ANTHROPOLOGY Unearthing the Human Experience

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CHAPTER 7

Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Anthropology Begins, 1900–1935 Stephen E. Nash, When the Museum opened its doors to the public in 1908, anthropology had Steven R. Holen, and scarcely established itself as a distinct discipline; it was represented by formal Marc N. Levine departments in only a handful of American museums and universities. Thus it should come as little surprise that anthropology and archaeology played minor roles in the Colorado Museum of Natural History’s formative years. At the outset, the Museum’s greatest efforts were directed toward building geological and zoological collections and displays to attract visitors. Although there was no anthropology or archaeology department at the Museum until 1936, objects representing past and living cultures were always within the Museum’s walls. Much of this material was housed in the Museum’s Art Gallery (Fig. 7.1), largely supported by the Museum’s first board president, art collector John F. Campion. William S. Ward, who enjoyed the unlikely title of curator of mineralogy and art, oversaw the Art Gallery until 1914. Ward had attended Princeton, fought in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War (and was taken prisoner twice), worked as a chemist, studied metallurgy at Oxford, and served as the field director of the Department of Mines and Metallurgy for the 1904 World’s Fair in Saint Louis. All of these diverse experiences led to Ward’s role as one of the founding curators at the Museum. The Art Gallery featured an eclectic collection of artistic pieces from the United States and beyond, including traditional crafts (Japanese embroidery, Navajo blankets, and Indian baskets), and antiquities from Asia (Chinese and Japanese porcelains, lacquer- ware, and bronzes) and Europe (Greek sculpture, oil Figure 7.1. The Museum’s original Art Gallery. paintings). The exhibition included both donations and long-term loans from many of Denver’s wealthiest

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denizens. Ward’s background in materials science may help explain his affinity for Asian ceramics, bronzes, and copper antiquities. These items were displayed in cases alongside paintings in a gallery bathed in natural light that streamed in from a large skylight. Soon after Jesse D. Figgins was named director of the Museum in 1910, he locked horns with Ward, whom he considered to be incompetent, intran- sigent, unprofessional, and lazy (Cain 2006: 109–114). Indeed, Ward had little support from the Museum board, and Figgins finally fired him in 1914. Figgins did not appoint a new curator to the Art Gallery, nor did he seem to invest many resources in this area, having much greater interest in the Museum’s scientific pursuits. In an era when museums were hard pressed to distinguish themselves from the commercial and the carnivalesque, it seems that Figgins made an effort to purge the Museum’s collections of objects he deemed nonscientific (Cain 2006: 93–95). Eventually, in 1932, the Museum’s art collection was dissolved and all of the objects were either returned to their lenders or transferred to the Denver Art Museum. Apart from the aforementioned cultural objects treated as high art, less celebrated archaeological and ethnographic items from Native American and other world cultures were also donated to the Museum. The first donations of archaeological and ethnological material are reported in the Museum’s 1912 annual report. Highlights include an “Indian olla [jar],” “Samoa Tappa [sic] Cloth,” and the “Feet and Hands of an Egyptian Mummy.” Cultural material appears to have been accessioned into the collections of the Department of Paleontology (e.g., human remains) or into the more nondescript Miscellaneous category (e.g., Native American arrowheads, ground stone, ceramics). In these early decades, there seems to have been a consensus that cultural material belonged in the Museum, but less consensus concerning where it belonged.

Folsom Man The Museum’s history of archaeological research began quite accidentally in 1924 with the discovery of a bison skeleton with artifacts at the Lone Wolf Creek Site in Texas. Over the next decade the Museum, led by Figgins, would begin to play a key role in the scientific search for the earliest humans in the Americas. During this period no trained archaeologist was on the staff of the Museum, but it did have a professional paleontologist, Harold Cook, curator of paleontology, who assisted with many of these discoveries. The Museum would also come to work closely with E. B. Renaud, a French archaeology professor and director of the Archaeological Survey at the University of Denver. The Museum did not hire its first professional archaeologists until 1934, when John Cotter was employed for summer fieldwork. In 1924 Figgins hired H. D. Boyes, a local rancher with no professional training, to salvage some bones of a large extinct form of bison eroding from

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a cut bank on Lone Wolf Creek near Colorado City, Texas. Nelson Vaughan, a local avocational archaeologist, assisted Boyes in this excavation. Three projectile points associated with the bison bones were discovered within three separate casts of bison bone removed from the cut bank; each was found when the underside of the cast was being cleaned of excess matrix before being transported to the Museum. The find was reported to Figgins who in turn asked Cook to investigate the locality in May 1925. Cook found additional late Pleistocene fauna at the locality and produced a general stratigraphic map of the discovery. Cook (1925) reported the discovery in Science, and the site was described in subsequent publications (Cook 1926, 1927a; Figgins 1927), but the discovery was not well received by the professional community because the site was not excavated by a professional researcher, the artifacts were not left in place, and the evidence was not well recorded when discovered (Holmes 1925; Meltzer 1993). Although the Lone Wolf Creek find was not generally accepted as evidence of early humans associated with extinct fauna in North America, the Museum soon had another site to explore, near Folsom, New Mexico. The site was originally discovered in 1908 by an African-American cowboy by the name of George McJunkin who reported it to a local amateur naturalist, Carl Schwachheim. In January 1926, after McJunkin’s death, Fred Howarth (a banker and avocational archaeologist living in Raton, New Mexico) and Schwachheim visited Figgins and Cook at the Museum in Denver and told them about the site. They later sent some bison bones from the site to the Museum, and Cook identified them as a previously unknown and extinct species of bison (Meltzer 2006: 4). Cook and Figgins visited the site in March. Figgins hired Schwachheim to excavate the site and sent his son, Frank Figgins, to assist with the excavation. A broken point was found, but not in place, in July. One other point was found that summer, but again not in place. Soon another ancient site was identified in a gravel pit near Frederick, Oklahoma (Cook 1927a, 1928, 1931; Figgins 1927). Although the Museum’s scientists argued for its deep antiquity, the site was never accepted as evidence of humans associated with extinct fauna (Spier 1928a, 1928b). The excavation near Folsom resumed in 1927, with strict orders from Figgins, based on his conversations with Aleš Hrdlička, one of the nation’s leading anthropologists and a curator at the National Museum of Natural History, to excavate more carefully and leave any artifacts in place so they could be viewed by other scientists. In late August a spear point was found in situ between the ribs of a bison. Figgins was contacted, and he invited scientists to view the find (Fig. 7.2). On September 4, 1927, Figgins arrived at the site and was joined by paleontologist Barnum Brown, of the American Museum of Natural History, and Frank H. H. Roberts, of the Smithsonian Institution. The famous archaeologist A. V. Kidder, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, arrived on September 8. All agreed the Folsom points and the

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bison were contemporaneous and that humans had hunted this extinct form Figure 7.2. A crowd gathers around a cast at the Folsom Site excavation. of bison (Cook 1927a, 1928; Figgins 1927). This discovery revolutionized North American archaeology by pushing the known occupation of North America back by thousands of years, to the end of the last ice age, which was then believed to have ended about 10,000 years ago. In 1928 the American Museum of Natural History joined the Muse- um’s excavation as a partner; Brown directed the excavation (Brown 1929). Again, spear points were found with extinct bison bones. Several scientists visited the site, among them Kirk Bryan, a geologist with Harvard and the U.S. Geological Survey who was highly regarded in the scientific community. Bryan accepted the association and interpreted the age of the site as “late Pleistocene or perhaps early Recent” (1929: 129). The opinions of Bryan and Brown solidified the support for the Folsom discovery, and thus the site became the most famous scientific discovery yet made by the Museum. Spurred on by these discoveries, in 1929 the Museum began to offer financial and institutional support to E. B. Renaud to conduct an archaeological survey of the Cimarron River in New Mexico and Oklahoma and to

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look specifically for skeletal evidence of what was now being called Folsom Man. Renaud surveyed several archaeological sites and excavated a few rock shelters (Renaud 1930).1 The Museum again sponsored Renaud’s survey work in 1930, in eastern Colorado, and in 1932 in Colorado’s North Platte River Valley (Renaud 1931, 1932). The connection between Renaud and the Museum ended by 1933, and Renaud subsequently worked on his own. Renaud’s efforts identified many Paleoindian and later prehistoric sites and artifacts, but did not lead to the hoped-for discovery of Folsom Man.

Homo novusmundus Perhaps encouraged by their great discovery, Figgins and Cook would eventually make even grander, though far more dubious, claims. Cook was raised on a ranch in northwest Nebraska, and in this vicinity he and W. D. Matthew, a paleontologist with the American Museum of Natural History, found what appeared to be hominid teeth in Miocene deposits along Snake Creek, Nebraska (Matthew & Cook 1909). In 1922 Cook found another tooth and sent it to H. F. Osborn, another paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, who published an article naming a new North American hominid species, Hesperopithecus haroldcookii (Osborn 1922). This was before Cook’s curatorial association with the Museum, which began in 1925, but while at the Museum Cook continued to advocate for the view that very early hominids were present in North America (Cook 1927b). Unfortunately for him, in the same year his colleague W. K. Gregory (1927) demonstrated conclusively that the hominid teeth were actually from an extinct peccary, Prosthennops (Meltzer 2006: 28). Cook (1927b) had also published on Pliocene artifacts from the Snake Creek deposits consisting of cut, shaped, and drilled bone. They were from the same beds where Hespero- pithecus was found. These “artifacts” are now known to be naturally broken and shaped bone fragments (Meltzer 2006: 28). Figgins was also drawn into claims of a new human species in the New World. Figgins’s last major site of importance to the study of early humans in the Americas concerns a human skeleton found by J. C. McKinley more than 13 feet deep in a cut bank of the Cimarron River eight miles east of Folsom, New Mexico; it was sent to the Museum in early 1935 (Figgins 1935a). Figgins thought this skeleton was quite old and compared the morphology of the skull with Paleolithic examples from Europe. He thus defined this specimen as a new species called Homo novusmundus. The publication of this new American species of Homo was met with derision from the physical anthropologists of the day, and for good reason: recent radiocarbon dating of the specimen places it as less than 3,000 years old. It is rumored that Figgins’s scientific blunder may have been part of the reason that he stepped down from the position of director of the Museum in 1935, although this story is unsubstantiated by documentary evidence.

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Mammoths, Lindenmeier, and Projectile Points In 1931 a mammoth was discovered near the village of Angus, Nebraska; it was excavated by A. M. Brooking of the Hastings Museum. Brooking at this time was trading fossils with the Museum in return for mounted large mammals for his institution in Nebraska. Brooking reported to Figgins that he had found a fluted point with the mammoth, and Figgins visited the site and sent a professional crew to complete the excavation, but no additional artifacts were found with the mammoth. Figgins (1931) published a short article concerning the discovery and claimed that the association between the artifact and the mammoth was authentic. However, geologists from the University of Nebraska studied the geological deposits and determined that they were mid-Pleistocene in age—far older than the known human occupation of the Americas. Steven Holen and his colleagues finally resolved the controversy when they returned to the site and dated the deposits above the mammoth by the optically stimulated luminescence method (Holen et al. 2011). The mammoth was more than 75,000 years old; the fluted artifact could not have been associated with the mammoth. However, an authentic mammoth site was indeed soon found. In 1932 Father Conrad Bilgery of Regis College in Denver received a message from Albert Garner (often named as Frank Garner in the documentary record), a railroad section foreman for the Union Pacific Railroad, that a flood had exposed very large bones along the railroad tracks near Dent, Colorado. Bilgery and his students excavated some of the bones and identified them (Fig. 7.3) as mammoth. Associated with the bones they found a spear point.

Figure 7.3. Excavation workers on site, Dent, Colorado, 1933. Left to right: Father Conrad Bilgery, unidentified Regis College student, Walter C. Mead, Charles H. Hanington, Fred J. Howarth.

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This discovery was reported to Figgins, and in 1933 Bilgery kindly turned over the excavation to the Museum. Figgins sent a professional crew of pale- ontologists to excavate the site, and they found and documented another fluted spear point with the mammoth bones (Figgins 1933). This discovery is the first well-documented association of a spear point with mammoths in North America. Unfortunately, Figgins did not publish the findings in a major national journal, so this discovery was not widely recognized, and a few years later similar fluted points were found at the Blackwater Draw Site near Clovis, New Mexico. This later discovery received wide attention and publication in major journals—and so today the spear points are known as Clovis points and not Dent points. In 1935 Figgins hired two bright young archaeologists to work for the Museum: Hannah Marie Wormington and John Cotter. Both were University of Denver graduates in anthropology, specializing in archaeology and studying under Renaud’s supervision. Cotter had recently completed his master’s degree and Wormington had completed her bachelor’s degree.

Figure 7.4. Lindenmeier Site workers Cotter, who had been temporarily employed by the Museum the previous in 1940. Back row, left to right: year, was hired again for the summer of 1935 to excavate at the Lindenmeier Robert Stafford, Bart Greenwood, Bob Site north of Fort Collins, Colorado, near the Wyoming state line, alongside Easterday, Charles Scoggin. Front row, but separate from the Smithsonian Institution archaeological crew (Fig. left to right: Edison Pike Lohr, Beulah Lohr (cook), Ted Peterson. 7.4) under the direction of Frank Roberts. The site’s discoverers suggested that the Denver Museum be allowed to work the site, and the Smithsonian

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agreed. Figgins had a long-standing interest in Folsom sites and was pleased for the opportunity. The Museum’s excavation focused on “Hole 13,” a major concentration of Folsom and somewhat later Paleoindian artifacts (Cotter 1978). Research on the Museum’s Lindenmeier collection continues today (LaBelle & Holen 2008; LaBelle & Newton 2010). The 1926 discovery of fluted projectile points associated with bison at the Folsom Site and later the definition of unfluted lanceolate Yuma points by Renaud (1931, 1932) brought about a controversy concerning which point type was older. This discussion was primarily held by Renaud, who named the unfluted lanceolate type “Yuma” based on numerous specimens found by Perry and Harold Anderson in blowouts near Yuma, Colorado. Renaud thought that the Folsom point and Yuma point were technologically similar and that Folsom points were the most advanced stage of the development of the Yuma lanceolate variety. Therefore, he hypothesized that Folsom points were younger than Yuma points. Figgins (1934, 1935b) strongly disagreed and thought that Folsom and Yuma point technologies were distinct and different; he also interpreted the Folsom points to be older than the Yuma points. With the advent of radiocarbon dating in the early 1950s, nearly a decade after Figgins’s death, it became evident that the Folsom point is indeed older than the Yuma point. Apparently there was friction between Figgins and Cook, and also between Figgins and Renaud, beginning as far back as the Folsom Site announcement. Even with their great collective work—and with their combined blunders—in the 1930s the men seemingly did not entirely coalesce as a team. Cook and Renaud each felt that they should have been the one to announce and publish the Folsom discovery instead of Figgins, who was not a formally trained scientist. These tensions seemed to grow over the years: Cook left the Museum in 1930 and Renaud’s association with the Museum apparently ended by 1933. Renaud and Figgins’s disagreement over the age of the Folsom versus the Yuma point types appears to have been the final act that caused the two men to part company. Neither Cook nor Renaud was involved in the Dent Site excavation in 1933 or the Lindenmeier Site excavation in 1935. Figgins’s own relationship with the Museum finally ended in 1935, with his departure from the position of Museum director. Although his exit meant the end of one era, it also marked the beginning of a new one.

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The Wormington Years, 1935–1968

Precocious. Audacious. Gifted. Prolific. Ambitious. Connected. Cavalier. Regal. All of these adjectives might be used to describe the fiery, intelligent, generous, and opinionated archaeologist Hannah Marie Wormington (Fig. 7.5). Posthumously described as “one of the great human landmarks of Denver” by noted Colorado historian Tom Noel, Wormington was by all accounts a remarkable scholar.2 A pioneering woman working in a man’s archaeological world, she carved a niche for herself on the edges, or perhaps more appropriately said, on the frontiers of southwestern archaeology, actively embracing those research areas and time periods ignored, if not shunned, by her male colleagues. Wormington essentially spent her entire career at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, where she popularized, through publication, lectures, and exhibitions, North American archaeology in general and Paleo- indian archaeology in particular. She published three popular textbooks, Ancient Man in North America, Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest, and The Story of Pueblo Pottery (Wormington 1939, 1947, 1951), each of Figure 7.5. Hannah Marie Wormington. which ran through multiple editions. They became standard textbooks in both undergraduate- and graduate-level archaeology courses across North America. She did so while hiding her gendered identity, publishing only her initials, “H. M.,” rather than her full names, as so many women scholars did in the middle 20th century in order to be taken more seriously by the establishment.3 In spite of these challenges—and insults—she became a highly respected and sought-after consultant on thorny archaeological matters, particularly Paleoindian studies, worldwide.

Biographic and Academic Chronicle Wormington was born in Denver, Colorado, on September 5, 1914. Her mother, Adrienne Roucolle, was a 40-year-old French national born in Tou- louse in 1873. Her father, Charles Watkins Wormington (1853–1923), was a 60-year-old British national born in Worcester.4 The Wormington household was thus bilingual and steeped in both French and English culture, cuisine, and custom. As we shall see, the French connection in particular would help Wormington jump-start her career in 1935 (Knudson 2004). A lifelong resident of Denver, Wormington graduated in 1931 from East High School, just across City Park from the Colorado Museum of Natural History. She attended the University of Denver, located only six miles south of the Museum, and earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology there in 1935. Wormington gained her first exposure to archaeology during her sophomore year (1932–1933) at the University of Denver through coursework with self-trained archaeologist E. B. Renaud. Having lived in Denver since 1914, Renaud was familiar with the strengths and weaknesses

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of the Colorado Museum of Natural History, which at the time did not have a department of archaeology, much less an archaeologist on staff.5 Given the lack of professional archaeological expertise at the Museum, it is not surprising that Museum administrators ultimately turned to a local university for help; it was Renaud who suggested that Wormington and her University of Denver classmate Betty Holmes volunteer at the Museum during the winter of 1934–1935 (Knudson 2004).6 Both eager young students followed his advice. Whereas Holmes’s Museum association lasted only until 1942, when she joined the war effort, Wormington’s service set in motion a productive if tumultuous relationship with the Museum spanning six decades. Wormington began graduate studies at Radcliff College in 1937, taking a ten-month leave of absence from the Museum to do so. Despite intensive work during another extended leave through the war years, from 1942 to 1944, she did not obtain her master’s degree until 1950. She defended her dissertation, “The Archaeology of the Upper Colorado Plateau Area in the Northern Periphery of the Southwestern United States,” in 1954, becoming the second woman to receive a PhD in anthropology from Harvard University. It remains unclear why it took Wormington so long to obtain the advanced degrees. Having published her first book, Ancient Man in North America, at age 24, and her second, Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest, at 33, perhaps she did not feel the need to prove herself academically. Wormington married petroleum geologist and fellow Denver resident George Volk in 1940. His career made it difficult for Wormington to take positions elsewhere. Married for 40 years, until Volk’s death in 1980, the couple never had children. Wormington met her own tragic end in a fire, set by a stray cigarette, in her Denver home on May 31, 1994.

A Grand Tour of Europe In the fall of 1935, Jesse D. Figgins hired Wormington and Holmes in paid positions to continue their work cataloging the Folsom and Yuma projectile point collections (Figgins 1934; Figgins 1935b; Renaud 1932; Wormington 1948). Wormington was hired as the senior member of the team, for she was about to graduate from the University of Denver; Holmes was just entering her junior year (Fig. 7.6). It is worthwhile to emphasize the economic and social context within which Wormington and Holmes found themselves in 1935. It was the height of the Great Depression. Unemployment had risen from 3 percent to roughly 25 percent (McElvaine 1993). Fair or not, many Americans felt that working women were taking money directly out of the hands of male breadwinners. In Figgins, Wormington and Holmes had found a useful ally, particularly Figure 7.6. H. Marie Wormington in 7 cap and gown, ca.1935. when contrasted with the next Museum director, Alfred M. Bailey. It is unclear whether Wormington and Holmes faced gender discrimination

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during their first years at the Museum; it is notable that Wormington never complained about discrimination, at least in any documents that can be found in the archives. Their situation may have been ameliorated because both were doing collections-based work, traditionally perceived as women’s work (see Gero 1985).8 With regard to the broader disciplinary context, American archaeology in 1935 was still dominated by men: of the 38 signatories to the original charter of the Society for American Archaeology, only four were women (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009: 161–163). Given Wormington’s personality, productivity, and fortitude, any discrimination or comparative anonymity she might have suffered at the Museum during these early years simply was not going to hold her back. In addition to being the first year that ormingtonW earned a salary at the Museum, 1935 is notable because of her grand tour of Europe, which had significant implications for both her career and the Museum. Long before graduation, Wormington and her mother, who by then had been a single parent for more than a decade, embraced the idea of conducting a grand tour in the Victorian tradition that so many American students had come to enjoy, if not expect, after graduation.9 The formal tour on which they were booked was canceled at the last minute, but the unrelenting mother- daughter team was not about to let such a minor inconvenience disrupt their plans to visit the homeland. On the contrary, the younger Wormington had already audaciously set her own plan to acquire Paleolithic artifacts for the Museum while on tour. It is here that Wormington’s unparalleled networking capabilities first become clear, for she took advantage of Renaud’s professional acquaintances and French identity, not to mention her own French fluency, to enhance her career goals while serving, if not setting, her institution’s research and exhibition agenda (Cordell 1993).10 At some point in the early or mid-1930s, European archaeologists and museums had made formal requests of the Museum for Folsom points and artifacts, or at least photographs thereof, so that they might have first- hand evidence of the Museum’s recently discovered Paleoindian materials from Folsom, New Mexico, and elsewhere. Probably in the spring of 1935, Wormington approached the Museum’s trustees with a formal and brilliant proposal: she would serve as the Museum’s agent while traveling in Europe. If empowered to act on behalf of the Museum, Wormington would negotiate trades of European Paleolithic artifacts, photographs, and line drawings for casts of Folsom and other Paleoindian artifacts from the Museum’s collections. The trustees enthusiastically approved her request, and the 20-year-old Wormington and her mother set sail for England, France, and Spain. Not long after she returned from Europe in 1935, the Museum formally created a Department of Archaeology. Although she was not formally appointed curator until 1936, circumstantial evidence suggests

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a cause-and-effect relationship between Wormington’s grand tour, the creation of the Department of Archaeology, and her establishment as curator in that department a year later.

