be overlooked.

 

As I stare up into the blackness, trying to make out the ceiling, I marvel at how significant my experience would be to someone descended from slaves. For as captivating, and as meaningful, as this space is to me, it is more personally meaningful to somebody else.

 

My thoughts on this matter naturally shift to musings about the importance—perhaps even the cultural necessity—of historical space. Knowing a history, a personal story, is one step, but being in a place where such a thing really happened feels different entirely. The cold and the darkness make the experience more real than objects in glass cases ever could.

 

My fingertips are cold. I wonder how slaves slept to keep warm—curled up in a little ball?

 

And what about people who do not have such spaces? What of Native Americans who cannot return to well-preserved dwellings and connect to their ancestors that way? How can they preserve their history in an equally compelling and meaningful way? I do not know.

 

The questions swirl in my brain—and I know deep down that we may never find their answers. But we do know how to ensure that we keep asking these questions—we do it by doing what we are doing, by doing what Joe McGill is doing. We bring attention to these spaces, and we interact with them, and we revive them and fill them with our energy, creating a sort of bond arcing back through the centuries to touch the people who were enslaved here so many years ago.

 

And as I lie there, curled in a little ball, my eyes sinking shut, I do truly feel as if I have gained insight tonight. Because even though I will never be able to know what it really felt like to go to bed each night a slave, I can begin somewhere.

 

We have begun here.

Jenny Allison

Tufts University 2017