Research, Collections, Exhibits Wormington was an impressively energetic field researcher, particularly in the first several decades of her career at the Museum (Table 7.1) (Fig. 7.7). By the mid- to late 1950s, after completing her fieldwork in Alberta, Wormington became less engaged in archaeological fieldwork and more engaged in attending professional meetings, visiting excavations at internationally important sites, revising her many books, and supervising ongoing exhibitions-related work in Denver. One particularly active period in this regard was 1960–1961. In 1960 she visited Mesoamerican sites including Palenque, Uxmal, and Chichén Itzá; attended the Society for American Archaeology meetings in New Haven, Connecticut; and studied Old Copper culture collections at the Milwaukee Public Museum.11 In 1961 she attended the International Association of Quaternary Research meeting in Warsaw, visited Hallam Movius’s excavations at Abri Pataud and François Bordes’s excavations at Combe Grenal in southwestern France, and visited museum collections in Barcelona, Rome, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest.12

Figure 7.7. H. Marie Wormington at the Turner Site, ca. 1940.

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Table 7.1: Wormington’s Archaeological Fieldwork. (Source: Curriculum vitae, Hannah H. Wormington and DMNS annual reports)

Year Site 1935 Paleolithic sites, France, with Henri Martin; Moore Rockshelter, near Montrose, CO 1936 Johnson Folsom Site, La Porte, CO 1937 Casebier and Moore Rockshelters near Montrose, CO; Folsom sites in northwest Texas; Visit to E. B. Howard’s excavation at Clovis Site, NM; Pinto Basin Site north of Fort Collins, CO (one mile from the Johnson Site) 1938 Casebier and Moore Rockshelters near Montrose, CO; Four Basketmaker sites near Grand Junction 1939 Turner-Look Fremont Site in Grand County, UT; Stratified site along Lower Gunnison River, CO; Cave site near Gypsum, CO, recorded probable Ute petroglyphs 1940 Turner-Look Fremont Site in Grand County, UT; Huscher’s hogan sites; Stratified site near Denver; Stratified site in Tracy Canyon, La Garita, CO 1941 Turner-Look Fremont Site in Grand County, UT; Stratified site in Tracy Canyon, La Garita, CO 1947 Turner-Look Fremont Site in Grand County, UT 1948 Cherry Creek Reservoir salvage archaeology, Denver, CO 1949 Woodland double burial excavated near Cornish, CO 1951 Taylor and Alva Rockshelters in Mesa County, CO 1952 Taylor and Alva Rockshelters in Mesa County, CO; Consultant, Texcoco mammoth, Valley of Mexico 1955 Consultant, human remains near Turin, IA 1955 Survey, Alberta, Canada 1956 Survey, Alberta, Canada 1962 Site near Fort Morgan, CO, by George Agogino for Museum 1963 Advisory Committee, Tule Springs, NV 1965 Advisory Committee, Onion Portage, AK; Alaska (with Jack Putnam); Surface survey of early man site near Greeley, CO 1966 Frazier Site, Weld County, CO 1967 Frazier Site, Weld County, CO 1968 Jurgens Site, Weld County, CO (with Joe Ben Wheat)

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1970 Consultant, Jurgens Site, Weld County, CO 1971 Consultant, Hudson-Meng Site, Chadron, NE (with Larry Agenbroad) 1972 Consultant, Hudson-Meng Site, Chadron, NE (with Larry Agenbroad) 1973 Consultant, Hudson-Meng Site, Chadron, NE (with Larry Agenbroad) 1977 Consultant, Hot Springs Mammoth Site, SD

It is clear that in these travels Wormington put a lot of time and effort into establishing and maintaining professional networks, and that she made attendance at scholarly meetings and international symposia a priority. Indeed, the opening line of Wormington’s Department of Archaeology report in 1962 begins, “The Curator’s travels began in March … ” implying that her travels were the most important events to occur in the department that year.13 Wormington attended scores of regional, national, and international meetings, including some of the most important archaeological meetings of the middle 20th century (e.g., the International Symposium on Early Man, held in Philadelphia in 1937, and the Lithic Technology Conference in Les Eyzies, France in 1964). Building the Museum’s archaeology collections was of equally great importance to Wormington. Virtually all of the Museum’s annual reports from 1935 to 1968 list a handful, and sometimes more than a dozen, separate donations to the collections. Most of these are piecemeal donations of individual objects that people had inherited, collected while hiking or working the land, or purchased while traveling. Although not necessarily representative of all years and collections, the list for 1939 offers a glimpse into the kinds of material the department accepted under Wormington (Table 7.2).

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Table 7.2: Donations to the Department of Archaeology in 1939. (Source: Colorado Museum of Natural History Annual Report, 1939)

Artifact Type Donor Figurines from Mexico Mrs. Almeda Boundy, Denver, CO Figurines from Mexico Mrs. Gilbert Neiman, Denver, CO Stone and bone artifacts from Jim Browne, Denver, CO; Chief Sheep Mountain, NE Meyers, Al Moore, Matt Brennan, Charles Simmons, Scottsbluff, NE Two skeletons and grave Forest L. Power, Greeley, CO offerings Three Inca hafted hammers and J. H. East Jr., Denver, CO wooden shovel from Chile Stone axe John W. Taylor, St. Joseph, MO Photographs of Maya F. L. Titsworth, Denver, CO petroglyphs Yuman point basal fragment Nelson Vaughn Metate P. M. Lockwood, George Ziegler, Springfield, CO Yuma [point] fragment Joseph Rogers, Los Animas, CO Mano and metate Charles H. Martin, Denver, CO

Indeed, exhibits were a central focus for Wormington since her first days at the Museum. In 1935, when Wormington was hired, efforts were already under way to display Lindenmeier artifacts being excavated by Cotter and others near Fort Collins.14 In 1936 five new cases were put on display, one containing the Folsom and Yuma artifacts on which Wormington had been working and another containing some of the European artifacts she had just acquired for the Museum.15 First mention of a large, synoptic archaeological exhibition was made in 1938, the outline of which called for six exhibits, one each for Folsom Man, the Basketmakers, the Pueblo Indians, Cheyennes, Utes, and Jicarilla-Apaches. The theory behind the exhibition was firmly grounded in culture history and culture evolution, such that the cases

would show man’s place in nature, his evolutionary development from a creature capable of using stones casually picked up to one able to make and utilize the microscope and X-Ray tube. The Indian would be shown not just as a racial group but as an integral part of an ancient and world-wide pattern. 16

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No further mention of a new, large archaeological exhibition would be made Figure 7.8. The Museum’s Hall of Man, also referred to as the Hall of Ancient until 1948, although a small exhibit of Folsom materials was installed in Peoples. the Fossil Hall in 1946, “adjacent to exhibits of fossil mammals which were hunted by these primitive people.”17 In 1949 Wormington reported that “plans for the Hall of Man are progressing nicely.”18 By this time, plans were in place for displays of both Old World and New World cultures, expanding greatly on the 1938 proposal, which emphasized only the archaeology of Colorado. Arminta “Skip” Neal and Mary Chilton Gray were added to the department staff in 1950 as preparator and artist, respectively, and were expected to focus their energies on development of the new Hall of Man.19 Their work was slow but steady. Gray spent 1951 conducting research to ensure the accuracy of her murals; Neal completed the Neanderthal miniature diorama, the first of 18 planned exhibits (Fig. 7.9). Wormington’s description of the diorama demonstrates the resonating power of the 1950s’ Ozzie and Harriet, Cold War–era domestic American trope: man the protector:

It shows a Neanderthal family of the Old Stone Age defending its cave home against a cave bear. A man with upraised spear stands silhouetted against the cave entrance; to the left a woman and children are frantically assembling torches at a fire. An adolescent boy, carrying

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a flaming torch, runs toward a man who has just sprung up from a corner of the cave where he has been at work chipping stone tools, and a young child, unaware of the danger, moves toward the bear.20

Such a scene shows a presumed nuclear family, the woman attending the children, the man responsible for defense. The presentation of such a family organization for Neanderthals reflects as much about American cultural norms of family as it does any kind of scientific understanding of how Nean- derthals organized themselves or lived. In 1952 Wormington lamented the “smallness of our collections,” which made “acquisition of specimens suitable for display an urgent matter.”21 Given the lack of tradable collections at the Museum, Wormington enlisted Neal to prepare casts of the early projectile points in the collections, which were in great demand and remain so, if to a lesser degree, even today. Wormington’s efforts to secure exhibition-quality material enjoyed a boost in 1953. In addition to the acquisition of the Arizona State Museum material mentioned above, the University of Penn- sylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology sold the Museum five casts of Maya stelae from their collections, a loan of three more with the future possi- bility of passing of title, and an original fragment of Stela 3 from Caracol, all for a total of $1,500 ($12,100 in 2010 dollars). Even better, on April 20, 1953, while conducting excavations, the University of Pennsylvania Museum staff discovered the other half of Stela 3 and then brokered it as a gift to the Museum from the government of British Honduras (now Figure 7.9. Arminta “Skip” Neal working on a Hall of Ancient Peoples Belize). Stela 3 is still in the collections. diorama, ca. 1950. Wormington also successfully brokered an exchange of Museum objects with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, in England. Unfortunately, she did not keep good records of what she traded, but in all likelihood Folsom and Yuma artifacts, or at best casts thereof, were involved.22 The annual reports for 1954 and 1955 mention Wormington’s ongoing efforts to secure exhibition-quality material for the Museum. In 1956 Wormington was finally able to celebrate the opening of the section of the Hall of Man devoted to the prehistoric peoples of the Americas, which included the display of “Theodora,” the mummy of a Pueblo woman, which

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apparently attracted particular, if macabre, attention.23 Over the next three years, new murals were added to the exhibition as Gray finished them (Fig. 7.10). Small temporary exhibits were added periodically, but no substantive revisions or changes were made. The Hall of Man remained a part of the Museum for 44 years.

Administration and Service In 1936 Wormington was named curator of archaeology and Holmes was named associate in archaeology.24 Although Wormington began graduate studies at Radcliffe College in the fall of 1937, she maintained her full standing as curator of archaeology until 1940, shifting to honorary curator from 1940 to 1945. In 1945 she again became curator of archaeology and held that title until she was dismissed from the Museum in 1968. Betty Holmes was hired as associate in archaeology in 1936 and was promoted to associate curator in 1939, a position she held until she joined the war effort in 1942. In 1938 Charles A. Mantz was added as curator of Asiatic anthropology, and he immediately spent six months excavating five sites in Japan.25 As a result

of that effort, he returned significant collections to Denver, some of which Figure 7.10. A Mary Chilton Gray 26 mural from the Ancient Peoples Hall. went on display in 1939, and completed at least four publications. There- after, Mantz’s trail goes cold in the annual reports, although he remains listed as curator of Asiatic anthropology through 1943. In the ensuing three decades, only two other people joined the department’s roster (at least as

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they are recorded in the annual reports): Arminta “Skip” Neal and Mary Chilton Gray. Both maintained long relationships with the Museum after transferring out of the Department of Archaeology and into the new Depart- ment of Exhibitions in 1956. It is indeed curious that despite the stability inherent in having a single individual in charge of the department from 1935 to 1968, only five other Department of Archaeology employees were deemed worthy of inclu- sion in the administrative lists published in the annual reports during that period. The archives are unclear about the reasons for this situation, and it may simply be that Wormington was not an empire builder. That said, she supported, and indeed mentored, dozens of individuals who are not listed in the annual reports. Despite this, the Department of Archaeology remained relatively small for decades. The Department of Archaeology was thus effectively synonymous with Wormington for 33 years. Aside from Mantz’s brief tenure from 1938 to 1943, during much of which he was away, and the Holmes years from 1936 to 1942 and the Neal/Gray years from 1950 to 1955, Wormington was the lone employee in the department. As such, a great deal of internal service activity fell to her but is not recorded in the annual reports (Fig. 7.11). Wormington served as editor of the museum section of American Anthropologist and also regularly reviewed grant proposals for the National Science Foundation and National Geographic Society, but perhaps her most noteworthy service work was through the Society for American Archaeology, the preeminent organization for professional archaeologists. Wormington was the first female vice president of the SAA, from 1950 to 1951, and again from 1955 to 1956. Then she was elected president and served from 1968 to 1969, the first female archaeologist to hold this esteemed post.

“She Talked Herself Out of a Job” In the summer of 1968, Wormington was on a leave of absence from the Museum and conducting fieldwork with Joe Ben Wheat of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History at the Jurgens Site, a stone’s throw away Figure 7.11. H. Marie Wormington doing a Panorama TV show in the from the Frazier Site, which she had Hall of Ancient Peoples. recently finished digging. During the

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academic year of 1968–1969, her plan was to be a visiting professor in the Department of Anthropology at Arizona State University as a change from the Museum. On July 22, 1968, however, Bailey wrote to Wormington informing her that he had eliminated the Department of Archaeology and that there would be no job for her at the Museum when she returned from leave. The full story behind Wormington’s 1968 departure from the Museum may never be known. Theories abound. In one account, Bailey dismissed Wormington because the Museum’s trustees recognized a discernible conflict of interest in her serving as a consultant to Wheat’s excavations. By another, the lack of attention Wormington gave to curatorial matters, particularly late in her career, finally caught up to her and the administration demanded accountability. 27 In another, Wormington was developing her own plan to leave the Museum. As she wrote to Wheat, “I am going to get out of here”; it remains unclear, however, whether she was referring to her pending leave of absence or a full-fledged departure from the Museum.28 It might be noted, too, that the Museum had acquired the Crane Collection and had plans to exhibit it, but since Wormington was not an ethnologist, the collection would require additional resources. Wormington’s own account documents that she was caught working behind-the-scenes with the Cranes on the Museum’s attempts to acquire their collection from their Museum of the American Indian in Marathon, Florida. In so doing, she clearly undermined Bailey’s authority as Museum director and gave him the justification needed to end a long and tumultuous relationship. As she wrote the Cranes:

When I last wrote to you, I was still following the advice of [Museum Assistant Director] Roy Coy, and not telling you that I had been dismissed from the Denver Museum of Natural History. This was undoubtedly a great mistake, for the cause of the dismissal was a copy of a letter I had written [on April 21] to Doug Byers [of the Peabody Museum], suggesting that he warn you about possible dangers to your collection [if it came to the Denver Museum]. Whether it was Coy or [Museum trustee] Richard Davis who gave a copy of the letter to Bailey, I do not know. Certainly, Doug did not, and neither did [Museum trustee] Ned Grant, who died two weeks before I was dismissed.29

As Wormington’s long-term volunteer Robert Akerley stated, “She talked herself out of a job.”30 An anonymous source who wrote one of the most detailed reactions to Wormington’s dismissal pulled no punches in so doing. The passage merits quoting at length, as it communicates, rightly or wrongly, the political and emotional damage done:

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A Catastrophe: Dr. H.M. Wormington is no longer connected with the Denver Museum of Natural History which, actually, was only of importance because of her contributions to it. Dr. Wormington took a year’s leave of absence June 1 after 33 years with the Museum. On July 22, Alfred Bailey, director of the museum, decided to eliminate the Department of Anthropology [sic— Archaeology] of which Dr. Wormington was head. She is currently teaching at the University of Arizona [sic— Arizona State University] at Tempe. Of course, this fiasco will immediately lead to the discredit of Bailey (and what has he done for Anthropology?), Dr. Wormington is in a bad situation. Naturally, she is in demand as a professor all over the world. We have several spots for employment ourselves. The difficulty, which many happily married couples have, is that each partner has a profession and usually they cannot find employment in the same place at the same time. Dr. Wormington is also Mrs. George (Pete) Volk and her husband is a petroleum engineer based in Denver. We do not need to tell any of our readers about Dr. Marie’s distinguished career but maybe you did not know that the royalties from her books went to the Museum and not to her. This seems to us to be a disgraceful situation from which only Dr. Marie can emerge with honor. As all who know them will attest, the Volks are warm, outgoing and extremely intelligent people. We predict a considerable hassle over this situation. Dr. Wormington will soon have a new book on the market and this time she will get the royalties and not Bailey and his devalued Museum. With stuff like this going on, no wonder the students want to wreck Academia. Students are not readily self-seeking; they are idealistic.31

George Agogino, an archaeologist at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales and one of Wormington’s many protégés, was direct in his scorn for Bailey. He also expressed his concern for the future of the archaeological collections at the Museum and demonstrated his sensitivity to Wormington’s long-term situation at the Museum and for her future as a scholar. As such his comments are also worth quoting in detail:

Suffice to say, the actions of Bailey show his typical ingratitude, biased, and thoroughly irresponsible actions. How could he possibly have had the nerve, the gall, and the ability to send you a letter such as he did, after it was

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clearly understood that you were on sabbatical [Note: This term had no formal meaning at the Museum], is beyond me. I really fear for the vast archaeology collections now in the museum. A man with that type of irresponsible mind,—those collections are probably in danger. He might actually trade them for a fish head or a rare bird or something. Here is the Denver Museum of Natural History, which has a historic role in the development of Early Man [studies] suddenly divorcing itself from the archaeological picture entirely because of the diabolical actions of a man of monstrous intrigue and apparently little understanding of the role of that the Denver Museum has done in the formation of Early Man. I am just sick.

Marie, if there is anything at all which I can do, please let me know. Certainly, with your position and background and knowledge, there is no question you will be able to re-locate at a larger sum of money and under certainly better working conditions. I could not even imagine worse, but I’m sure that you do not want to permanently leave the Denver area where Pete has his own established relationship with the oil companies, and this may force trying and difficult decisions in the future for both you and Pete. I just cannot conceive, however, after all you’ve done for the Museum that they could treat you as they have. Rest assured that you have all our sympathies here, our understanding, certainly, over the years, my gratitude for the many things you’ve done for me to aid me in my anthropological career. About the only thing that Bailey could do now to add insult to injury would be to appoint Wheeler as your eventual successor.32

In the aforementioned letter to the Cranes, Wormington noted that if she were to live to see her 65th birthday, 11 years hence, she would garner a pension from the City of Denver of $81 per month. Adjusted for inflation to 2010 dollars, that is equivalent to $6,023 per annum, an amazingly small sum of money for such a long career at a single institution. As she wrote, “It’s a shabby return for some thirty years of work, and it would have been possible to fight it; but there is much to be said for escaping from an administrative pattern of nepotism, favoritism, and opportunism that is in the tradition of the Borgias,” the latter in reference to rule by the corrupt Spanish family of 15th and 16th century Europe.33 In a posting to Teocentli, the semiformal biennial archaeological newsletter, she offered detail but was

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circumspect about causes: “[My] leave began June 1, and on July 22 I got a letter from the Director stating that the Department of Archaeology had been closed and that that there would be no job for me when I returned at the end of the academic year. So ends a saga that has gone on like Beowulf.” She went on, and in so doing alluded to the working preferences of many scholars while forlornly hinting that she finally recognized the tremendous academic, working, and logistical freedom she enjoyed while at the Museum as well as the challenges she now faced:

The job at Tempe is going well—very pleasant and able people in the Department and good students. Nevertheless, I’d rather write than teach, and [husband] Pete [Volk]’s commuting to Arizona and mine to Denver is rather stren- uous. I’m going to try to find a way to spend the next year doing an up-to-date summary of what has happened since 1957, and is happening, in the Early Man field in the Americas, South as well as North.34

Whatever the proximal and distal causes may have been, Bailey’s elimination of the Department of Archaeology and summary dismissal of Wormington left bad feelings all around. Given that Wormington lived the remaining 26 years of her life in her home less than a mile from the Museum, these bad feelings persisted for a very long time, and the repercus- sions are still notable today, particularly in fundraising efforts. Wormington admitted that she was not “psychologically able” to reenter the Museum building for a full 12 years, until 1980, when a lecture by Mary Leakey, as well as kindness extended by then curator of anthropology Joyce Herold, induced her to return.35 She never again enjoyed employment stability, serving only in temporary positions as research associate or adjunct faculty at various colleges and universities around the American West. In 1988 the Museum belatedly granted Wormington emeritus status and created a lecture series in her name that continues to this day (Fig. 7.12). She died of smoke inhalation in a fire in her home on the early morning of May 31, 1994, apparently after having left a lit cigarette smoldering overnight in the cushions of her living room couch.36

The Florescence of Anthropology, 1968–1981

In 1968 four semi-tractor trailers arrived at the Museum’s loading dock. The trucks were stuffed with nearly 12,000 Native American artifacts from the singular Crane Collection. These objects, ranging from Hopi ceramics Figure 7.12. H. Marie Wormington, ca. 1988. to Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) wampum, were a gift to the Denver Museum. Their arrival marked the dawn of a new era for anthropology at the Museum.

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Mary Winslow Allen and Francis Valentine Crane (Fig. 7.13) were each born and raised in Massachusetts. Both came from wealthy, prominent families. They married in 1927, and Francis became a manager at the Allen family leather-production company and also served on bank boards. In the absence of children, they occupied themselves with myriad pursuits, including bird-watching, farming, and stamp collecting. They turned to dog breeding, becoming famous for introducing Great Pyrenees to America (Jones 1934). Following World War II, Francis suffered heart problems, and so they began an early retirement, summering in New England and wintering in Florida. Although Mary and Francis had each inherited substantial natural history collections that belonged to their respective families, 24 years into their marriage, in 1951, the couple took a road trip to New Mexico, Arizona, and California that would permanently hook them on collecting. They returned home with 2,864 Native American objects. The couple had found, in some measure, their lives’ true calling. Over the next 17 years, the Cranes amassed thousands of Native American objects. What motivated them cannot be reduced to one answer, but as Joyce Herold (1999: 265–270) has suggested, their collecting fever was born largely from a desire to make a contribution to educational pursuits, a deep appreciation for Native American objects, a zeal for negotia- Figure 7.13. Mary Winslow Allen Crane and Francis Valentine Crane. tion and deal-making, and a class outlook that demanded that their money be used to better themselves and benefit society. They initially collected locally, mainly Seminole Indian objects in Florida. But they traveled frequently, making time to pick through the storerooms at the Grand Canyon’s Hopi House souvenir shop and buying directly from Native families and artists. Soon the Cranes had a vast network of eager antiquity dealers providing them fine pieces from cultures throughout the Americas. With time, the pair became parsimonious and savvy collectors. In 1958 the Cranes opened the Southeast Museum of the North American Indian in Marathon, Florida, to share their growing collection. However, the museum never attracted many visitors because, as Mary later recalled, people went to the Florida Keys for fun and fishing, not to learn about American Indian culture.37 After nearly a decade of running the

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museum, the Cranes sought out a new home for their treasured collection. By chance, they met a curator named Roy E. Coy, who then worked at the Saint Joseph Municipal Museum in Missouri and took an interest in adopting the collection. Soon thereafter, Coy became the assistant director at the Denver Museum of Natural History. Alfred M. Bailey showed an immediate interest because the Museum had just built a new wing that stood empty and because although Denver is situated in “Plains country,” as he called it, the Museum did not have an exhibit of historic Indians.38 Coy, Robert Akerley (chief preparator in the Graphic Design Depart- ment), and Arminta “Skip” Neal (then the Museum’s curator of graphic design) went to Florida and packed the collection into more than 500 shipping crates. Once safely in Denver, a small, temporary exhibit was put on display, which included Northwest Coast potlatch materials, Hopi tihu (kachina doll carvings), clothing, religious items, and two scalps, “one of which was taken from an Indian by a white man” (Marsh 1969).

The Crane American Indian Hall This new collection launched the Museum into a frenetic decade of nearly nonstop work. First, in 1968, after Wormington’s dismissal and the elimination of the Department of Archaeology, a new department, the Department of American Ethnology, was organized, with Francis and Mary Crane as honorary curators and Christine A. Bonney as assistant (Fig. 7.14). The next year the name was changed again to the Department of Anthropol- ogy,39 and the department took more definite shape with five staff members: Susan Grant Raymond (curator), Mary Crane (honorary curator; Frances died in 1968), University of Denver professor Kate Peck Kent (honorary research associate), Joyce Herold (honorary research associate), and Bonney (assistant).40 The new department dedicated itself to exhibits, collections growth and care, research, public outreach, and building a positive relationship with Denver’s Native American community. The department’s central activity was planning for the Museum’s new permanent exhibition in the Crane American Indian Hall (Fig. 7.15). For the next several years, the goal of erecting the exhibition became so entwined with the department’s purpose that between 1971 and 1974 Museum administrators fused the Department of Anthropology with the Graphic Design Department, which was headed by Neal, an exhibit designer who Figure 7.14. Christine Bonney helping with Crane Hall construction, 1968. obtained a master’s degree in anthropology after she became responsible for the exhibition of the Crane

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Figure 7.15. Crane Hall construction, 1968

material, rather than a curatorial-level anthropologist with a PhD.41 The central idea behind North American Indian Cultures was to emphasize the relationship between culture and environment. The exhibition was designed so that the visitor would tour the cultures of North America, visiting different geographic areas and learning about how Native Americans had adapted to different ecosystems. For example, the Northwest Coast section, presenting tribes stretching along the coast of Washington State up through southern Alaska, would spotlight both a cedar plank house and a large canoe to emphasize the cultural adaptations to both land and sea (Fig. 7.16). The exhibition designers were so focused on creating authentic environments that they even worried about having authentic rocks in the Arctic exhibit’s foreground. They went so far as asking the U.S. Navy and Air Force to trans- port real stones from Alaska to Denver!42

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Figure 7.16. Moving a totem pole into Crane Hall for the Northwest Coast exhibit, 1968.

In 1974 the first phase of Crane Hall opened, featuring the Eskimos (as they were called then), Northwest Coast nations, and Seminoles. Neal was credited with designing the hall, but eight others were recognized for their contributions: Robert Akerley (assistant curator), David Hartman (preparator), Christine Bonney (registrar), Joyce Herold (assistant curator), Leonard McCann (assistant curator), Norma Castro (hairdresser), Katherine Dines (student assistant), and Patty Harjo (conservator and liaison to the Museum’s Native American Advisory Council) (Fig. 7.17).43 In phases over the next few years, subsequent sections were opened including the Plains, California and Great Basin, and Southwest culture areas. In 1978, to great fanfare, Crane Hall was completed when the final sections opened: Cheyenne and Ute, and tribes from Prairie, Woodlands, Southeast, and Northeast.44

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A highlight of this final opening was the Cheyenne camp diorama, which was set in the early 1860s along Sand Creek, 20 miles east of Denver.45 The photo-realistic background was painted by John Boone and Carlotta Espinoza over the course of two years. The foreground featured an extended family, represented by mannequins and using authentic objects of the period; the mannequins were sculpted by Susan Raymond, who modeled them on Cheyenne living in the Denver area. Ethnographic details were supplied by local Cheyenne leader Richard Tall Bull (Fig. 7.18), who also posed as the grandfather in the scene, and other tribal members (Fig. 7.19).

Figure 7.17. Joyce Herold and Robert Akerley, two seminal figures in the Department of Anthropology’s history, examine the collections. Moccasins on Pavement Impressively, during this hyperactive period the Department of Anthropology team also regularly turned out temporary exhibits, averaging more than three temporary exhibits a year between 1968 and 1981. These exhibits ranged from single archaeology cases, such as one featuring Mesa Verde, put on display in 1976, to substantial exhibits celebrating contemporary Native peoples, such as an exhibit on Denver-area Native artists presented in 1979.46 Although the Crane Collection gave the Museum a clear mandate to focus on the Americas, the Museum still strengthened its focus on other parts of the world, including Africa, Europe, and Asia.47 In 1976 the first phase of the Helen K. and Arthur E. Johnson Botswana Africa Hall was opened. The exhibition in this space has a strong anthropology component (Fig. 7.20), which was a Figure 7.18. Richard Tall Bull modeling for the Cheyenne diorama, result of Neal’s influence. As the Museum’s discusses the pose with Susan Grant Raymond, sculptor. Africa Hall project manager, Kent Ullberg, explained, using racial and gendered language suited to an earlier generation, “In addition to its three Negroid pastoral tribes,

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Botswana contains some of the almost extinct Bushmen hunter-gatherers. Figure 7.19. The completed Cheyenne diorama. They’re among the last vestiges of a completely different race, probably Africa’s oldest, that once roamed all over that continent.” 48 The exhibition used ethnographic objects to help demonstrate “man as an integral part of his environment … Here for the first time we fuse the two, an approach particularly appropriate for such a primitive country where man lives with and utilizes nature directly.”49 In addition to contributing to the Africa Hall, another permanent exhibition space, the Ancient Cultures of the Old World Hall, was completed in 1971. Later, in spite of her duties organizing the Crane Collection, Joyce Herold, by then curator of anthropology, was sent to the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe in 1976 and China in 1979. When the Hmong refugee community emigrated from Southeast Asia to Denver in the late 1970s, Herold was among the first to collect cultural objects from them. In 1981 Herold also spent six weeks in Zimbabwe as part of an international museum exchange program. Every year, the annual reports demonstrate that the Museum was accepting scores of new collections, many from areas outside the Americas. Throughout the 1970s, upwards of 50 volunteers were working for the Department of Anthropology at any given time. They worked on processing the collections and putting up the exhibits. When the first phase of Crane Hall opened, Neal explained, likely devoid of exaggeration, “Without the

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assistance of the volunteers it would not have been possible to open any Figure 7.20. A Bushman home, 50 documented during the Museum’s portion of the exhibit on time.” Botswana expedition in 1974. The Department of Anthropology staff also regularly led tours to cultural sites (mainly in the American Southwest) and hosted internationally celebrated speakers such as Donald C. Johanson and Richard Leaky. Scholarly publications and service were undertaken, mainly by Herold, with a series of articles in American Indian Art Magazine and her coauthored book Havasupai Baskets and Their Makers: 1930–1940 (Herold 1977, 1978, 1979; McKee et al. 1975). In 1979 Herold was elected director of the Council for Museum Anthropology.51 Although visitor surveys suggest that by the exhibit’s 30th anniversary most guests thought that Crane Hall presented Native American cultures as stuck in the past, when the exhibition first opened, it clearly functioned as a vehicle to acknowledge and celebrate present-day living tribal communities.52 This perspective was important because of Denver’s increasingly prominent place for Native peoples across the American West. In 1950 only 280 Native Americans lived in Denver, but a flood of Native Americans started to arrive in the coming decades, and by 2000 more than 23,000 Native Americans called the Mile High City home (Ono 2008: 233). The Museum was a pioneer in establishing a formal panel of community advisors, called the Native American Advisory Council (and later the Native American Resource Group), which convened for the first time in 1973 and was made up of local Native American elders, leaders, and

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representatives. The council was started by Neal, with support from Museum trustee Allan R. Phipps and the Museum’s board, to advise on the care of collections and the design of exhibits. Building on the Museum’s long tradition of collaborating with indigenous peoples, the council was then a unique approach, as it formalized as partners the urban Denver Indian community, “who wanted the exhibits to display the continuity between their ancestors and themselves with dignity and respect” (Archambault 2011: 18). The council directly participated in the creation of Crane Hall and other exhibits and outreach activities. The council was coordinated by Patty Harjo (Seneca-Seminole), who worked as a conservator and was a key resource in the exhibit designs.53 Between 1978 and 1983, the Kachina Shop—a store in the Museum specializing in Indian arts—held an annual fair called Indian Images, a tribute to living Native artists, which typically involved craft demonstrations in Crane Hall, tipi raisings, classes, puppet shows, discus- sions on Indian lore, slide shows, movies, and a crafts sale. Native peoples from across the country came to Denver to participate. Many of the temporary exhibitions in this period emphasized the concept that Native Americans were not gone and dead, but alive and thriving. In 1974 the Museum presented Colorado Indians—Then and Now.54 Four years later, Moccasins on Pavement opened, addressing the urban Indian experience by featuring the work of Ernie Ricehill, an Amer- ican Indian photographer, and the voices of Denver’s Indian community (Ryan 1978; Taylor 1978). This innovative collaborative exhibition started in Denver and then toured Colorado for six months; it also included a forum series featuring important Indian leaders from the National Congress of American Indians, Native American Rights Fund, and other organizations addressing serious “legal, political, social, economic, religious, artistic, and humanistic affairs.”55 The exhibition was only a modest success in terms of popular attention, however. This is likely because “the exhibition did not abide by the then popular assumptions about the nature of Indian people” because it “portrayed [Indians] as modern citizens, not romantic, heroic figures but clerks, secretaries, teachers, the same as a next door neighbor” (Archambault 2011: 18, 19). As Crane Hall aged and such activities ended, the hall became increasingly staid. But when it was completed in 1978, Crane Hall was an epicenter of public dialogue about Indians past, present, and future. The successes of this period across all areas—exhibits, collections, scholarship, outreach—made this heady time a true florescence of anthropology at the Museum. Still, there were some trade-offs and hidden problems. Although the Museum suddenly had a large staff focused on ethnography, with Wormington’s departure no one was there to carry on the Museum’s long tradition of Paleoindian research and archaeological study. Whereas other major natural history museums at this time had

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flourishing anthropology departments that worked across ethnography and archaeology, throughout the 1970s and early 1980s there was no strong curatorial-driven archaeology program at the Denver Museum. On top of it all, filling the colossal shoes of Wormington—an internationally renowned scholar—would be difficult for any successor. Also, despite the Museum’s genuine public engagements with the Native community, in the private spaces of offices and labs staff did not adequately grapple with some key Native concerns. Most notably, the Museum actively worked against Native unease about human remains and sacred objects (Cooper 2008; Fine-Dare 2002). For example, although the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) had publicly asked for the return of wampum belts and false face masks since the late 1960s, these items were proudly displayed when the Woodlands section opened in Crane Hall in 1978.56 The War Gods, made by the Zuni of New Mexico, are another example. In 1978 Zuni religious leaders asked for the return of these sacred items from museums and institutions across the country.57 In 1980 the Museum’s sister institution, the Denver Art Museum, returned three War Gods to the tribe (Merrill et al. 1993: 527). Even with this knowledge and the Museum’s puta- tive commitment to Native concerns, in 1983 the Museum still accepted three stolen War Gods and prayer sticks into its collections and did not notify the Pueblo of Zuni.58 These contradictions foreshadowed the dramatic changes that would eventually come to the Museum’s Department of Anthropology in the waning days of the 20th century.

Birth of the Blockbuster, 1982–1994 The 1980s signaled an important shift for the Anthropology Department at the Museum. After the completion of Crane Hall, the department struggled somewhat to find its footing within the institution. In 1981 the Old World exhibition was permanently deinstalled in order to make room for the Museum’s new admission fee kiosk. In 1982 Mary Crane, the department’s primary patron and promoter, passed away. After 1983 the Kachina Shop no longer held its annual Indian arts show, and then the store was incorporated into the main shop. Having proven herself with the successes of Crane Hall, Herold was promoted to chief curator in 1983, a position she herself proposed, to oversee a new Museum branch she titled the Collections and Research Division, a part of a larger Museum-wide reorganization that year.59 Herold’s duties as chief curator, while in some measure positioning her to advocate for the department, also required her to focus more on pan-division concerns and issues. Throughout the 1980s the department’s academic publications dropped precipitously, and academic contributions focused mainly on presenting papers at conferences. For example, in the 1989 Museum annual

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report’s publications and presentations section, only one anthropology curator (Jane Day) is noted, with two conference papers listed.60 In a way, Crane Hall was the result of a singular mix of history and personalities. Compared to later permanent exhibitions such as Prehistoric Journey, Space Odyssey, and Exhibition Health, Crane Hall can be seen as a unique product of an inherited collection, with strong donor participation and exhibit designers taking on a curatorial role and authority. Hence, after Crane Hall was completed, the department found itself without PhD curators and without an institutional structure to smoothly and quickly transition from a focus on exhibits to a focus on science-based research and curation.

Ramses, Nomads, and Aztecs Less attention was given to temporary exhibits as the Museum shifted toward hosting major traveling exhibitions. Temporary anthropology exhibits gradually decreased throughout the 1980s from five to six a year in the first part of the decade to several a year by the decade’s close. Crane Hall did not remain entirely stagnant through this period, but the adjustments were minor: another mannequin was added to the Cheyenne diorama and the Navajo section was renovated in 1989 to include the innovative use of audio devices.61 The smash blockbuster hits of the late 1980s, Ramses and Nomads, completely transformed the Museum, drawing more internal resources and attention to support this new revenue stream. Most of these new traveling exhibitions were now anthropology-based. Although these exhibitions were grounded in anthropological study, they were produced by outside organizations with little internal input from the Department of Anthropology. Thus, even as these exhibitions highlighted anthropology as a core focus of the Museum, at the same time they failed to enhance the institutional capacity or prestige of the Department of Anthropology. Paradoxically, these traveling exhibitions both enhanced and diminished anthropology at the Museum. The one exception during this period was the blockbuster exhibition Aztec: The World of Moctezuma, which opened in 1992. Organized by Jane Day, a curator of Mesoamerican archaeology who had also become the Museum’s chief curator in 1988 (Fig. 7.21), this was among the most comprehensive exhibitions on the Aztecs ever presented outside of Mexico (Day 1994). Assembled in partnership with the Templo Mayor Museum and the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, Aztec told the story of this civilization through artifacts, murals, and dioramas showcased in 40,000 square feet of exhibit space. More than 721,000 visitors passed through the exhibition, establishing Day’s lasting reputation in the Museum and the larger Denver community.62 Only in 2014, with Maya, Hidden Worlds Revealed, did a Museum anthropology curator develop a major tavelling exhibition again.

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Notably, a larger trend throughout the entire Museum during this period was a subtle de-emphasis on original research and collecting as central institutional values. From the Museum’s founding, collections and research had always constituted a major portion of the Museum’s annual reports. However, in the 1986 annual report research and collections were reduced to a single paragraph, and by the next year the annual report began to no longer include individual state- ments from the research and collections departments. By 1991, for the first year in the Museum’s history, the annual report did not include a list of new acquisitions; however, the annual report did continue to list scientific publications by Museum staff, indicating a subtle though important shift in the Museum’s values: away from acquiring things and toward interpreting those things through scholarly analysis. The Department of Anthropology nevertheless seemingly continued to give more attention to the collections and less toward academic publishing. Much of the Department of Anthropology’s work during this time focused on managing the collections (particularly inventorying and photographing them). Curators continued to add new pieces to the collection; throughout the 1980s, hundreds of artifacts were acquired. By 1982 more than 20,000 photographs of anthropology objects were on file, the work completed almost entirely by volunteers.63 By 1984 an inventory was completed of the entire collection, then at Figure 7.21. Jane Day, a curator of Mesoamerican 27,808 objects.64 And in 1985, the Museum received an Institute archaeology and chief curator, examines pottery from of Museum Services—later the Institute of Museum and the Museum’s collection. Library Services—grant of $25,000 to conserve and photo- document the Museum’s art collections.65

The Rise of Repatriation The biggest challenge for the department during this period was the rising tide of Native American activism that called for the return of human remains and sacred and communally owned objects from museums. This movement eventually led to the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990, which among other things established a process called repatriation by which museums could return cultural items and human remains to lineal descendants, Native American tribes, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiian organizations (Fig. 7.22). Prior to federal legislation, the Museum in fact had already facilitated one repatriation. In 1986 the Museum returned to Canadian authorities a 3,000-year-old stone bowl that had been illegally brought to the United

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States by Bob Flagle of Idaho Springs, Colorado.66 Flagle had reportedly been on vacation in 1984 on Meares Island when he stole the bowl, and subsequently donated it to the Museum. Locals reported the theft to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who quickly traced the object to Denver. The Museum spun this sordid tale into a story of good luck. The Museum’s newsletter, Bear Pause, happily related, “Canadian authorities were delighted to ascertain the whereabouts of the bowl and immediately requested its return.” The article continued on to explain that after the object was returned it was displayed at the Royal BC Museum, even though it was an object of Indian patrimony:

The bowl is being held in trust by the archaeological division of that museum for the Nuu-chah-nulth people, a major British Columbian Indian group. It is the only known stone bowl from traditional Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootkan) territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island and, as such, is a highly significant artifact. In addition it holds the honor of being the only archaeological artifact ever returned Figure 7.22. Tlingit elder Paul Wilson (seated) and head of the Raven House Ray Dennis (standing) wear their traditional clan to British Columbia after illegal export. attire at a ceremony in Skagway, Alaska. Wilson wears the Yeil Shaáaa (Raven Hat) and Lingit Tléin Kudás (Big Man’s Shirt), which Similarly, the Museum took a somewhat were made at the turn of the 20th century and were traditionally discordantly positive tone when it returned other owned by clan members. In 2007, under NAGPRA, the Museum repatriated these items to the Central Council Tlingit and Haida stolen objects in the midst of the repatriation Indian Tribes of Alaska on behalf of the Tlingit Lukaax.ádi Clan, controversy. In March 1991, four months after Raven House, in Haines, Alaska. (Photo courtesy of Ray Dennis) NAGPRA became law, the Museum returned six War Gods to Zuni tribal and religious representatives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The press release offered by the Museum claimed that the Museum had “initiated the voluntary return of the sacred artifacts,” and it emphasized that “the War Gods were stored in a secluded collection facility within the museum, and were never placed on public display” (see also Herold 1993).67 In fact, the Museum refrained from displaying these items because of promises made to sellers; one condition of purchase of the three War Gods from the Taos Book Shop was that they would not be displayed for ten years, until 1978, coincidentally the same year that the Pueblo of Zuni began publicly seeking repatriations.68

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Various newspapers nonetheless emphasized the “voluntary” nature of the return, and so this became the story of the Museum’s repatriation.69 An editorial in the Denver Post concluded, “The decision by the Denver Museum of Natural History to voluntarily return the war gods to the Zuni is laudable not only because it demonstrated proper professional conduct. It simply was the right thing to do, by any civilized standard.” The voluntary claim stands out given that the repatriation took place after the passage of NAGPRA. Since the War Gods were cited in the law as a prime example of the kind of objects to be repatriated, their return in fact was inevitable.70 A few years later a less sanguine tone was struck in the pages of Museum Quarterly, in a 1994 article about NAGPRA. The piece was titled “Crane’s Last Stand,” parodying the idea of Custer’s Last Stand against hostile Indian forces.71 The article’s emphasis was not on the Museum’s willingness to return stolen objects but on how the law might signal a loss for the institution. The piece’s subtitle was “A new law may cause the DMNH to lose some of its American Indian collections.” The article itself is rather straightforward, but it elides a straight answer to the question it asks: “Why were these objects taken in the first place?” The response Figure 7.23. Robert Pickering, a curator of archaeology, led the summarizes the benefits that have come to Department of Anthropology through 1990s. society from museums. “Were they stolen?” the writer probes further. “No” is the answer, though we know today some objects were indeed taken illegally. Despite such ambivalence—perhaps an attempt to make sense of a world that was rapidly changing—the Museum efficiently abided by the new law, unlike some other major museums. Department of Anthropology chair Robert Pickering (Fig. 7.23) led the effort to comply with the first portions of the law: to disseminate summaries of cultural items to tribes by 1993 and inventories of human remains and associated funerary objects by 1995.

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Conservation Helping Anthropology by Jude Southward

The Museum Conservation Depart- ment has provided much preventive conservation support to the Anthro- pology Department collections. The first major project involved renovation of the Crane American Indian Hall in the mid-1990s. For this project, the Conservation Department completed a condition examination for each object retired from exhibition and for all newly selected objects. Any object that had a detached element or loose beads received a stabilization treatment. To help protect the dioramas in the hall against pests, all materials that were attractive to pests, Figure 7.24. Conservator Jude Southward measures a Southeast Asian textile as she completes a condition such as bark, were removed. Pests are still monitored report. Gloves are worn so that oils and salts in the monthly within the dioramas. hands do not transfer and damage the textile. Conservator Jude Southward has worked with the Anthropology Department to write many grants to rehouse approximately 30 pottery vessels from Mesoamerica. Some collections on upgraded storage mounts and within new of these vessels required plaster fills and in-painting with cabinets. These mounts help protect against physical acrylic paints. Conservator Jessica Fletcher examined katsina damage and are usually made up of a box, internal pallet, dolls for an outgoing loan. She examined the friability of the internal form customized to support the object, and smooth paint, stabilized the feathers, and ensured that they were coverings that do not abrade the object. Mounts focus on stable on their mounts. Currently, conservator Julie Parker is pressure fittings with which the smooth covering is pressed working to survey and stabilize the World Ethnology collec- into a slit in the foam. tion. She opens a storage drawer, examines each object, Conservator Matthew Crawford cleaned a large and records those that require stabilization treatment. potlatch bowl in situ so the public could observe the Some recent treatments included backing the ermine skin process. Conservator Gina Laurin examined and treated on a headdress with very fine gut skin and adhesive, and

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The Konovalenko Gem Sculptures by Stephen E. Nash and Anna Konovalenko

On March 15, 1984, the Museum celebrated the opening The first large public exhibition of Konovalenko of Stories in Stone: Russian Gem Carvings, featuring the carvings occurred in Saint Petersburg in 1973, but it quickly artwork of Vasily Konovalenko. It marked the end of a became entwined in Soviet politics. Whereas members long odyssey for the Konovalenko family, which had fled of the public loved the sculptures and purchased 25,000 the former Soviet Union less than three years earlier, on exhibition catalogs in three days, some members of the April 16, 1981. Today, the Konovalenko sculptures remain a ruling party were not pleased. One man, a regional party favorite attraction at the Museum. boss, was particularly angry that he had not been more Vasily Konovalenko was a talented young set designer directly involved in the exhibition’s development. As a at the Mariinsky Theatre in Leningrad (now Saint Peters- result, Konovalenko was strongly encouraged to donate burg) in the 1950s. While working on the Russian ballet The the sculptures to the State Samotsvety (Gems) Museum in Stone Flower, Konovalenko was assigned to make a box Moscow, where they reside today. out of malachite, a copper-rich gemstone that has beautiful Between 1974 and 1981 the Ministry of Geology greenish-black hues. It was then that Konovalenko fell in sponsored Konovalenko and he enjoyed a good work love with gem carving, and for the rest of his life he made situation with a nice studio, a good salary, and lots of useful dynamic, unique, and brilliantly colored gem carvings. tools and raw materials to work with. But then he was

Figure 7.25. Bosom Pals was one of Konovalenko’s Figure 7.26. All of Konovalenko’s sculptures were meant favorite sculptures, for it reflects a quintessentially Russian to be viewed from all sides. The reverse side of Bosom theme of happy times among three (never two, never four) Pals reveals additional musical instruments, including best friends during a night of drinking and singing. Notice a cloisonné string instrument. Note that the woolen hat that the man in the middle wears leather shoes, a sign of the affluent man in the middle is much more ornate of affluence, whereas his best friends wear the standard than those of his peasant friends, with a ruby feather peasant footwear of woolen socks and woven shoes. The emanating from the top. Note also that despite the cloisonné rooster brattina (loosely translated as “punch men’s differences in social station, the converging tilt bowl”) demonstrates Konovalenko’s skill in rendering of their heads demonstrates their love for one other as beauty from a wide variety of materials, including more they heartily sing perhaps the last song of the evening. than a dozen gemstones. (Photographs by Rick Wicker)

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The Modern Mix, 1995–2006

The mid-1990s established the current model for anthro- asked to create a gem carving of Lenin, who repre- pology at the Museum, with a focus on curator-driven sented so much of the oppression and control that research, improving curation care of the extant collection Konovalenko had come to loathe in the Soviet state. It with minimal new additions, curating small temporary was at that point that he decided he and his family had exhibits, and helping to host major traveling exhibitions with to emigrate. Using his wife Anna’s Jewish heritage as anthropology themes. Additional duties and responsibilities a means to apply for an emigration visa, Konovalenko included administrative work for the Museum and service to waited and waited. One day, a letter arrived granting the discipline through such contributions as editing journals their emigration visas. Konovalenko flew to Vienna the and serving on the boards and committees of professional next day, then three days later took the train to Rome. organizations. His wife and two children followed two weeks later. The curator perhaps most successful on the research They were soon in New York with only $200 to their front during this period was James E. Dixon, who received name, unable to speak English. But Konovalenko was major National Science Foundation grants as well as national happier than he had ever been. According to his wife, media attention for his work on Paleoindian archaeology in he was so happy that the stylistic differences between Alaska. Dixon’s research on one of the earliest skeletons in his early sculptures, which can be seen only in Moscow, North America was a model of civility and collaboration with and his later sculptures, which can be seen only in local Tlingit and Haida community members, which strongly Denver, are due to the incredible weight of Soviet contrasted with the more controversial studies of similarly oppression being lifted from his shoulders. aged remains, namely the so-called Kennewick Man.72 The Museum’s 20 Konovalenko sculptures During this period collections care was supported by a string contain versions of some of his most famous pieces, of grants from the Institute for Museum and Library Services including Bosom Pals, three boisterous Russian best for rehousing different portions of the collections, ranging friends enjoying an intimate, song-filled night of from Hopi tihu (kachina dolls) to Southeast Asian textiles. drinking; In the Sultry Afternoon, in which wealthy Most major traveling temporary exhibitions during Russians enjoy a day of leisure, sipping tea while this period continued to have anthropology themes. In soaking in a comfortable pool of water; and Ice Fishing, 1996 Imperial Tombs of China (Fig. 7.27) would be the in which the lack of detail on the diminutive fish lying last anthropology-based blockbuster (with 445,000 visitors) on the ice was offered by Konovalenko as a testament until Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition in 2007 (with 425,000 to his hunting and fishing philosophy—the process is visitors). Other anthropology-based exhibitions remained more important than the product. popular, including Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga in 2001 The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is the and Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas in 2004, although only place outside of Moscow where Konovalenko’s they did not draw as large a number of visitors. The limited brilliant gem sculptures are on public display. They are in-house temporary exhibitions continued; the most notable aesthetic masterpieces, but their history within the one of this period was Hmong Search for Freedom in 1996, context of Cold War politics makes them even more which was collaboratively made with the local community important to art history, anthropology, and geopolitics. to follow the journey of Southeast Asia’s Hmong people from war-ravaged Laos to new lives in America (Cha 1996).73 This Museum-produced exhibition won an award from the American Association of Museums. Crane Hall also received small adjustments, including object rotations in 1995 and 1996, a renovation of the

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Arctic section in 1996, label updates in 1999, new lights in 2000, and a new entrance and temporary exhibit space, completed in 2002. A revitalized Egyptian Mummies exhibit was completed in 1998, and in 2000 the Konovalenko sculptures were installed on the Museum’s third floor. However, the Museum’s only permanent archaeology exhibit space, the Hall of Ancient Peoples, was closed in 2000 to make room for Space Odyssey. Given that this closing came in the same year as the Museum’s name change from the Denver Museum of Natural History to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science—an awkward change for anthropology, which many see as merely science-like and relates to culture far more than nature—many felt that the institution was moving to marginalize, if not rid itself, of anthropology.

Buffalo Feasts Figure 7.27. Imperial Tombs of China temporary exhibition. The relationship between the Museum and Native Americans grew more intimate after the passage of NAGPRA. The Museum had begun an event in 1997 called the Spring Buffalo Feast and Honoring Ceremony, which, as Joyce Herold explained, was based on “the American Indian tradition of bestowing honor with gifts, called giveaway by the Plains Indian people.”74 Timed to coincide with Denver’s annual March Powwow, typically the event was attended by 1,000 or more people, lasted up to five hours, and involved a grand entry; a banquet of buffalo stew, Indian fry bread, and blueberry compote; drummers and dancers; and the presentation of awards to recognize the good works of Native community members. This kind of outreach effort, however, did not replace the Museum’s commitment to NAGPRA. By NAGPRA’s ten-year anniversary, Herold reflected that the Museum had positively fulfilled its legal obligations since the law’s inception.75 She suggested that “when NAGPRA emerged, the Museum already had made fundamental changes in basic attitudes toward Native peoples,” as indicated by the establishment of the Native American Resource Group and the hiring of Patty Harjo, both of whom guided the construction of Crane Hall, and also by the Museum “setting aside a sacred storage room for about 700 objects” and inviting “traditional spiritual leaders for blessing ceremonies.” She also noted the “voluntary” return of the six War Gods in 1991. A decade after the legislation’s birth, under the impressive leadership of Robert Pickering the Museum had hosted 53 Native American delegations

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and established policies to honor “ritual needs and restrictions, such as the smudging of objects or storage areas with smoke from burning sweet grass braids and the placement of corn or tobacco offerings.” The Museum had successfully received four NAGPRA grants between 1997 and 2001 for consultations, which provided the Museum direct benefits with “new information for Museum collection records and interpretations” (Fig. 7.28). The Museum had then repatriated 165 objects out of 33,000 deemed possible for return, including the Keet S’aaxw (Killer Whale Hat) in 1997 to a Tlingit clan in southeast Alaska and 164 sacred objects including katsina property, prayer feathers, and other ceremonial equipment to the Hopi in Arizona. Herold concluded that “implementation of NAGPRA has profoundly impacted the DMNS, yet the spirit of the law has changed us even more.” Despite such progress, several stumbles followed. In 2002 three Tlingit objects were “loaned” to the tribe, although they should have been repatriated through NAGPRA (and finally were in 2007).76 Karen Wilde Rogers, then the executive secretary of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, lodged a formal grievance of noncompliance with the U.S. secretary of the interior in 2002 reproving the Museum for not completing its human

Figure 7.28. A NAGPRA consultation in collections storage.

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remains inventory under NAGPRA.77 The Museum responded that it was actively working on updating its inventory, but indeed this process was still not completed for several more years, after Steven R. Holen began to direct these efforts.78

Shifts in Staff By the turn of the new century, new staff had begun to again reconfigure the department. Pickering left the Museum in 1999, and Dixon left in 2000; both carried on their successful careers at other Rocky Mountain museums. Ella Maria Ray became the Museum’s first (and to date only) African American curator in 2000. A decade earlier Ray had worked with the Museum, and she came to the Museum as a child growing up across the street in Park Hill.79 Ray received her PhD from Johns Hopkins University, and her research at the Museum involved experimental narratives crafted by “listening” to objects speak.80 Steven R. Holen joined the Museum staff as curator of archaeology in 2001, continuing the Museum’s long tradition of Paleoindian research.81 In 2005 Herold formally retired after more than three decades at the Museum.82 The next year Ray left the Museum. The department’s long-time collections manager Ryntha Johnson also left during this period, creating the opportunity for hiring an almost entirely new department staff. In 2006 Isabel Tovar, coming from the Field Museum, became the anthropology collections manager and NAGPRA coordinator. The next year, her former boss at the Field, Stephen E. Nash, with research specialties in southwestern archaeology, dendrochronology, collections care, and the history of anthropology, was hired as the Museum’s newest curator of archaeology and the department chair. In 2007 this period’s curatorial staff was completed when Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, with specialties in southwestern ethnology and archaeology, heritage management, and research ethics, was hired.

Museum Anthropology in the New Millennium, 2007–present

In 2007, for the first time in the Museum’s history, all the curators in the Department of Anthropology held PhDs. Although a PhD by no means guarantees sound scholarship and curation, this shift nonetheless indicated the Museum’s institutional aspiration to ensure that its curatorial staff held the highest scholastic credentials to join the ranks of the nation’s top natural history museums with an academic-driven curator model. In most ways, the current model for anthropology at the Museum is typical of museum anthropology in the 21st century, with primary focuses on research and building strong partnerships with descendant and stakeholder communities.

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With this change, the Department of Anthropology’s curators have become more focused on research, grants, and peer-reviewed publication. In the three-year period from 2007 to 2010, the anthropology curators published more peer-reviewed papers than the staff had published in the previous decade. For the first time in the department’s history, all of the curators have regularly published in the field’s leading journals, such as American Anthropologist and American Antiquity. Grants also became more prominent, with all three curators actively obtaining research funding from a variety of sources, including the Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado), National Endowment for the Humanities, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and U.S. Bureau of Reclama- tion. These curators also produced the first book ever published exclusively on the Museum’s anthropology collections (Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2010).

The Indigenous Inclusiveness Initiative The last Spring Buffalo Feast and Honoring Ceremony was held in 2009. Despite the goodwill this event fostered for some community members, by its 13th year Museum administrators felt that the event did not fit within the Museum’s mission, did not adequately convey the Museum’s purpose to the community, and was a major challenge to organize and smoothly engineer. Museum staff further acknowledged that the event was a poor use of precious resources: tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours were spent on this one evening event, yet the Museum undertook no other educational or science-based programming with the Native American community. In place of the Buffalo Feast, the Department of Anthropology launched the Indigenous Inclusiveness Initiative. Some of these efforts built off previous programs, such as a minority internship program successfully implemented in the 1990s. The Indigenous Inclusiveness Initiative has sought to build a museum and a discipline that combine Native American voices with the best of scientific research so that indigenous cultural treasures can be appreciated from every perspective: aesthetic, historical, scholarly, and cultural. A variety of initiatives developed since 2007 include:

• The Indigenous Fellowship program, which allows Native artists, elders, curators, and community members to work with the Museum’s collections • Native American Science Career Day (Fig. 7.29), which introduces Native scientists to Native middle school students in the Denver area • The Indigenous Film program, which partners with a local indigenous arts and film festival • The Native American Science Internships program, which, with a generous donation, provides funding for three Native interns each year

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Figure 7.29. Native American Science • The Native Science @ DMNS workshop, a focused two- Career Day in 2010. week workshop organized by Native educators to introduce museums, technology, and Native culture to high school students • Native American Science Scholarships, which through a partnership with the Colorado Indian Education Foundation provide $2,000 scholarships to Native college students pursuing a career in the natural or social sciences.

The Department of Anthropology has also renewed its commitments to complying with the letter and spirit of NAGPRA (Fig. 7.30). Later curators were less coy about the source of some artifacts—indeed, some were stolen— and have taken a less administrative tone about the law, instead considering how NAGPRA relates to questions of human rights and social justice. In contrast to the 1994 Bear Pause article, for example, Nash wrote an article in 2007 in which he asks readers to imagine having their grandparents’ graves looted and bones sent to faraway museums.83 During this period the entire department has contributed to the incorporation of NAGPRA into the Museum’s everyday practices. Between 2008 and 2010, the Museum received three National Park Service NAGPRA grants totaling $186,000. These grants led to consultations with 142 tribes on the issue of culturally unidentifiable human remains (Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2011).

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Figure 7.30. Lee Lomayestewa and Stewart Koyiyumptewa of the Hopi Nation add their interpretations to Hopi artifacts at DMNS in 2007.

An American Treasure The renewed focus on research in this period came somewhat at the cost of a curatorial concern with collections acquisition. Curators have worked on the collections, accessioning a handful of pieces each year, receiving collections care grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Park Service, and planning for the new Rocky Mountain Science Collection Center. However, none of the current curators have the kind of focused attention, intimate knowledge, and daily interactions with the collections that defined curators like Herold. Previous curators felt a close and personal affinity for the collections, as indicated by the fact that they themselves regularly donated objects, a practice foreign to the present curatorial staff. For the most part, the current curators have delegated the daily work of collections care to the Anthropology Department collections manager and her staff. In a similar vein, the current curators have not focused their energy on creating new temporary exhibits (although they continue to support major traveling exhibitions with anthropology themes), which curators like Herold and Day successfully pursued. Still, the collections remain a vital part of the curatorial scope of work. In particular, as part of the Museum’s broader Science and Collections Initiative, Nash led the effort to secure a Save America’s Treasures grant— administered through the Institute of Museum and Library Services—that would provide the funds to garner complete intellectual and physical

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control over the collections before installing them in the Rocky Mountain Science Collection Center. The Save America’s Treasures grant allowed the department to hire a dedicated team of collections management assistants to conduct systematic inventories of the collections and rehouse them in archive-quality boxes. It also allowed Museum archivist Kris Haglund to hire an assistant to create finding aids (i.e., indexes) to the anthropology archives, in particular the papers of Ruth Underhill, among the 20th century’s leading anthropologists (Fig. 7.31) (see also Colwell-Chanthaphonh & Nash 2014). Finally, the grant allowed Museum conservators under Jude Southward’s direction to perform treatments on objects in most dire need of attention. Just as significant as the dollars and workers this grant provided was its symbolic value. After more than a century of near constant work to build and care for the collection, it is now recognized as an American treasure.

Figure 7.31. Ruth M. Underhill at her typewriter, ca. 1970.

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Literature Cited Archambault, J. 2011. Native communities, museums and collaboration. Practicing Anthropology 33: 16–20. Brown, B. 1929. Folsom culture and its age. Geological Society of America Bulletin 40: 128–129. Bryan, K. 1929. Discussion of “Folsom culture and its age” by B. Brown. Geological Society of America Bulletin 40: 128–129. Cain, V. E.M. 2006. Nature Under Glass: Popular Science, Professional Illu- sion and the Transformation of American Natural History Museums, 1870–1940. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York. Cha, Dia 1996. Dia’s Story Cloth: The Hmong People’s Journey of Freedom. New York: Lee & Low. Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C. 2009. Inheriting the Past: The Making of Arthur C. Parker and Indigenous Archaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C. & Nash, S.E. (eds.) 2014. An Anthropologist’s Arrival: A Memoir. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C., Nash, S.E. & Holen, S.R. 2010. Crossroads of Culture: Anthropology Collections at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C., Maxson, R. & Powell, J. 2011. The repatriation of culturally unidentifiable human remains. Museum Management and Curatorship 26: 27–43. Cook, H.J. 1925. Definite evidence of human artifacts in the American Pleistocene. Science 62: 459–460. Cook, H.J. 1926. The antiquity of man in America. Scientific American 137: 334–336. Cook, H.J. 1927a. New geological and palaeontological evidence bearing on the antiquity of mankind in America. Natural History 27: 240–247. Cook, H.J. 1927b. New trails of ancient men. Scientific American 138: 114–117. Cook, H.J. 1928. Further evidence concerning man’s Antiquity at Frederick, Oklahoma. Science 67: 371–373. Cook, H.J. 1931. The antiquity of man as indicated at Frederick, Oklahoma: a reply. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 21: 161–167. Cooper, K.C. 2008. Spirited Encounters: American Indians Protest Museum Policies and Practices. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Cordell, L.S. 1993. Women archaeologists in the Southwest. Pp. 202–220 in Parezo, N.P. (ed.): Hidden Scholars: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Cotter, J.L. 1978. A report of fieldwork of the Colorado Museum of Natural

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History at the Lindenmeier Folsom campsite, 1935. Pp. 181–184 in Wilmsen, E.N. & Roberts, F.H.H. (eds.): Lindenmeier, 1934–1974, Concluding Report on Investigations. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Number 24. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Day, J.S. 1994. Aztec: The World of Moctezuma, an exhibition with multiple voices. Museum Anthropology 18: 26–31. Figgins, J.D. 1927. The antiquity of man in America. Natural History 27: 229–239. Figgins, J.D. 1931. An additional discovery of the association of a “Folsom” artifact and fossil mammal remains. Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 10: 23–24. Figgins, J.D. 1933. A further contribution to the antiquity of man in America. Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 12: 4–8. Figgins, J.D. 1934. Folsom and Yuma artifacts. Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 13: 2–6. Figgins, J.D. 1935a. New World man. Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 14(1): 1–5. Figgins, J.D. 1935b. Folsom and Yuma artifacts, part II Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 14(2): 2–7. Fine-Dare, K.S. 2002. Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Gero, J.M. 1985. Socio-politics and the woman-at-home ideology. American Antiquity 50: 342–350. Gregory, W.K. 1927. Hesperopithecus apparently not an ape nor a man. Science 66: 579–581. Haglund, K. 1990. Denver Museum of Natural History: The First 90 Years. Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History. Herold, J. 1977. From the Malaspina Collection: Chumash baskets. American Indian Art Magazine 3: 68–75. Herold, J. 1978. The basketry of Tanzanita Pesata. American Indian Art Magazine 3: 26–31. Herold, J. 1979. Theme and variation in Havasupai basketry. American Indian Art Magazine 4: 42–53. Herold, J. 1993. Comment. Current Anthropology 34: 559–560. Herold, J. 1999. Grand amateur collecting in the mid-twentieth century: the Mary W.A. and Francis V. Crane American Indian Collection. Pp. 259–291 in Krech, S., III & Hail, B.A. (eds.): Collecting Native America, 1870–1960. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Holen, S.R., May, D.W., & Mahan, S. 2011. The Angus mammoth: a decades- old controversy resolved. American Antiquity 76: 487–489.

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Holmes, W.H. 1925. The antiquity phantom in American archaeology. Science 62: 256–258. Jones, A.F. 1934. Basquaerie raises a mighty dog: Mr. and Mrs. Francis V. Crane spread the name and the fame of the Great Pyrenees. The American Kennel Gazette 51 (8). Knudson, R. 2004. Hannah Marie Wormington. Pp. 701–702 in Ware, S. & Braukman, S.(eds.): Notable American Women: Completing the 20th Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. LaBelle, J.M. & Holen, S.R. 2008. Evidence for multiple Paleoindian components at the Lindenmeier Site, Larimer County, Colorado. Current Research in the Pleistocene 25: 108–110. LaBelle, J.M. & Newton, C. 2010. Red ocher, endscrapers, and the Folsom occupation of the Lindenmeier Site, Colorado. Current Research in the Pleistocene 27: 112-115. Lawler, A. 2010. A tale of two skeletons. Science 330: 171–172. Marsh, S. 1969. Denver Museum acquires rich Indian collection. New York Times, August 3: 16. Matthew, W.D. & Cook, H.J. 1909. A Pliocene fauna from western Nebraska. American Museum of Natural History Bulletin 26: 361–414. McElvaine, R.S. 1993. The Great Depression: 1929–1941. New York: Times Books. McKee, B., McKee, E., & Herold, J. 1975. Havasupai Baskets and Their Makers: 1930–1940. Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Press. Meltzer, D.J. 1993. Search for the First Americans. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. Meltzer, D.J. 2006. Folsom: New Archaeological Investigations of a Classic Paleoindian Bison Kill. Berkeley: University of California Press. Merrill, W.L., Ladd, E.J. & Ferguson, T.J. 1993. The return of the Ahayu:da: lessons for repatriation from Zuni Pueblo and the Smithsonian Institution. Current Anthropology 34: 523–567. Ono, Azusa 2008. Crossroads of Indian Country: Native American Community in Denver, 1950–2005. Ph.D. dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe. Osborn, H.F. 1922. Hesperopithecus: the first anthropoid primate found in North America. American Museum Novitates 37: 1–5. Renaud, E.B. 1930. Prehistoric cultures of the Cimarron Valley, northeastern New Mexico and western Oklahoma. Colorado Scientific Society Proceedings 12: 113–150. Renaud, E.B. 1931. Prehistoric flaked points from Colorado and neigh- boring districts. Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 10: 6–21. Renaud, E.B. 1932. Yuma and Folsom artifacts (new material). Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 11: 5–18.

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Ryan, B.H. 1978. Unique project stresses Indian insights. Rocky Mountain News, November 24: 34C. Spier, L. 1928a. Concerning man’s antiquity at Frederick, Oklahoma. Science 67: 60–61. Spier, L. 1928b. A note on reputed ancient artifacts from Frederick, Oklahoma. Science 68: 184. Taylor, M. (ed.) 1978. Moccasins on Pavement: The Urban Indian Experi- ence: A Denver Portrait. Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History. Wormington, H.M. 1939. Ancient Man in North America. Denver: Colorado Museum of Natural History. Wormington, H.M. 1947. Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest. Denver: Colorado Museum of Natural History. Wormington, H.M. 1948. A proposed revision of Yuma point terminology. Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History 18(2): 1–19. Wormington, H.M. 1955. The present status of studies pertaining to early man in the New World. Actes du IVe Congrès International des Sciences Anthropologiques et Ethnologiques, Vienne 1–8 Septembre 1952, Tome II: Ethnologica Première Partie: 311–315. Wormington, H. M. & Neal, A. 1951. The Story of Pueblo Pottery. Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History.

Endnotes

1 CMNH Annual Report, 1929. 2 Robinson, M. 1994. Fire kills famed archaeologist. Denver Post: A1. 3 Only one publication includes her full name on the title page (Wormington 1955). 4 H. Marie Wormington, oral history, January 27, 1987, DMNS Archives. 5 The annual report for 1932 lists a Division of Prehistoric Artifacts and gave it credit for displaying a single case of Yuma and Folsom projectile points. Although not formally trained as an archaeologist, Museum Director Jesse Dade Figgins (1867–1944) was called upon when and if archaeological matters arose in the pre-Wormington era (see Figgins 1927, 1931, 1933, 1934, 1935a, 1935b). 6 And see: Haglund, K. 1990. Biographical notes compiled by Kris Haglund from conversations with Mrs. Bachman, November 1994, DMNS Archives. 7 Alfred M. Bailey (1894–1978) succeeded Figgins as Museum director on May 1, 1936. By all accounts, Bailey lacked Figgins’s interest in, if not empathy toward, both archaeology and women, and especially women archaeologists. Bailey tried to close the Department of Archaeology at least once during the early 1940s, using a World War II–induced budget crisis as justification, while Wormington was at

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Radcliffe and listed as honorary curator. Apparently saved by a powerful trustee, Wormington was forced to establish détente with Bailey, if not a peaceful coexistence. They worked together for more than three decades before Bailey finally closed the Department of Archaeology in 1968 while Wormington was again on leave, this time as a visiting professor at Arizona State University in Tempe. 8 CMNH Annual Report, 1935. 9 Wormington’s father died in 1923, when she was nine years old. 10 H. Marie Wormington, oral history, January 27, 1987: 3, DMNS Archives. 11 DMNH Annual Report, 1960. 12 DMNH Annual Report, 1961. 13 DMNH Annual Report, 1962. 14 CMNH Annual Report, 1935. 15 CMNH Annual Report, 1936. 16 CMNH Annual Report, 1938. 17 DMNH Annual Report, 1948; CMNH Annual Report, 1946. 18 DMNH Annual Report, 1949. 19 DMNH Annual Report, 1950. 20 Ibid. 21 DMNH Annual Report, 1952: 17, 20. 22 DMNH Annual Report, 1953. 23 DMNH Annual Report, 1956. 24 There is some discrepancy here. Wormington is listed as curator of archaeology in the CMNH Annual Report for 1936; her C.V. suggests she was named curator in 1937. 25 CMNH Annual Report, 1938. 26 Mantz apparently published four papers in 1938, which are listed in the annual report. However, we could not relocate these publications and the list does not provide complete information. The four papers are: Development and trend of archeological research in Japan in Japan Today; Distribution of shell mound cities in Bulletin of the Asiatic Society; Japanese neolithic corner Tang implements in Research; and Prehistoric Japan (no journal listed). See: CMNH Annual Reports 1938, 1939. 27 Neal, A. 1984. History of the Anthropology Department. IA.Neal.6, DMNS Archives. 28 Undated letter, National Anthropological Archives (NAAWP), Wormington Papers; see also Doug Byers, letter to Wormington, April 24, 1968, NAAWP. 29 Undated letter, NAAWP. See also Wormington, letter to Linton Satterthwaite, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, February 19, 1963, DMNS Archives. Therein, Wormington describes a plan to create molds of Stela 3 for Satterthwaite while Bailey was away on vacation, thereby circumventing his authority as director. 30 Robert L. Akerley, oral history, 1982, DMNS Archives.

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31 Undated, anonymous manuscript on file, DMNS Archives. 32 Agogino, letter to Wormington, August 22, 1968, NAAWP. 33 Undated 1968 report from the Volks; Wormington, letter to anonymous, DMNS Archives. 34 [1968] Report for Publication in Teocentli, NAAWP. 35 Wormington, letter to “friends,” March 29, 1980, NAAWP. 36 Robinson, M. 1994. Fire kills famed archaeologist, Denver Post: A1. 37 Bear Pause 11 (7), 1982. 38 Ibid. 39 DMNH Annual Report, 1968. 40 DMNH Annual Report, 1970. 41 Ibid.; DMNH Annual Report, 1974. 42 Bear Pause 2 (3), 1974. 43 Ibid. Note the titles for the contributors are based on their roles during the exhibit preparations. 44 Bear Pause 6 (8), 1978. 45 Bear Pause 15 (10), 1986. 46 Bear Pause 4 (8), 1976; Bear Pause 7 (1), 1979. 47 DMNH Annual Report, 1971; Bear Pause 5 (2), 1976; DMNH Annual Report, 1979; Museum Magazine, December 2005/ January 2006: 8–9; DMNH Annual Report, 1981. 48 Bear Pause 4 (5), 1976. 49 Ibid. 50 Bear Pause 2 (3), 1974. 51 Bear Pause 7 (2), 1979. 52 Kraynak, K. 2008. Crane Hall: unobtrusive visitor observation survey. Department of Anthropology, DMNS Archives. 53 Bear Pause 5 (6), 1977. 54 Bear Pause 2 (3), 1974. 55 Bear Pause 6 (14), 1978. 56 Bear Pause 6 (8), 1978. 57 Eriacho, W. 1978. Statement of religious leaders of the Pueblo of Zuni concerning sacred Zuni religious items/artifacts. Pueblo of Zuni Repatriation Files, DMNS Archives. 58 Catalog numbers AC.11024A-B, AC.11025A-B, AC.11026A-B. 59 Joyce Herold, letter to C.T. Crockett, December 17, 1982, Crockett Personnel.2, Herold, Joyce, 1982–1984 File, DMNS Archives. 60 DMNH Annual Report, 1989. 61 Bear Pause 8 (11), 1989. 62 DMNH Annual Report, 1992; Bear Pause 21 (2), 1992. 63 Bear Pause 2 (4), 1983. 64 Bear Pause 13 (7), 1984.

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65 Bear Pause 14 (2), 1985. 66 Bear Pause 15 (2), 1986. 67 DMNH press release. Pueblo of Zuni Repatriation Files, DMNS Archives. 68 Zuni war gods listed in Crane Collection (memo). Pueblo of Zuni Repatriation Files, DMNS Archives. 69 Museum returns carvings to Zunis. Indian Trader, April 1991; Six Zuni war gods go from museum to tribe. Denver Post, March 24, 1991; Zunis recover six war gods. Albuquerque Journal, March 21, 1991. 70 The war gods are cited in the law’s regulations: 43 CFR 10.2(d)(4). 71 Museum Quarterly 3 (1), 1994. 72 Museum Quarterly 8 (4), 1999; (Lawler 2010). 73 DMNH Annual Report, 1996. 74 Members Monthly 3 (4), 2002: 20. 75 All quotes in this paragraph are from Joyce Herold, Members Monthly 2 (5): 6. 76 Members Monthly 3 (11), 2002: 13; Federal Register 72 (210): 61668–61669. 77 Karen Wilde Rogers, letter to Gale Norton, August 16, 2002. Department of Anthropology, NAGPRA Files, DMNS Archives. 78 Ella Maria Ray, letter to Gale Norton, September 4, 2002. Department of Anthropology, NAGPRA Files, DMNS Archives. 79 Bear Pause 19 (2), 1990; Members Monthly 2 (2), 2001. 80 Members Monthly 3 (3), 2002. 81 Members Monthly 3 (1), 2002: 18–19; Members Monthly 3 (8), 2002: 18; Museum Monthly 4 (2), 2003: 18–19. 82 Museum Magazine, December 2005/ January 2006: 8–9. 83 Museum Magazine, June/July 2007: 8–9.

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CHAPTER 8

SPACE SCIENCES Our Place in the Universe

Carol Cochran, The Colorado Museum of Natural History, with its collections and exhibits Kim Evans, of natural history specimens, primarily insects, birds, and mammals, David Grinspoon, originally focused on Colorado. Rather quickly it added other disciplines, a Dimitri Klebe, function of collecting or the interests of its visitors. This is how zoology and Steve Lee, earth sciences became Museum core competencies. Space sciences came to Marta Lindsay, be a Museum core competency in a different way. It officially debuted with Dan Neafus, and the hiring of a curator in 1998, followed by a new exhibition, Space Odyssey, Ka Chun Yu which opened in mid-2003. Although this may seem a rather sudden appearance for a new discipline at a century-old museum, space sciences truly entered the scene nearly 50 years earlier in an ordinary room on the Museum’s third floor.

The Planetarium The story of space sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science begins with chapters on its Planetarium and its many transformations.

Creating an Audience for Space Science, 1955–2000 In 1955, with the cooperation of the Denver Astronomical Society, the Museum installed a planetarium inside a room equipped with chairs, a Spitz Model A-1 “star-ball” type projector, and a 20-foot metal fabric dome (Fig. 8.1). Today, this Planetarium would seem tiny, its technology primitive and obtrusive. Planetariums were relatively new to museums then; only one in five visitors had ever seen a planetarium show.1 Director Alfred M. Bailey intended it as a test of public interest in space, hoping that the Planetarium might prove so popular that eventually a larger one would be built in its own wing of the Museum.2 Bailey did not need to wait long for signs of success. By the next year, weekday shows had been added to those on weekends, and the total number of performances was exceeded only by New York’s Hayden Planetarium.3 In 1957 the Russians launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik, and the public’s interest in space took off as well.

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The Planetarium was remodeled in 1957 and again in 1958, at which time 55,226 visitors had attended a demonstration. Although admission to the rest of the Museum was free, visitors paid a small fee ($.25 for adults and $.10 for children) to enter the Planetarium, thus beginning the tradition of that venue as a revenue source. This first Planetarium established an important, ongoing relationship between the Museum and the Denver Astronomical Society, whose members erected the Planetarium, maintained the equipment, and delivered programs for several years.

Entrepreneurs, Showmen, and Educators A number of interesting and talented individuals have managed the Planetarium over the years: William R. Van Nattan (1956–1959), Robert E. Samples (1959–1962), Donald Lunetta (1962–1969), Mark B. Peterson (1969–1982), Larry Sessions (1982–1983), Robert Wallace (1984–1993), Don Asquin (1993–1997), Marta Lindsay (as acting manager 1997–2001), Larry Sessions (as acting manager 1982–1983)m and Dan Neafus (2004–present). Typical of many managerial positions in museums, often these managers were called curators, although there were no collections to take care of (“I was curator of two-dimensional dots on the dome?” joked Peterson).4 Nor did they have extensive backgrounds or advanced degrees in any of the space sciences. But all were Figure 8.1. Star machine in the Museum’s original Planetarium on the knowledgeable and committed amateur astronomers and educators. Judging third floor. from their accomplishments, they were creative, energetic individuals, unafraid to take risks in their efforts to push the boundaries of the contemporary planetarium and its programming. Until 2000 the Museum had a classic, or analog, planetarium in which a large star projector realistically re-created the appearance of the night sky on the dome above. Visitors looked up at the dome while a narrator operated the machine and talked about the constellations projected there. The view was stunning, but the experience was limited by the capabilities of the technology. From the beginning, Planetarium staff invented ways to overcome those limitations to make the shows more realistic and entertaining. In 1960, for example, Lunetta and his staff recorded natural sounds—nocturnal animals of the Sonoran Desert for A Desert Night and

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wind, rockfall, a gurgling stream, and dawn birdsong on Mount Evans for A Mountain Night. They created new shows that changed each month. But only so much could be done with the small Planetarium and a small staff whose responsibilities included giving Museum tours to school groups. Lunetta had a much grander vision and was able to sell it to Museum leadership. In 1965 the Museum began planning a new planetarium, to be located, as Bailey had hoped, in its own wing. In 1968 the Charles C. Gates Plan- etarium was dedicated. It was, according to Peterson, “a quantum leap.”5 The theater consisted of a 50-foot-diameter dome with 236 front-facing seats and a computer-controlled star machine. A 22-inch telescope was mounted on the roof; it contained a television camera, allowing the real sky, in real time, to be projected onto the dome below—a first for any planetarium. (Although a good idea, in reality the telescope proved impractical as it was weather dependent and dimmed by the city’s lights and smog; eventually it was transferred to Jefferson County School District’s Mount Evans Outdoor Education Laboratory near Evergreen, Colorado, where it is still in use.) In a little over a year, annual attendance at the new Gates Planetarium had more than tripled that of the old third-floor facility, an increase from about 30,000 to over 100,000.6 In that first year the Planetarium received national attention when Lunetta and NBC-TV commentator John Palmer broadcast live during the flight of Apollo 8 as it journeyed to the moon. A little more than 10 years later, the Planetarium was renovated again, with seats now in a concentric arrangement and a Minolta star projector that could be lowered out of the way if needed. Again, the system was state of the art. Because technology varied from site to site, shows for big planetariums such as Gates were not typically interchangeable, so each planetarium had to custom-design its own programming. That situation suited the free-spirited Planetarium staff, who then as now delighted in pushing the limits of their own and the equipment’s capabilities. They loved technology and they loved production. Especially during the early days in Gates, they produced just about everything in-house: their own art, photography, special effects, and music (on a synthesizer with the help of the University of Denver). Peterson wanted something to happen every 10 seconds in a show, and that required a lot of equipment. At one point the Planetarium had a bank of 72 slide projectors and more than 100 other devices for special effects. Often staff designed and built their own equipment or modified existing devices. According to current Planetarium manager Dan Neafus, even today staff often welcome a new piece of equipment by opening it to see what is inside and what might be improved, ignoring the warning “Warranty voided if seal is broken.”7 Planetarium staff also ran their own gift shop and admissions, created their own lobby exhibits, and handled most of their own marketing. One consequence was that the Planetarium became somewhat insular, thought of by both Planetarium and Museum staff as quite separate from the rest

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of the Museum. At times this feeling was exaggerated into an “us vs. them” attitude, with the perception that the Planetarium was underappreciated, underfunded, and undersupported. This attitude culminated in a confrontation between Peterson and Museum Director Roy Coy in 1971. Because funding for the Planetarium had diminished, Peterson felt he had to run a show developed by an outside production company. Right up to the preview night for media and VIPs, techni- cians had trouble getting the program to work on the Museum’s system. That night it apparently did not work well, and Coy stopped the show, cleared out the audience, and fired Peterson on the spot. Persuaded by Peterson’s protests, the trustees soon reversed the situation, firing Coy and rehiring Peterson. Gates staff produced excellent programs: in 1977 The Last Question, based on an Isaac Asimov short story and narrated by Leonard Nimoy; Vision Beyond Time, narrated by Orson Wells; and UFOs: Strangers in the Night?, which was distributed to 40 planetariums in the United States and Canada. In 1984, staff presented Zap, a “live” show featuring educational demonstra- Figure 8.2. A young participant dons tions using a large high-voltage Tesla coil which produced lightning-like protective glasses to view a solar electrical discharges. eclipse at a Museum-sponsored event. In 1987 Stars of the Pharaohs was created in support of the Ramses II exhibition; others include Aztec Skywatchers and Dinosaurs. Where in the Universe is Carmen Sandiego was a collaborative program that had actors interacting with animated video characters. The laser and light shows that ran from 1974 to 1998 demonstrated that nontraditional planetarium shows could attract large new audiences and create significant revenue. Other programs produced by Planetarium staff, outside of the planetarium dome, included frequent Star Parties during which telescopes lined the Museum’s west patio and staff and volunteers helped the large crowds understand what they were seeing (Fig. 8.2). Overnight star gazing and campouts at the Jefferson County Outdoor Education Laboratory observatory were also very popular. In 1986 thousands came every night for two weeks to view Halley’s Comet. In 1997, when NASA’s Pathfinder mission landed the first rover on Mars, the Museum threw open its doors, inviting the public to a live broadcast of the landing and to participate in activities indoors and out. The media also loved the event, even pestering Planetarium manager Don Asquin at his home for more information. Clearly, the success of the Planetarium’s programs showed that the public was intrigued by the science of space and the Museum was the place to learn about it.

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Review and Renewal, 1997–2003 In 1997 the Museum established the DMNH Core Competency Audit Committee to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each core competency and to make recommendations for improvement. The space sciences audit, consisting of reports by internal teams and outside experts, was submitted in the summer of 1997. It focused almost exclusively on the Planetarium, since it and associated educational programming were, at that time, the extent of space sciences at the Museum. All evaluators noted that the Planetarium desperately needed renovation. The aging facility and equipment, and therefore often the programs, did not meet the Museum’s high standards. This was the report’s major conclusion; it did not push to further develop a core competency. In fact, both outside evaluators were somewhat skeptical of committing to a “full, research oriented branch to the ‘Space Science Department’”8 or of extending space sciences outside the Planetarium at all (“Space science is something I associate with science centers, not a natural history museum.”).9 Museum leadership thought otherwise. It had determined that a science exhibition would be its next step and was at the same time quietly contemplating a name Figure 8.3. Museum logo adopted in change. That change took place in 2000, when the Denver Museum of Natural 2000. History became the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, with a new logo that combined the shape of a nautilus and a galaxy (Fig. 8.3). The Museum had also hired BBC Research & Consulting to market test topics for a major new permanent exhibition. The consultants’ report, submitted on November 8, 1996, revealed that of the many topics suggested, space received the greatest amount of interest among potential audiences.10 A funding report submitted around the same time determined that it would be possible to raise up to $15 million for a “cosmos” exhibition,11 and in 1997 the Museum agreed to the cosmos concept. In addition, in 1998 the Museum took the first step toward establishing a space sciences core competency with the hiring of its first curator of space sciences, Laura Danly, in a joint appointment with the University of Denver. In 2001, Steven Lee became the Museum’s second space sciences curator. Both he and Danly guided the scientific content of what would become the Space Odyssey exhibition. In 1998 a cross-divisional Museum team began a project description for what was then called the Space Science Experience: a 25,000-square-foot exhibition on three levels and a renovated planetarium. In December 1998 the Gates Family Foundation pledged funding for a new planetarium. Planning for the exhibition and planetarium proceeded separately over the next five years. Howard Cook, multimedia and print graphics manager, assumed leadership of planetarium planning. He and his team visited planetariums around the world, investigating possibilities for the new Gates Planetarium. Early testing for the exhibition showed that potential audiences wanted to

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An Ingenious Remodel

From the beginning, a renovated planetarium was part of the space science initiative; in 1998 the Gates Family Foundation pledged its funding and planning began. In 1998 and 1999 various Museum teams visited planetariums throughout this country and in Japan. Primarily they went to see the technology, but as they sat through countless demonstrations, they were often most impressed by the planetarium seats. They especially enjoyed their experiences when the seating was raked (inclined for better sight lines), the chairs reclined only slightly, and all faced the same direction. This was not the arrangement in the existing Gates Planetarium, where seating was horizontal and concentric, with center seats tilted quite far back to enable views of the dome above but also sometimes promoting Figure 8.4. A dump truck hauls debris from a dismantled discomfort or sleep. The team determined that the new Gates Planetarium in preparation for its renovation, Gates Planetarium would have raked, unidirectional scheduled for 2003. seating, and that the dome itself would be tilted. That arrangement wouldn’t be difficult if the What could be salvaged was donated to several Planetarium was being built from scratch, but in this case, regional observatories or planetariums, and the art and the trick was to fit a larger, tilted dome and slanted flooring photography supplies were sent to the Denver School of the into an existing building without enlarging the footprint or Arts. The rest was recycled. disturbing the surrounding structures: the North American Once the structure was empty, the heavy machinery Wildlife Hall encircling the Planetarium on the second floor moved in: backhoes to excavate down some eight feet, and Botswana Africa Hall sitting above it on the third. dump trucks to haul away the debris, and pumper trucks to After architects worked out this complicated opportu- mix concrete in situ (Figs. 8.4, 8.5). Installation of the dome nity, the Planetarium closed in 2000 and staff spent a year itself depended more on human artistry and ingenuity than removing its insides until only the structural framework of supporting columns remained. The Minolta star projector Figure 8.5. The structural framework of the Planetarium with the floor excavated to make room for the new tilted was dismantled, the seating was torn out, and more than dome and raked seating. 100 projectors were removed from the perimeter.

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on the power of machines. Workers first erected a network of metal pipes as a framework for the “fabric” of the dome. This “fabric” consists of hundreds of table-sized perforated metal panels. Each was cut, trimmed, and curved in just the right configuration to be placed, one by one, onto the giant framework above (Fig. 8.6). When completed, the new Charles C. Gates Planetarium had a 56-foot dome angled at 25 degrees and would seat 129 visitors, including four wheelchair spaces. It included a spacious and sophisticated computer operations station and a theatrical stage to accommodate Figure 8.6. Workers attaching panels to the curved dome of the lectures and performances (Fig 8.7). Thanks to Planetarium. the architecture as well as the digital technology, the visitor experience in the new Gates Planetarium is much more immersive, dynamic, Figure 8.7. Planetarium Manager Dan Neafus in the completely renovated Charles C. Gates Planetarium, which opened in June large, and varied than before—and the seats 2003. are comfortable!

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“feel what it was like to be in space.” This desire guided the choice of the Planetarium’s technology and design. Planners opted for a digital projection system rather than the classic star projector because digital technology could better create the illusion of moving through space and was more versatile overall. Seating would be arranged auditorium style so that the entire audience would look in the same direction and its experience could be more carefully controlled. Seats would not recline. Instead, the dome would be tilted, offering a more immersive experience to a more upright and comfortable audience. Such digital technology was new at the time. The American Museum of Natural History had just installed digital equipment in its planetarium, and Cook and others visited the site several times. Cook was a strong-willed, visionary, and rather competitive person; he was determined to outdo the American Museum with an even newer, more powerful system. So the Museum purchased an SGI Onyx supercomputer and 11 video projectors—the Rolls Royce of planetarium hardware. Cook was intent on developing a new show to open the new Planetarium. It was to be as bold and magical as the technology. For a variety of reasons (including that the project was over budget and behind schedule), a board committee scrapped the new show just a month or so before opening. Staff regrouped and accomplished the unimaginable: using unfamiliar and unproven technology, they created a completely new show in less than a month. And so the new Charles C. Gates Planetarium opened on June 13, 2003, to great acclaim with a tour through the solar system: Cosmic Journey. The show, a surprise hit, has been revamped four times and remains one of the most popular shows to have appeared in the new Gates Planetarium.

Space Odyssey The planning, construction, and operation of the Charles C. Gates Planetar- ium did not always proceed smoothly, but it was nowhere near as fraught as the process that produced the Space Odyssey exhibition. But like that of the Planetarium, the story of Space Odyssey had a happy ending.

A Messy Process, 1996–2003 Along with the Planetarium, Space Odyssey opened to the public on June 13, 2003. This exhibition, which began as the ill-defined “cosmos” exhibition in 1996 and took seven years to plan and complete, emerged a remarkable accomplishment from a lengthy, messy, wasteful, and contentious process. In 2004 it won the prestigious Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award for Visitor Experience given by the Association of Science-Technology Centers. Inter- nally it was a winner in the “lessons learned” category as an example of just about everything not to do when planning an exhibition. It began with

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vague expectations and no clear vision. Throughout the process senior staff, Figure 8.8. A panoramic view of Space Odyssey. project managers, planning teams, and consultants changed many times, and each change of personnel caused a redirection of the vision. Major changes occurred at least five times. Along the way the project’s location and architecture were revised to include renovation of the Museum’s west side on all three floors and the roof, in addition to the Planetarium and the exhibition. The new west atria and Sky Terrace consumed at least half the $56 million project funding, leaving around $6.5 or $7 million for the exhibition (half the amount originally planned). This meant the exhibition’s footprint had to shrink as well—to 13,000 square feet, down from an original 25,000.

With a Successful Result In late 2000 the wayward project was finally put on course when the group nicknamed “the Quartet” was authorized as the official client representative for Space Odyssey and it began concept development with the design firm Delphi Productions of Alameda, California. The Quartet consisted of Jodi Schoemer, project manager; Laura Danly and later Steve Lee, project scientist; Eddie Goldstein, space science educator; and Frances Kruger, lead interpretive developer. The Quartet gave the project a clear vision, a distinct direction, and a transparent process; largely because of the Quartet’s work, Space Odyssey turned out to be exciting and popular. After years of tumult, thanks to the Quartet the project remained true to the wishes expressed in focus groups and surveys from years before: that the exhibition be fresh, dynamic, personal, interactive—and amazing. Space Odyssey can be thought of as a stage for the performance of space science education. It consists of a nonlinear arrangement of some 30 programs and demonstrations, flexible performance stages, and other

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multiuse spaces (Fig. 8.8). Visitors choose their own path through the exhi- Figure 8.9. An “astronaut” interacts with visitors through the glass of the Mars bition, participating in activities or experiments that are interactive, open diorama. ended, and designed to promote self-discovery. One aspect of the exhibition is reminiscent of the more traditional offerings of a natural history museum: the Mars diorama, a canyon landscape inspired by high-resolution spacecraft images of Candor Chasma, a real site in Valles Marineris (the “Grand Canyon of Mars”). But this diorama is not at all traditional: intended to portray the first human base station on the Red Planet, “astronauts” step into the diorama several times daily, conducting experiments and conversing with visitors through the picture windows of this “visitor center on Mars” (Fig. 8.9). Visitors may also talk with the Museum Galaxy Guides, volunteers who give demonstrations and programs and facilitate interactive exhibits (Fig. 8.10). Museum Galaxy Guides also bring portable interactive props (cart-based programs) onto the exhibition floor and use laptop computers to access information to customize visitors’ experiences. These volunteers receive intensive training initially and continuing

Figure 8.10. Museum Galaxy Guides educational opportunities thereafter. They are briefed before each shift by interact one on one with visitors. space sciences staff or outside experts (Fig. 8.11), and a web-based Galaxy Guide Portal, which contains up-to-date scientific and logistical information,

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is available for reference (Fig. 8.12). Other volunteers and staff work in the Figure 8.11. Curator of Planetary Space Sciences Newsroom monitoring news of discoveries or events each Science Steve Lee provides the latest space science news to Museum Galaxy day and transmitting this new information to the Museum Galaxy Guides Guides before their shifts as facilitators or to media screens on the floor. Exhibit components themselves are flex- in Space Odyssey begin. ible and readily changed. By design, nearly all programs and activities have been modified or replaced since Space Odyssey opened, and the content in hundreds, maybe even thousands, of digital programs has been revised. One of the biggest changes was the addition in 2010 of Science on a Sphere, thanks to a multiyear NASA grant. Because of these efforts, Space Odyssey continues to be as relevant to the Museum’s visitors today as when it opened in 2003, offering accurate, important, and current space sciences information in compelling and memorable formats. Each visit to the exhibition provides new and different experiences from the realm of space exploration, and visitors often come back. In fact, a recent survey revealed that a remarkable 70 percent of those visiting Space Odyssey are repeat visitors.

A Space Sciences Core Competency Figure 8.12. The web portal through which the Museum Galaxy Guides keep abreast Throughout the years, the popularity of the Planetarium had demonstrated of the latest information in the space the public’s interest in space and that the community considers the Museum sciences. the place to learn about space. Audience testing prior to Space Odyssey con- firmed these impressions. The renovated Planetarium and the Space Odyssey exhibition were necessary responses to the public’s interest. A third response seemed obvious: to establish a space sciences core competency with a department of curators and scientists actively engaged in space science research and devoted to engaging the public in the ongoing exploration of space.

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Space Sciences Newsroom

From the beginning, everyone who ever had a vision for the spontaneous and engaging conversations with Museum Space Odyssey project agreed: the information provided to visitors. Information is updated frequently, sometimes the public must be up to date, scientifically accurate, and hourly, and sometimes even minute by minute. When events visually compelling. This is notoriously involved and difficult warrant, the Museum has responded very quickly, for to do, as the Museum discovered in earlier exhibitions. example in March 2011 when a massive earthquake and the But Laura Danly, curator of space sciences, found the way resulting tsunami devastated Japan. Within 15 minutes of during the planning stages with the creation of the Space the occurrence, pictures and movies appeared on the portal Sciences Newsroom. and screens in the exhibition, and they were continuously The newsroom is a physical location, a place inside updated all day. Museum Galaxy Guides stationed at their the Museum with the equipment and resources for volun- laptops and at the Science on a Sphere (which featured teers and staff to research, a visualization of global prepare, and deliver wave heights related to a up-to-date astronomy and tsunami) conversed with space science content to visitors about the event. the floor of Space Odyssey Geologist Bob Raynolds (Fig. 8.13). The newsroom also spent the day in Space team includes Collections Odyssey explaining the Manager Marta Lindsay, disturbances to Earth’s crust Content Specialist Dimitri that can create tsunamis. Klebe, and Newsroom Content evolved over Manager Kim Evans. In the following weeks, and addition, the current space extensive programs are still sciences curators (Lee and Figure 8.13. The Space Sciences Newsroom, where presented frequently at the volunteers Fred Spafford and Mike Snodgrass research Yu) advise, review content, astronomy and space science content for a presentation Science on a Sphere. and train volunteers and in Space Odyssey. Newsroom staff and staff as needed. The team volunteers also support works together with Department of Space volunteers to monitor the news for topics ranging from Sciences programs such as curator lectures, 60 Minutes in spaceflight missions and science discoveries to astrobiology Space, and large public space events such as the Spirit and and astrophysics to the importance of infrared light in Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover landings, space shuttle the study of astronomy. This content is made available launches, lunar and solar eclipses, and the 40th anniversary to the Museum Galaxy Guides via the Galaxy Guide web of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Staff and volunteers produce portal or as high-resolution images, movies, animations, digital multimedia products and offer technical support and presentations for delivery using the display screens such as video camera operation. The newsroom team also and interactives in Space Odyssey. The challenge for the responds to letters, e-mails, and phone calls from Museum newsroom team is to provide the Museum Galaxy Guides visitors, the public, and local news media interested in the with the resources and content they need to provide space sciences.

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Science on a Sphere

The sphere may show Earth’s night lights and air-traffic patterns, Venus’s thick clouds, dust storms on Mars, complex patterns of swirling clouds on Jupiter and Saturn, or the migration patterns of sea turtles and birds on Earth (Fig. 8.15). The Museum Galaxy Guides have as much fun as the visitors: “I come here every week, and each time it’s different. We come here to play. Can you believe it?” said one. Science on a Sphere comes courtesy of a generous grant from NASA that began in mid-2009; this Museum- NASA partnership is intended to boost the public’s knowledge of planetary and climate science and to build awareness of NASA’s space sciences missions. The Figure 8.14. Science on a Sphere, a six-foot-diameter Museum’s staff will use the sphere to experiment with hollow globe hovering in the middle of Space Odyssey. different approaches to interpreting planetary and climate By means of computers and high-resolution video projectors, conditions on any spherical object, such as science, such as developing software and hardware allowing a planet, can be realistically visualized on this globe. visitors to control the sphere themselves and creating visualizations based on the research of the Museum’s space scientists. The biggest addition to Space Odyssey since its opening is a large, brightly lit sphere hovering near the middle of the exhibition (Fig. 8.14). Although the sphere seems to revolve, that is an illusion created by four video projectors synchro- nized by a computer. This system was invented by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado, who wanted to find a way to realistically display information about spherical objects. Traditionally, images or maps of Earth or other planets have been displayed on flat surfaces, but Science on a Sphere provides a whole new perspective—more complex, compelling, and realistic. Science on a Sphere is mostly facilitated by Museum Figure 8.15. A visiting scientist discusses a surface Galaxy Guides. They choose from an extensive library of temperature data set during a presentation on global high-resolution data sets provided by NASA and NOAA climate change. Science on a Sphere has become a that have been developed for the sphere. The system can prominent teaching and presentation tool for audiences in Space Odyssey. visualize any spherical object for which mapped data exist.

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The Department of Space Sciences The Museum took that step in 1998 when it hired Laura Danly, an expert in space-based ultraviolet astronomy and galactic evolution, as its first curator of space sciences. Until she left the Museum in 2003, Danly guided the scientific content of Space Odyssey. She was adamant that exhibits and information be kept current and timely. The newsroom was her brainchild, providing the means to continuously update and develop new content for use in Space Odyssey. With co-authors Leonard David and Donald Gold- smith, Danly wrote Chaos to Cosmos: A Space Odyssey, which the Museum published in 2003 to coincide with the opening of the exhibition. Steve Lee came onboard in 2001 as curator of planetary science in the midst of Space Odyssey planning. He was both inspiration and scientific advisor for the popular Mars diorama as well as for the Museum’s many Mars-related public events. His research focuses on the interaction between the surface and atmosphere of Mars, determined primarily by mapping the patterns of windblown dust deposits across the planet. In 1998 space sciences was included within the Department of Earth Science, but in 2001 space sciences became a separate department. Lee has chaired the department since 2003. Since then, it includes three other PhD space scientists: David Grinspoon (curator of astrobiology; departed the Museum on late-2013), Ka Chun Yu (curator of space science), and Dimitri Klebe (space sciences content specialist). Yu studies effective ways to visualize astronomical data sets in various settings and also works on developing software tools for efficiently creating scientific visualizations. Grinspoon is interested in the cosmic context for life; he studies the climate history of planets and the factors that influence the origin and evolution of life on Earth and elsewhere. And Klebe is an astrophysicist whose specialty is infrared instrumentation. He has an active research career in instrumentation and oversees content in Space Odyssey, reviewing newsroom information for accuracy and relevance and developing interactive components for the exhibition.

The Collection The department does not manage a collection in the traditional sense. The collection is mostly digital, consisting of tens of thousands of images, movies, animations, and videotapes; it is a library of all the important events in space sciences from the early 1990s to today. Collection Manager Marta Lindsay also manages a physical collection of about 28 scientific instruments that have been used by Museum staff members, were part of crucial experiments involving key scientists, or are excellent type-examples of particular instruments. The collection is not a research collection per se; rather, it can help educate the public about the fundamental role such instruments have played in the advancement of technology and our knowledge of the natural sciences. One such instrument is the original chemical glassware

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used in the now famous Miller-Urey experiments on the synthesis of organic life-forming molecules from the gases and compounds thought to have been present in early Earth’s atmosphere. Micro- scopes (Fig. 8.16), and scales for weighing gold. The object in the collection most relevant to space sciences is a habitat for two spiders housed for several months aboard the International Space Station in 2008 and 2009 and transported to and from orbit aboard two space shuttle missions so scientists could study their activities in space.

Figure 8.16. Historic microscopes used Other space sciences–related objects (astronaut space suits, for example) are in the 19th and early 20th centuries by managed in the education collection. An extensive collection of meteorites is scientists in various fields. kept in the Department of Earth Sciences. Much of this large collection was acquired during the 1920s and 1930s when the Museum had a Department of Meteorites and a curator of meteorites (Harvey Nininger) who acquired specimens through purchases, donations, exchanges, and discoveries of meteorite falls.

Major Accomplishments The mission of the Department of Space Sciences “is to educate Museum visitors and our local community with accurate and scientifically sound information regarding space sciences. We accomplish this by communicating up-to-date space sciences information through the Space Odyssey exhibition and public programming.” And, it might be added, through Planetarium programming. Although today the Planetarium is administered by the Depart- ment of Digital Media, not by Space Sciences, it is clearly an extension of this core competency and both its technology and programming are strengthened by the expertise and involvement of Space Sciences staff. Thus the major accomplishments of Space Sciences lie in its extensive public programming.

The Charles C. Gates Planetarium, Present and Future The opening of the new Planetarium in 2003 did not end its development. Soon it became clear that the SGI computer and complex projection system were inefficient and the costs of upkeep unsustainable. Each year, for example, lamps for the projectors alone cost $120,000. In 2005 the SGI supercomputer was replaced with a more flexible and sustainable system. In 2006, primarily funded through grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA, the Museum produced the ambitious Black Holes, narrated by Liam Neeson. This show remains state of the art and continues to be shown in Denver and at 200 venues around the world. In 2007 the Planetarium system was once again updated with more reliable and efficient

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technology. Neafus plans another update in 2013 for, as he says, “system Figure 8.17. Geologist Bob Raynolds presents a Digital Earth program in hardware gets faster, better, and cheaper each year.” Gates Planetarium. Regardless of the hardware or its sophistication, the Planetarium’s programmers are always pushing its limits. The SGI computer, for example, could not by itself produce a digital simulation of the universe with live navi- gation. The task of creating the software to do so fell to a team that included staff hired in 2001: developer Nigel Jenkins and scientific and visualization interpreter and developer Ka Chun Yu. Working with Neafus, the team developed the Cosmic Atlas, software robust enough to create the Planetarium’s first show, Cosmic Journey. Although the SGI computer was eventually retired, parts of the Cosmic Atlas code live on in the successor visualization software. Today Neafus considers modern digital planetariums as domed theaters, versatile performance and program spaces that include but go beyond the space sciences and the offerings of more traditional planetariums. Yu, an astrophysicist by training, decided to continue his pioneering work in scientific visualization and was promoted to curator of space sciences in 2004. In partnership with Neafus, Yu and other programming staff challenge themselves to create original and exciting dome presentations that can be multidisciplinary and multimedia. Highly successful examples of this programming are live musical concerts; the 2004 The Whole Picture: Around the World in 360 Degrees, featuring the panoramic photography of Greg Downing; and the Digital Earth series in which Yu and geologist Bob Raynolds explore Earth from the vantage point of astronauts in space (Fig. 8.17). Astronaut Bruce McCandless II has also appeared in Gates Planetarium numerous times, describing his rides into orbit aboard the space shuttle from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, helping audiences experience the scene as if looking out the shuttle’s windows.

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Music in the Dome Historically, planetariums have been places where audio and visuals were mixed together to create new multimedia experiences. Such experiments date as far back as the late 1950s, but people probably best remember laser music shows, which got their start in the early 1970s and were a mainstay at the original Gates Planetarium. With the impressive display capabilities of modern digital domes, it is thus not surprising that the new Planetarium programming team has done its share of experimentation. In July 2003, within a month of its reopening, Gates Planetarium hosted Celestial Sounds with the Musica Sacra Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Michael Shasberger. The 17-piece chamber group squeezed onto the stage and gave performances of several pieces, including Mozart’s Symphony no. 41 in C Major, nicknamed “the Jupiter symphony,” accompanied by Cosmic Atlas visuals with Ka Chun Yu at the dome controls. The success of this program resulted in the follow-up Voices from the Silence choral Figure 8.18. Violinist and composer Kenji Williams performing in Gates performances in September 2003, also lead by Shasberger. Planetarium during a Gaia Journeys Violinist, musician, and video artist Kenji Williams collaborated concert in February 2007. with Yu to create a series of Gaia Journeys concerts in February 2007. The concerts intended to suggest an astronaut’s experience seeing the startling beauty of Earth from space. Williams worked with Yu for several months to develop a visual program consisting of flight sequences through the digital universe, including low orbital passes around the Earth and landings on its surface to explore panoramic photography of landscapes from around the world (Fig. 8.18). Through a long-standing collaboration with Trace Reddell, a media professor at the University of Denver, Neafus and Yu have hosted several other live musical acts in the dome. These include French electronic rock pioneer Richard Pinhas (June 2007) and Berlin-based electronic musical act Monolake/Robert Henke (September 2010). Unlike the tightly scripted Gaia Journeys shows, the visuals for these shows were much more free-form and improvised. The most recent musical events in the dome have been the Life Out There concerts, which have involved Curator of Astrobiology David Grinspoon and his House Band to the Universe, a group of musicians formed specifically for the shows.Life Out There first appeared in the premier Science Lounge adult program in February 2010. The concerts mixed science content with live jams from the band, visuals of live flight through the Figure 8.19. David Grinspoon and universe by Yu, and movie clips. Each show consisted of four musical acts. his House Band to the Universe While the House Band to the Universe played, dome visuals portrayed the perform in Gates Planetarium against a background of startling visuals. conditions that make life possible in the cosmos (Fig. 8.19). In the interludes between the movements, the visuals would again appear on the dome and Grinspoon would explain to the audience what they had witnessed. The concerts were successful enough that they later appeared as a standalone series in July 2011 and a DVD in April 2012.

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In 2005 Yu partnered with Metropolitan State College of Denver on the Astronomy Learning in Immersive Virtual Environments (ALIVE) research project, funded by the National Science Foundation. Students in freshman astronomy classes were brought to the dome, and their learning was measured in seven different subject categories. Early data analysis finds that in at least half of these categories, students exposed to the dome experience have significant learning gains over students in control groups. Yu has also surveyed participants in various dome programs to learn the impact of their experience. He has found that they are able to remember even small details, sometimes months after their experience. They describe the dome presentations as compelling because they are immersed in imagery on a huge scale. They enjoy the feeling of flying through space and passing through multiple scales, for example from a global view of Earth from space down to a specific hydrological or geological feature. Thus they not only see different levels of detail, they also see these details in context and in relationships to each other. Such a perspective can be essential for understanding how Earth’s biological and physical systems interact and interrelate. In 2010 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funded the Worldviews Network, a national effort by scientists and educators to use immersive digital planetariums to increase the public’s awareness of Earth systems and science, as well as climatic and ecological literacy. Yu is a coinvestigator for this collaboration of eight partner planetariums and science institutions. Each organization works with external organizations to create a presentation and a community dialogue on a topic of regional importance to its audience. In May 2011 Yu and Raynolds worked with the Colorado Foundation for Water Education to create a dialogue on water issues in the West, which in addition to demonstrating the water challenges faced by communities worldwide also highlighted possible solutions and ways the local Museum audience could become engaged.

Public Events Big events occur in the space sciences more regularly, or at least more regularly in the interested public’s eye, than in other core competencies. The Museum has always helped the public participate in and understand these events, beginning with Planetarium-sponsored viewings of comets, meteor showers, or solar eclipses. In more recent years, the Museum’s involvement in these events has grown. On Saturday, February 1, 2003, four months before the opening of Space Odyssey, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry, resulting in the death of all seven crew members. Upon hearing the news, Lee hurried to the Museum where he could monitor live NASA coverage of the disaster and interpret the information for Museum visitors and the Denver TV stations that looked to the Museum as the source for news. Three days later the Museum held a memorial service for the astronauts

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in Ricketson Auditorium, drawing several hundred people from Front Range Figure 8.20. In December 2005 Dave Baysinger and Steve Lee traveled to communities. Following the disaster, NASA suspended manned spaceflights NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to for several years while they studied its causes. In 2005 NASA awarded the interview NASA personnel for the Museum a grant to produce a DVD, Space Shuttle: Return to Flight. Lee and Space Shuttle: Return to Flight video. Museum videographer Dave Baysinger traveled to NASA’s Kennedy Space Here, in the Orbiter Processing Facility, Lee stands near the landing gear of Center (Florida) (Fig. 8.20), Johnson Space Center (Texas), the John C. space shuttle Atlantis as it is readied for Stennis Space Center (Mississippi), and Lockheed Martin’s Michoud Assembly its next flight. Facility (Louisiana) to interview engineers, rocket builders, mission managers, flight controllers, astronauts, and many others involved in the space shuttle program. The result was an hour-long program used by museums, planetariums, science centers, and schools prior to the 2006 launch of the second space shuttle flight after theColumbia accident. Leading up to that launch, the Museum distributed more than 4,000 copies of the video across the world, and an estimated 250,000 people viewed the program. In January 2004 the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, landed on Mars. The Museum was prepared for these highly anticipated missions and hosted two late-night public events attended by approximately 2,400 people. Participants watched live NASA TV coverage from mission control accompanied by commentary from Lee and other experts. The events were hosted in the Phipps IMAX Theater and broadcast to monitors set up in Rick- etson Auditorium, Space Odyssey, the Planetarium, and throughout the west atrium. At that time, the rovers were planned to have a life span of 90 days, so for three months, Lee gave two live briefings per day, seven days a week,

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to Museum visitors and volunteers. Then, with the rovers still going strong, Lee transitioned to a written update three times a week, and then once a week. Now, nearly a decade later, Opportunity is still roving Mars and regular status updates are still available in Space Odyssey. Other large public events, conducted in similar fashion, have been the Cassini space probe’s arrival at Saturn in 2004, the Deep Impact probe’s collision with a comet in 2005, the Phoenix spacecraft’s Mars landing in 2008, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 2009, the final launch and landing of the space shuttle in 2011, and the landing of the Curiosity Mars rover in 2012 (drawing a capacity crowd of 1400). Over the years these large public space events, as well as the availability of up-to-the-minute updates in Space Odyssey, have made the Museum the place to be for many in the local community interested in space exploration and space science.

Programs in Space Science In addition to the dramatic space events, their accompanying programs, and the abundant programming daily in Space Odyssey, many other space-related programs occur weekly, if not daily, throughout the Museum. While the Planetarium was closed for construction and Space Odyssey was being developed, Museum educators filled the void with programs for all audiences. The Colorado Department of Education contributed $500,000 for professional development in space science for more than 220 teachers and offered them free field trips when Space Odyssey opened. Children attend classes in Figure 8.21. These participants in a children’s workshop share the excitement of space travel as they launch the rockets they have made. the El Pomar Space Education Center or participate in summer workshops to learn about the night sky or to design, create, and launch their own rockets (Fig. 8.21). Educators take a digital portable planetarium to school assemblies or community centers. In 2001 a citizen science effort included a system of All-Sky cameras, many mounted on the rooftops of schools around the state and one atop the Museum. Their purpose was to record the appearance of bright fireballs in the night sky so that the trajectories of meteorites might be determined and the objects perhaps found. In addition to locating fresh meteorite falls, an All-Sky camera can provide valuable information about the kind of meteors one might see on any clear night and also about annual meteor showers. The program is ongoing, now under the guidance of Chris Peterson of Cloudbait Observatory.

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A distance-learning program, Scientists in Action, uses videocon- Figure 8.22. Space shuttle Atlantis sits on the pad, ready for its May 11, ferencing equipment that allows fourth through eighth grade students to 2009, launch to repair the Hubble interact live with Museum scientists at work in the field or the lab. Two Space Telescope. Several members exciting programs have involved space science. During the first, in May of the Department of Space Sciences 2009, Lee hosted a broadcast from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center during a were on hand for a Scientists in Action program, broadcast from NASA’s shuttle launch to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Students could query Kennedy Space Center on launch day. the scientists (Dennis Ebbets and Lee), an engineer (James Crocker), and an astronaut (Bruce McCandless II), all of whom had worked on or with Hubble. As students watched the launch live, McCandless provided commentary on what the crew inside the shuttle was feeling and doing as the rocket roared into orbit (Figs. 8.22, 8.23). In April 2010 Museum astrobiologist Grinspoon and Lockheed engineer Stuart Spath broadcast live from inside the clean room at Lockheed Martin, a rare opportunity to visit the area where engineers build the spacecraft being sent to explore other planets. During the two days of broadcasting, the Juno and Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft were being assembled in the background as Grinspoon and Spath interacted with students (Fig. 8.24). In May 2010 Lee was joined by Lockheed Martin engineers Olivia Billett and Guy Beutelschies in Lockheed Martin’s clean room to discuss the impending

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Figure 8.23. With the space shuttle Atlantis about to launch from the Kennedy Space Center, space scientists field questions from students across the country during a live broadcast in 2009. From left to right: Steve Lee, James Crocker of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Bruce McCandless II, retired NASA astronaut, and Dennis Ebbets, astrophysicist with Ball Aerospace & Technologies.

Figure 8.24. Museum astrobiologist David Grinspoon and Lockheed engineer Stuart Spath broadcast live to students in Ricketson Auditorium from inside the clean room at Lockheed Martin during a 2010 Scientists in Action program. During the two days of broadcast, engineers assembled the Juno and Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft in the background as the scientists interacted with students.

landing of the Mars Science Laboratory Rover Curiosity. In the background as they spoke, engineers assembled Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN), a Mars mission planned for a late 2013 launch (Fig. 8.25). Eight hundred students participated in schools and libraries from Alaska to New York and were thrilled to be part of the program. Adults have many opportunities to learn about astronomy, including classes, family campouts at Jefferson County School’s outdoor lab, canoe trips, and for several years in the early 2000s, Stargazers’ Weekends—two days of classes and two nights of stargazing in the dark skies above the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. Scott Carpenter (the second American astronaut to orbit Earth) has lectured and presented a moon rock to the Museum, Sir

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Figure 8.25. Dave Baysinger (left) films Steve Lee (center) and Guy Beutelschies (right) discussing Mars exploration during a Scientists in Action broadcast from within Lockheed Martin’s clean room. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft was being assembled in the background.

Isaac Newton appeared in a Chautauqua-type performance, and historic enactors, portraying luminaries such as Galileo, roam Space Odyssey (Fig. 8.26). In 2001 Danly began the monthly 60 Minutes in Space program in which curators or other experts provide attendees with the very latest information on events or discoveries in space science. The program continues today under the leadership of Lee, with sold-out audiences in Gates Planetarium (Fig. 8.27).

The Future Although one of the youngest of the core competencies, space sciences is well established within the Museum. Its staff actively pursues Figure 8.26. Senior Space Science Educator Eddie Goldstein assumes the significant research, its programs are popular and well attended, and the character and costume of astronomer numbers of Space Odyssey visitors and volunteers are among the highest Galileo during a performance in Space of any permanent exhibition in the Museum. Space sciences is securely Odyssey with Dave Blumenstock. placed within the larger community as well, with active relationships with the media and partnerships with university space science departments and with government and industry organizations such as NASA, NOAA, Lockheed Martin, and United Launch Alliance. This successful present will not likely lead to a complacent future. Throughout its history, those involved with space science have been forward looking, innovative, and risk taking. Director Bailey had his eye to the future when he established that first small Planetarium on the Museum’s third floor. Planetarium staff have never accepted limitations on technology. In the face of skepticism and some criticism, the Museum advanced the tradition of natural history museums when it included space sciences as a core competency and established a

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Figure 8.27. In 2009 four members of the astronaut crew of NASA’s final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope made a surprise visit to a 60 Minutes in Space program. Pictured from right to left are Steve Lee, retired astronaut Bruce McCandless II, mission specialist John M. Grunsfeld, commander Scott D. Altman, pilot Gregory C. Johnson, and mission specialist Michael T. Good.

department of professional space scientists. And the Association of Science- Technology Centers rewarded the innovative and ever-renewing Space Odyssey exhibition for being on the leading edge. Therefore, considering its history, it is a safe bet that the future of space sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will be as creative and dynamic as its past.

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Endnotes

1 DMNH Annual Report, 1956: 39. 2 DMNH Annual Report, 1955: 70. 3 DMNH Annual Report, 1956: 40. 4 Mark Peterson, oral history, July 8, 2010, DMNS Archives. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Dan Neafus, oral history, April 19, 2011, DMNS Archives. 8 Gutsch, W.A. Jr. No date. Consultant’s Report, DMNH Core Competency: Space Science: 14. 9 Loomis, R.J. September 1997. Report: DMNH Space Science Audit: 3. 10 BBC Research & Consulting. November 8, 1996. “Cosmos” Market Research: Final Report. 11 Marts & Lundy, Inc. November 1996. Funding Feasibility Study.

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HEALTH SCIENCES A Newcomer and a Pioneer

Carol Cochran, Hall of Life, 1987−2005 Bridget Coughlin, and The Museum’s 1987 annual report called it “a milestone year.”1 Among the Nicole Garneau Museum’s remarkable accomplishments was the inauguration of a new core competency: health sciences. This would be a unique addition to the Museum in many ways, not least of which was the way it came about. The older, more traditional Museum core competencies, zoology or anthropology, for example, began with collections. But health sciences began with a merger.

The Merger The Hall of Life was originally a Denver nonprofit health education center founded in 1975 by Dr. Leo Nolan and other community leaders who were concerned about the lack of professional health education. Colorado was one of the few states that did not mandate or fund health education in the schools (it still does not). The Hall of Life helped to fill the void. Its mission was “to provide to people of all ages innovative exhibits and dynamic educational programs that teach how the body functions, that motivate positive health choices, and that emphasize the role of personal responsibility in matters of health and physical fitness.” The Hall of Life was so popular that it soon outgrew its location in the basement of the Blue Cross-Blue Shield building in downtown Denver. Encouraged by the Gates Family Foundation to extend its reach by joining forces with a larger institution, the Hall of Life approached the Children’s Museum of Denver. When that did not seem to be the right fit, the Hall of Life proposed a merger with the Denver Museum of Natural History. As it happened, the Museum had just completed a new building addition and was planning content to fill it. One suggestion was an exhibition on human senses, therefore an exhibition focused on human health did not seem too great a stretch. In 1985, with the new health gallery in mind, the Museum approved the merger with the Hall of Life. Community support came by way of the Gates Family Foundation, which contributed $200,000 for planning and $3.2 million in an endowment challenge grant.

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The Museum brought on James “Jim” Goddard as project director to execute the merger, raise funds, and plan and build the exhibits and health classrooms. Goddard and his team, including community advisors and the design firms of Lester Associates of West Nyack, New York, and Design/Joe Sonderman of Charlotte, North Carolina, completed the exhibition master plan in November 1987. At a cost of $8 million, phase I of the new permanent health exhibition opened to the public in fall 1989, with phase II opening a year later. At 17,000 square feet, the Hall of Life became one of the largest health education centers in North America, and most probably the only one of its kind located in a museum.

The Hall of Life Exhibition The Hall of Life was very different from any other gallery in the Museum’s history. It was not collections based, at least in the traditional way of a natural history museum. Its subject matter did not resemble conventional natural history. Its purpose and formats were different, too. Perhaps because of the exhibition’s nontraditional nature, the Museum chose exhibit designers from outside rather than using the in-house team, a controversial decision that caused some skepticism and perhaps a little resentment among Museum staff.2 Goddard and his planning team visited health education centers across the country and realized they wanted to avoid what was then typical: huge body parts and replica humans to walk through.3 They wanted to be true to the original mission of the Hall of Life, with its emphasis on personal responsibility for making healthy choices and preventing disease. The “specimens” in the Hall of Life would be the visitors themselves, not objects from the Museum’s collections. Because the focus was on the visitor, the exhibits had to be participatory. Planning documents described the experience as a process “which is inherently fun and includes a sense Figure 9.1. The Hall of Life’s innovative of exploration, discovery, and decision making” and characterized the LifeCard, which helped make visitors’ 4 experiences personal and relevant. entire exhibition as “an event.” The intended audience was families with school-age children. Exhibition components dealt with wellness and disease, including human development, the senses, fitness, nutrition, stress, and substance abuse. Many components were interactive, involving computers or engagement with volunteers who might be performing dissections or other procedures. The LifeCard, on which visitors could enter personal information and which individualized the experience, was very popular and was applauded nationally by other health science organizations (Fig. 9.1). In many respects the exhibition was controversial and daring in its formats and use of technology. However, its innovations were consistent with a spirit of renovation and renewal present throughout the Museum, whose staff and visitors considered it a dynamic and educational institution.5 The Hall of Life embodied that spirit. Its emphasis on the visitor and on the visitor’s interaction influenced all future Museum exhibitions.

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The Hall of Life Programs The Hall of Life was both an exhibition and an educational program. When the Hall of Life came to the Museum in 1987, it was a separate division, directed by Goddard. In 1989 Director John Welles created an Education Division, also directed by Goddard. It consisted of two departments: the Hall of Life, managed by Sue Palmer and later by Dianne Pavelka, and Public Programs (natural history programs and travel), managed by Diana Lee Crew. Educators in both departments shared ideas and learned from one another, but the Hall of Life remained somewhat separate—a health education center in a museum. Hall of Life health education was successful when it first came to the Museum, but once there, with the resources and support of a large institution, it became even more so. Although Colorado did not require or fund health education in schools, many teachers, administrators, and parents wanted it taught. Schoolteachers did not feel comfortable teaching sensitive topics or those that required a medical background; they looked to the Hall of Life to do this for them. In addition, health was fundable. Many health-related organizations or foundations wanted a greater public presence and could support educational efforts on topics of interest. Grants and an endowment funded salaries, curriculum development, materials, and other program costs and included scholarships to cover program fees. As a result, the Hall of Life programs and education staff greatly outnumbered their counterparts in cultural and natural history education at the Museum. Hall of Life educators were specialists. Most had medical backgrounds as nurses or certified health instructors. Though based on anatomy and physiology, classes emphasized prevention to show how daily behaviors affect health. Frequently topics were sensitive or controversial: teenage sexuality, pregnancy prevention, substance abuse, helmet safety, organ transplants, and AIDS awareness, for Figure 9.2. Hall of Life educator Patty Cook. The Hall of Life was example (Fig. 9.2). Teaching techniques were inno- a leader in HIV/AIDS education in the Denver community and vative, even avant-garde. They were hands-on and beyond, teaching students, teachers, administrators, medical participatory. The Healthy Heart class for grades providers, and corporate employees, among many other groups. Hall of Life staff developed an AIDS curriculum for others to two through five is representative, as this catalog use and were frequent speakers on the topic at national health description shows: “Observing the dissection of an education conferences. Cook served as president and James animal heart highlights this presentation. Your Goddard as treasurer of the Colorado AIDS Project board of directors. class will listen to their own resting and exercising heart rates with individual stethoscopes, and

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compare other animal hearts to the human heart. The Hall of Life instructor points out how diet, smoking, and fitness influence the body’s hardest working muscle.”6 In the size of its program, subjects taught, and teaching techniques, the Hall of Life was a national model, which was recognized in 2002 when the National Association of Health Education Centers awarded its first Outstanding Health Educator of the Year Award to Hall of Life educator Sharon Caskey. The Tar Wars poster contest, cofounded by Hall of Life educator Glenna Pember and Dr. Jeffrey Cain, won a World Health Organization award for tobacco prevention. Further evidence of the Hall of Life’s widespread reputation came in 2000 when two small Alaskan villages, Mentasta and Chistochina, invited Hall of Life educators to work with their health aides, teachers, and students to create interactive health activities and displays, which the children would Figure 9.3. Alaskan students in traditional dress pose for photos in present to the residents of their villages. This the Hall of Life classroom during a March 2002 visit. partnership, involving reciprocal visits, lasted for several years (Fig. 9.3). The Hall of Life was a model for the Museum in other ways as well. Its large and very professional volunteer program included many from the medical profession. Trained by Hall of Life educators and managed by Elizabeth Arend, these volunteers provided interactive opportunities in the exhibition, offering the Museum a lasting lesson on how to extend an exhibition’s reach. Because the Museum had not yet established a health sciences research department to support the exhibition and its programming, no health curators were on staff. Thus the health educators looked outside the Museum for advice. An ongoing relationship with the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Health Science Center ensured the scientific accuracy of exhibition content and curricula and provided evaluation. Educators established partnerships with individuals in the medical community and with organizations such as Donor Alliance and the 9Health Fair. These community ties often provided funding as well as expertise. A notable program and partnership was SHARE (Student Health: Awareness and Responsibility through Education), funded by the Helen K. and Arthur E. Johnson Foundation. SHARE was a sequential health education program for third, fourth, and fifth graders in school districts serving low-income populations. Classes were offered in English, Spanish, or a bilingual format. Begun in 1996, SHARE continued for five years. A child who remained in the

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same school could receive 12 different SHARE programs. A decision-making component added to the self-responsibility message of these health programs. The Hall of Life was notable for the strength and extent of its outreach. All health programs were available outside as well as inside the Museum, taking place at health fairs, parent organizations, senior centers, corpora- tions, community centers, as well as in schools. In fact, in 1993 Hall of Life programs reached as many individuals through outreach as through classroom programs in the Museum. With the Hall of Life as a model, natural history and cultural programs were taken off-site as well. The Hall of Life influenced the culture of the Museum—in other words, its internal audience. Goddard established the Health and Safety Committee; its first and biggest accomplishment was a no-smoking policy for the Museum. A Wellness Committee provided staff development on topics such as breast cancer, heart health, and nutrition and arranged yoga and chair massages for staff. Health staff added interpretive aspects to the traveling exhibitions Speed and Designer Genes, and even influenced the decision to decline the traveling Bill of Rights exhibition because it was sponsored by the Philip Morris Company.7

Health Sciences Audit In 1997 the Museum established the DMNH Core Competency Audit Commit- tee to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each core competency and to make recommendations for improvement. The Health Sciences Report was submitted on July 14, 1998. It included a self-assessment by Hall of Life staff, the analyses of two outside evaluators (John Zaremba, executive director of the Robert Crown Center for Health Education, and Patricia Horvath, associate executive director of the Health Museum of Cleveland), as well as the committee’s own findings. The report commended the Hall of Life exhibition for its interactive, individually relevant aspects, particularly the LifeCard system. Hall of Life programs were recognized for their strong outreach, wide variety of formats, and the loyalty and dedication of the core staff. The history of strong partnerships and collaborative relationships was also applauded. All evaluators observed the same weaknesses: “Hall of Life exhibits are static, outdated, and, in some cases, broken. They are not designed to include current knowledge and changing information on a regular basis.”8 Facilities were inadequate, including classrooms, offices, storage, equipment, and computers. Evaluators saw health education programs and staff as exceptional but poorly integrated into the Museum. Horvath expressed surprise that when the independent Hall of Life came to the Museum, the result was not so much a merger as an add-on.9 Zaremba sensed that “the Hall of Life staff feels isolated from the Museum.”10 Both external auditors thought the operations of the Hall of Life were located too far down the Museum’s

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organizational chart and that the Museum needed a PhD or otherwise qualified health sciences expert at the senior level.

Restructuring Health Sciences The process of integrating health sciences as a core competency would take more than ten years, but the first step occurred when the Education Division was reorganized in 1997. The Hall of Life became a component of the Youth and Teacher Programs Department, and was no longer its own department. Integration went much further in 2002, when health staff and programs were combined with their natural and cultural history counterparts. All youth and teacher programs would be managed together, all adult programs, and all children’s workshops, no matter the subject matter. Budgets, grant writing, marketing—all would be combined. The result of this reorganization was that the Hall of Life no longer existed as a separate educational program. The name Hall of Life now applied only to the exhibition. As expected, this merger was difficult and unpopular with the Hall of Life staff. Even bigger changes were to come. In 2004 the Museum was in a difficult financial position. All departments experienced substantial budget cuts, including staff reductions. Within this context, the administration looked hard at the Museum’s educational program, including its classroom programs, which were expensive to run, especially those in health. Atten- dance was declining, some supportive grants had ended, and program costs exceeded revenues. And there were pedagogical concerns. Richard Stucky, vice president for programs at the time, remembers that administrators questioned the Museum teaching such topics as sex education or helmet safety: shouldn’t these topics be taken care of in the schools? And was the Museum responding not to internal priorities but to the wishes and funding of outsiders?11 Furthermore, Ron Rohovit, then director of education, and others felt that children coming to the Museum should not spend time in classrooms at all; they should be active in the galleries and exhibitions. He preferred to apply funds to increasing programs and staff presentations on the floor. Because of these concerns, in 2004 the Museum discontinued all on-site classroom programs (outreach programs and tours were retained). Twenty-eight education staff, both full and part time, lost their jobs; 23 of them were health educators. In 2006 the Museum reversed itself: the guided tour programs were eliminated and classroom programs brought back. Health classes were the first to return.

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Health Sciences Today, 2005−Present

In 2005, under the leadership of President and CEO George Sparks, the Museum completed a strategic plan, Museum 20/20. That plan’s very first priority was health sciences. Action items were to (1) establish a health sciences research department that included hiring a PhD-level curator, (2) renovate the Hall of Life exhibition, and (3) review all health sciences programming. All were actions intended to strengthen the health sciences core competency.

Health Sciences Initiative The Museum hired its first curator of human health, Bridget Coughlin, in June 2005 and tasked her with establishing a research and collections plan for the new department and renovating the aging Hall of Life exhibition. A biochemist by trade, Coughlin had most recently been managing editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; she was thus both a scientist and a communicator—a good fit to lead the health sciences initiative. Coughlin and her team worked on a health science initiative feasibility study, submitting it to the Museum’s board of trustees in September 2006. The feasibility study is an important document for understanding the mission, goals, and objectives of today’s health sciences core competency. It begins by recognizing the importance of health sciences to the Museum and the region. Health was then and still is today one of the Museum’s most popular topics, as evidenced historically by high attendance in the Hall of Life, in the two health-related temporary exhibitions, BODY WORLDS 2 and Grossology, and in health-related programs that preceded the study. The report notes the “enormous—and growing—disconnect between what science is discovering about health and how people live and take care of themselves.” Americans have difficulty understanding and using important health information because they are generally uncomfortable with science: only 17 percent of American adults are familiar with basic scientific principles; only 20 percent of Denver eighth graders meet state science standards.12 The study reported that other institutions around the country were opening or planning health galleries. Without a new health sciences program, including a permanent exhibition, the Museum was jeopardizing its leadership in informal health education.13 Perhaps the study’s conclusion was no surprise: in order to have an integrated health sciences program and a strong core competency, the Museum needed to design and develop an entirely new health exhibition. The study proposed a new mission for health sciences: “to broaden visitors’ knowledge of human biology and inspire the application of these discoveries to their lives.” A new, renamed health sciences exhibition and a newly established health sciences research department would help carry

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out this mission and address the issues in health sciences noted by the report. More ambitiously, the exhibition would be “one of the nation’s first great health sciences exhibits for the 21st century” and together with a strong research program would “advance the Museum’s goal of becoming the best regional science museum in the United States.”14 The Museum board of trustees accepted the study’s bold recommendations.

Health Sciences Department Coughlin’s first step was to create a departmental research and collection plan that would establish policies appropriate for the greater Museum audience. Collections in other Museum core competencies generally derived from curatorial research. In contrast, items in the existing health collection—fetuses, hearts, and lungs among them—had been acquired to support the exhibits and programs of the Hall of Life. Coughlin has continued this practice, growing the collection based on the biology and physiology that the new health gallery, Expedition Health, explores. The current collection is small, but its 55 specimens are rare, unique, or of medical importance. They include plastinated (permanently preserved) cross sections of a human torso and a foot (Fig. 9.4), and a plastinated brain. The department is actively adding to this collection in the areas of anatomy, pathology, and histology. The collection is important scientifically, but it is not the basis for curatorial research. Instead, Coughlin proposed a radical way to conduct health sciences research at the Museum: a community- based and audience-focused participatory lab. This would allow Museum audiences to be directly connected to research, not merely as observers but as actual participants in an authentic study run by volunteer citizen-scientists. In September 2008 the project, called the Genetics of Taste: A Flavor for Health, won a three-year Science Education Partnership Award in the amount of $654,641 from the National Institutes of Health. In addition, Coughlin successfully applied to the Western Institutional Review Board for approval to host human subject research at the Museum, an activity crucial to the success of the project.

Figure 9.4. A plastinated slice of a human foot, one of 23 authentic anatomical specimens displayed in Expedition Health.

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Taste: A Flavor for Health

The Genetics of Taste is the inaugural research poisonous plants would have meant survival.” The study study of the Health Sciences Department. Undertaken in also examines any relationship between the density of Lab Central of Expedition Health, this study is novel and papillae (the bumps on the tongue) and overall body fat, a authentic, with aspects that make it truly innovative; it is measure related in part to the amount and kind of food we an excellent example of community-based participatory consume. Participants’ tongues are temporarily stained with research. Citizen-scientists—volunteers extensively a bright blue dye, allowing the papillae that contain taste trained in the protocols of research on humans—help buds to be easily counted (Fig. 9.5). conduct the study. The subjects are Museum visitors These simple experiments promote more learning who choose to enhance their Museum experience by than it might at first appear. Museum curators will publish participating in the study. And, the research questions results in both popular and peer-reviewed journals, thus were selected by the public. contributing to the body of knowledge in health science. The The research focuses on the sequence of the citizen-scientists who administer the tests learn the research gene tas2r38, cleverly pronounced “taster 38,” which process and how to explain it and its purpose to the public. was revealed by the Human Genome Project. This gene But from a Museum perspective, the visitor-subjects may determines the ability to taste a specific group of molecules be the most important learners of all. Community-based that are profoundly bitter to some and completely tasteless participatory research allows the Museum to connect audi- to others. Visitors record their taste perception to the ences not only to expertise, but also to broader scientific harmless compound propylthiouracil; in addition, they knowledge and process as visitor-subjects become active can record nontraceable ethnographic information about participants. They personally experience a specific result themselves. “We hypothesize that where your ancestors of the Human Genome Project. They learn the relationship came from thousands of years ago may have influenced between genetics and anatomy as they pertain to food how your tas2r38 gene evolved,” says Curator of Human preferences, and the possible effects of food preferences on Health Nicole Garneau. their own heath. They “If your ancestors learn the workings of came from a part of the evolution in their own world that had toxic, bodies. This project is bitter-tasting plants, an engaging learning theoretically you should experience that makes have the ability to taste abstract and complex the bitterness, and that scientific concepts ability to distinguish personally relevant and between edible and readily understood.

Figure 9.5. This visitor’s tongue has been dyed blue and a portion isolated within a circle one centimeter in diameter. A volunteer citizen-scientist will count the number of papillae (the red bumps that resist the dye) and include the data in the Genetics of Taste research program.

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In the midst of this research-focused activity, Coughlin was also the scientific advisor on the core planning team for Expedition Health, which opened in April 2009 on time and under budget. And as if that weren’t enough activity, in 2006 Coughlin added deputy chief curator of the Research and Collections Division to her responsibilities. In 2010 she was promoted again, to be the Museum’s vice president for strategic partnerships and programs, a position she currently holds while still maintaining her position as a curator in the Health Sciences Department.

In October 2009 Nicole Garneau, a molecular geneticist, became the Figure 9.6. Curator Nicole Garneau and Museum’s second curator of human health. With Coughlin’s promotion to summer 2010 Teen Science Scholars. vice president, Garneau took over both the position of chair of the Health Sciences Department and the lead of the Genetics of Taste research study. The community-based lab is not restricted to volunteer citizen- scientists, but also supports departmental outreach. A highly competitive application and interview process, which takes place yearly, leads to the selection of two to four Teen Science Scholars who work on health sciences research as paid interns in the summer—a very direct and personal way of teaching science and encouraging scientific careers (Fig. 9.6). Often working in partnership with universities, the Health Sciences Department has also offered summer internships to undergraduates. Additionally, Garneau

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cochairs the Education Committee of the Colorado BioScience Association. In this role she helped the association launch its undergraduate internship program and hosted one of the first “externs” as part of a program for local high school science teachers to gain updated experience in the field of biotechnology. Today’s Health Sciences Department is active in pursuing both good science and science communication. Curators reach public audiences through research, delivery of engaging talks and presentations, and by providing science expertise for all health-related exhibits and educational programming. Garneau reached more than 5,000 people through direct outreach in 2010 and an additional 15,000 online through blogging and video streaming. For this achievement, the American Association for the Advancement of Science honored Garneau as a finalist for its 2010 Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science. New to the Museum in 2010 was the launch of a Science section on the Museum’s website. This next step in communication allows curators like Garneau to take science beyond the Museum’s walls. The star of the Health Sciences section of the Museum website is Garneau’s alter ego, Yo Pearl the Science Girl. She blogs and tweets and answers questions about genetics or reacts to issues of the day. The website has become a resource not only for engaging a greater audience but also for connecting visitors to real scientists and real research in the Health Sciences Department.

Expedition Health The Museum opened Expedition Health in April 2009. Like the Hall of Life, it makes the Museum experience personal and relevant. It uses the Peak Pass, a version of the Hall of Life’s LifeCard, and incorporates interactive exhibit components and staff facilitation. The exhibition targets families with school-age children and gives consideration to the region’s changing demographics and its growing underserved audiences. In many ways Expedition Health goes beyond the Hall of Life. The exhibition’s primary focus is not on specific diseases and their prevention; rather, its aim is to teach visitors about the body’s biological and physiolog- ical processes. Expedition Health is also more embedded in the Museum; it is more like other exhibitions in its extensive use of authentic artifacts and anatomical specimens. More than half of the exhibition components contain specimens, 23 in all. Many more are used in the exhibition’s demonstrations, shows, or carts, and they are also used in educational classes and labs. Most notable are the two full-body plastinized hikers, the first on permanent display in any museum.

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The Hikers

Of the many inspiring and exciting exhibits within are replaced with liquid plastic. Unlike individual organ Expedition Health, the most iconic is The Hikers (Fig. 9.7). and tissue specimens, which are often readily available, Although installed two years after the exhibition opened, the full-body specimens would take time to secure, dissect, The Hikers was not an afterthought. In fact, the exhibition’s position, cure, and finally mount for display. At times the design team knew from the beginning that they wanted dream of two full-body plastinates seemed to be just that. to include authentic anatomical human specimens to The first obstacle was quite simply that no museum had complement the interactive exhibits. They included 23 ever done this. such specimens and planned for a spectacular addition: Gunther von Hagens, the eccentric genius behind the two human figures permanently “plastinated,”that is, plastination process and the hugely popular BODY WORLDS preserved through a patented process in which body fluids traveling exhibitions, had previously ignored all requests from museums across the world for donated bodies. Would he treat this museum any differently? In 2005 Coughlin traveled to von Hagens’s Institute for Plastination in Guben, Germany, to find out. She described to von Hagens the extraordinary success of the BODY WORLDS 2 exhibition when the Museum hosted it in 2005: huge attendance numbers, greater than those experienced by museums in cities such as Los Angeles or Chicago with much larger populations, a testament to Colorado’s interest in health and wellness. She described the vision for Expedition Health, with its emphasis on the human body, its commitment to authenticity, and its conviction that the plastinates could best teach anatomical lessons. She told of the partnership with the State Anatomical Board of Colorado, which would provide third-party oversight of the donation process, and of the support of an ethical advisory group that had carefully considered spiritual and moral issues. She did all she could to demonstrate the Museum’s scientific credibility. Meeting in their lab, von Hagens and his staff pulled out Gray’s Anatomy, BODY WORLDS catalogs, and other volumes and discussed how plastinates might be used in the exhibition. But von Hagens was noncommittal and difficult to read. At teatime he packed up the books, disappeared into his Figure 9.7. The Hikers, two plastinated human bodies office without a word of encouragement, and began playing immortalized in a single moment of their climb. The his violin. Left alone in the lab, Coughlin figured she was journey to bring The Hikers to the Denver Museum of listening to the proposal’s swan song and prepared to leave Nature & Science was made possible by Kathy and Stephen McConahey. Inspired by the BODY WORLDS Germany without the promise of the plastinates. Suddenly, traveling exhibition, they were determined that the as she describes it, von Hagens burst from his office. “He Museum should permanently display plastinated figures, slams his hands down on the table and says, ‘I have got it! I and it did, thanks to their generosity and long-standing know the position. This will be fantastic. Stand on that chair, commitment. reach out like that … I can see it now. OK, this is good.’”15

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The “big idea” of Expedition Health is that “the human body changes in ways that we can see, measure, and optimize.”16 Von Hagens was convinced and felt his To realize this big idea, the exhibition centers on a narrative: the team was prepared for the selection, dissection, authentic attempt by a very diverse group of Colorado residents positioning, and final preservation of donated to climb a local mountain, Mount Evans. The story line places the bodies in a way that was custom-made for exhibition in Colorado and in the natural world, appropriate for Expedition Health. The process would take the Museum’s natural history content and its regional focus. And it six years, and it would become a genuine creates a coherent exhibition experience that feels like an adventure. partnership between von Hagens, his team, and As the exhibition’s concept phase report explains, “Personalization the Museum. The Museum prepared a 64-page is key.”17 Visitors first sign in electronically via a Peak Pass on which manual illustrating just how the bodies should they will record data about their own bodies generated during the be dissected, how brain, nerves, muscles, visit (Fig. 9.8). Then they choose a “buddy” from the real expedi- and internal organs should be shown to best tion team to act as a guide and interpreter. A mix of experiences illustrate the body’s intricate and beautiful throughout the exhibition interweaves health science content and anatomical coordination. Another manual the expedition story. Sometimes the visitor’s journey is physical, illustrated the positioning of the bodies, sometimes emotional, sometimes intellectual. It can be private or with the skeletal system on top, helping the can become social during interactions with staff, volunteers, or other muscular body climb a rock face. A medical visitors—or with the virtual buddy, an innovation derived from the illustrator also helped interpret the nuances tested success of peer learning. Different environments within the of the design team’s vision. Six times during exhibition are geared to visitors of different ages, interests, and the preparation of The Hikers Coughlin flew learning styles. to Germany to approve the chosen cadavers and to oversee various stages of the process. She dedicated one trip entirely to the ethical and legal review of the body donation process. This is the process that permits individuals to make a declaration of will during their lifetime so that upon their death their body may be preserved and used for public education in a museum setting. Project manager Bryce Snellgrove also visited Germany to see The Hikers and take their measurements, since he was responsible for coordinating the design, fabrication, and installation of the exhibit. The Museum commissioned rock fabricators and glass manufacturers and held them to the same high standards of production required for the figures themselves. Finally, on June 3, 2011, the Museum unveiled The Hikers, becoming the only Figure 9.8. At the end of their visit to Expedition Health, this family reviews the information about their bodies recorded as they museum to permanently own and exhibit two participated in the exhibition’s various activities. full-body plastinates.

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Expedition Buddies

In August 2008, 12 Coloradans (Fig. 9.9) set out to climb Health. These 12 climbers were to become Expedition 14,258-foot Mount Evans, an iconic peak in Colorado’s Buddies—partners on a Museum visitor’s journey through Front Range that is visible from the Museum. The climbers this new exhibition. were good representatives of Colorado: a mixture of ages, At the entrance to Expedition Health, visitors see backgrounds, and ethnicities, covering a range of health pictures and read descriptions of the buddies and choose and fitness. They persevered through blisters, aching one to accompany them. At various places in the exhibition, muscles, and altitude sickness, but fog and cold turned when the visitors’ computerized Peak Pass is activated the them back just short of the summit (Fig. 9.10). Even though buddies speak in their own voices and in their own words they did not stand on top, the climbers felt they had to the visitor, describing their training and experience and accomplished their goal. explaining human biology and health as they know it. The climb was not their only achievement, however. Although the Museum advertised only minimally for Nor were they alone. A seven-person professional video these volunteer positions, more than 500 people applied. and photography team went along and recorded the event, The selection process included auditions before a casting creating material that would be used later in Expedition firm, an essay, and an on-camera interview. The Museum did not want actors, however, but real people who spoke authentically. The buddies are a form of peer learning, an educational technique that has proved successful in more traditional educational settings but is an innovation in a museum. It seems to be working: visitors apparently enjoy the company of a buddy, and many say they repeat their visit just to experience it with a different partner.

Figure 9.9. All 12 buddies at the beginning of their journey up Mount Evans.

Figure 9.10. Buddies during a fog-shrouded portion of their trek.

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Research has shown that individual museum visitors (and presum- ably also those in organized groups) expect entertainment, education, and social time from their visit. They want to have fun while learning. They don’t want to be lectured or made to feel guilty about their bodies or behaviors. Knowing this, exhibit planners resisted pressure from advisory groups to focus on issues like obesity or diseases that have little meaning to children. Instead, they planned an active exhibition where visitors experience how their own bodies react to the typical stimuli of an expedition. The various exhibits allow visitors to record their heart rates as they exercise, measure their stride lengths, watch their pupils dilate, or feel the effects of windchill (Fig. 9.11), among other engaging activities. In addition, educators and performers give shows and demonstrations daily on the Summit Science Stage. In Pirates of the Human Being: Meet Your Microbial Mates, for example, students meet the Figure 9.11. In this interactive exhibit on the effects of “microbial mates” that live in and on their bodies. windchill, the young girl places her hand in a wind stream and Volunteers with carts provide hands-on activities to monitors its temperature as capillaries contract, bringing less blood to the area. help visitors learn about the anatomy of the brain or how bones are composed of cells and are alive, just like our moving muscles. Sitting in the Body Trek Theater, the region’s first “object theater,” visitors vicariously experience the climb up Mount Evans with Teal, a Colorado teacher selected to represent the Museum on film, and then they experience special effects in the theater (Fig. 9.12). Of Expedition Health’s many innovations, the most ambitious and far reaching may be the laboratories included in the exhibition. In addition to Lab Central’s Genetics of Taste research project, the laboratory space known as Biology Base Camp is intended for families and school groups and allows visitors to become scientists. They don gloves, goggles, and lab coats and perform various experiments or explorations in nutrition or cell biology, testing their hypotheses. The many exhibits within the larger Expedition Health, though varied in content and format, all develop the same Figure 9.12. Bridget Coughlin in 2008, rewriting the theme in different ways. As they leave Expedition script on location for the BodyTrek Theater show in Expedition Health. Health, visitors should walk away thinking, “My body is amazing and changing all the time.”18

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Biology Base Camp Biology Base Camp is a 1,200-square-foot wet lab within Expedition Health. Visible from the exhibition floor and open to the public, it accom- modates up to 30 visitors and volunteers. Designed for group participation, Biology Base Camp appeals to family and school group audiences. Visitors don gloves, goggles, and lab coats and select one of five lab benches where they can perform experiments testing their own hypotheses. A “computer tutor” gives step-by-step instructions onscreen, and volunteer facilitators are present to answer questions and offer assistance. In some experiments, these new scientists are able to see their own cells—a powerful experience, especially for children. In Battle Bacteria, visitors apply different agents, such as bleach or hand gel, to a bacterial culture and then use fluorescent dyes to compare the agents’ ability to kill the bacteria. In Food Chemistry, participants develop a hypothesis about the percentage of sugar in some popular breakfast cereals and then test their hypothesis by extracting the sugar and measuring it using a refractometer (Fig. 9.13). These experiments present visitors with relevant questions to answer, opportunities to look at the results, and the ability to easily repeat the experiment. Thus they learn the scientific process, not in the abstract but by doing. They are also encouraged to consider the health implications of what they learn at the bench. Figure 9.13. Two young scientists test their hypothesis in a self-directed Biology Base Camp is modeled after similar successful labs at the experiment in Biology Base Camp. Science Museum of Minnesota and the Maryland Science Center. Upon opening, it became only the third such lab in the country.

Expedition Health has been recognized nationally for innovation and effectiveness. The Association of Science-Technology Centers gave it the prestigious Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award for Visitor Experience. And the Hungry Hiker: Build a Meal computer game (Fig. 9.14) won the Apps for Healthy Kids competition, which is organized by the USDA as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. Visitation has been the best proof of success. During its first 18 months 730,000 people experienced the exhibition, with 30 percent as repeat visitors—a remarkably large percentage in such a short time (Garneau & Hostetler 2010). Figure 9.14. In this award-winning computer game, Hungry Hiker: Moreover, evaluators discovered that visitors Build a Meal, young children select foods from the different food spent more time in this exhibition and used it groups in an effort to make a balanced meal. Then they find out if much more intensively than in other exhibi- their meal was healthy enough to support their hike up a mountain. tions of comparable size and theme.19

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Health Sciences Programming As in the days of the Hall of Life, the Museum offers avenues for health education to complement Expedition Health. Not only does every exhibit correspond to one or more of the Colorado Science Standards and the National Health Education Standards, but the Museum’s website offers an online teachers’ guide to the exhibition and includes background health information and classroom activities. Health sciences programming is now well integrated into the Museum, both in galleries by the Museum Programs Department and in classes and workshops by the Youth and Teacher Programs Department. Classroom programs on health for school groups continue to be the most numerous and well attended of any Museum programs for youth. (The 2010–2011 school programs brochure listed 34 programs on different health science topics offered either at the Museum or in the schools.) Some titles are familiar: You’ve Got Guts and New Me: Puberty began with the Hall of Life. Labs still include dissections of animal hearts, lungs, and eyes. But now biology is emphasized, particularly anatomy and physiology. Courses on drug, alcohol, and tobacco use and other prevention-focused programs have been discontinued. Today there are virtual classes: through videoconferencing, students in their classrooms interact with an educator in the Museum and observe a dissection of a heart or lung to learn about circulation or respiration. Another distance-learning program, Scientists in Action, also uses videoconferencing equipment so that students in school auditoriums, assembled in the Museum, or even in children’s hospitals around the country can accompany scientists in the field or in their labs. In 2010 and 2011 Garneau was the scientist in action during Healthy, Unique You, a virtual examination of her work in genetics and its bearing on one’s health (Fig. 9.15). This free program expressly targets students in schools with lower-income populations. Another recent program, Passport to Health, extends the experience of the Museum’s Expedition Health exhibition to fifth graders at 30 low-income schools in the Denver metro area. It provides field trips, family days, and resource materials. Funded by the Colorado Health Foundation, it is free to the schools and is intended to increase students’ understanding of health science, raise their science literacy, and inspire them toward healthy lifestyles. Teachers recognize the importance of health science but are often uncomfortable incorporating it into their science curriculum. To help, the Museum offers professional development classes. The Genetics of Taste workshop is a three-day summer institute that takes place in the lab in Expedition Health. Using its research on taste, the workshop shows how the health triad (genetics, choices, and the environment) affects body systems. Several spaces in this workshop are designated for teachers in school districts with large populations of low-income families or low-science-performing

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Figure 9.15. What looks like a playful exchange is really science in action. The two scientists are Curator of Health Nicole Garneau and Tom Finger, codirector of the Rocky Mountain Taste and Smell Center at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, whose tongue papillae are being counted. Using the Genetics of Taste research project as an example, they discuss the relationship between genetics, biology, and behavior during the Healthy, Unique You Scientists in Action program broadcast live to classrooms around the state and across the nation.

students. In 2012 Body of Knowledge, a course for practicing fifth-grade teachers, offered online instruction as well as face-to-face meetings to help teachers understand key concepts in health science and learn how to make it relevant to their students’ lives through cutting-edge teaching technologies. Both workshops offer college credit. As the first health exhibit educator/coordinator, Nancy Walsh was part of the core planning team for Expedition Health, contributing her expertise in informal learning and visitor experience. Now as director of Museum Programs, she continues to guide programming in this core competency both for families through Visitor Programs and for adults through the Adult Programs Department. Walsh’s successor as coordinator for health sciences, Brian Hostetler, develops the live programs in Expedition Health, including shows and touch carts, and he trains the staff and the 200 volunteers who conduct them. He is also a member of the core team responsible for the exhibition. Evening programs for adults frequently focus on health science topics. These programs can be serious or fun, and usually they are both. During Medical Shows: Fact and Fiction, attendees watched clips from favorite TV melodramas such as House, Scrubs, CSI, and Grey’s Anatomy, then laughed and learned as curators Coughlin and Garneau discussed what was real, what was invented, and what could have been malpractice. Both curators have contributed to episodes of Science Lounge, the Museum’s offbeat, lively program for adults ages 25 to 45: Wine and Chocolate (the science behind antioxidants), The Science of Beer (the chemistry of ale) (Fig. 9.16), and Science with Altitude (the body’s response to high elevation). More traditional formats also make health sciences relevant, accessible, and interesting. Such was author Rebecca Skloot’s lecture on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a story that raises disturbing bioethical questions about human experimentation.

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Figure 9.16. Nicole Garneau lectures to a packed Phipps IMAX Theater during the Science of Beer program for adults.

Finally, health sciences programming is supplemented by a long history of community partnerships. For many years, the Museum has hosted the annual Tar Wars poster contest sponsored by the Colorado Academy of Family Physicians Foundation. On special days each year, Delta Dental, Kaiser Permanente, OR Nurses, and others set up displays and conduct activities in the Museum. For several years while their new facility was under construction, the University of Colorado School of Medicine conducted their Mini Med School at the Museum, and Bridget Coughlin taught several of the classes. Partners like 9Health Fair and the Mabel Y. Hughes Charitable Trust have provided scholarships or funding to support programming.

The Future Barely 25, health sciences is a newcomer in the Museum’s long history. Yet its contributions have been significant. This core competency has generated some of the largest numbers in the Museum in terms of visitors, students, partners, volunteers, and grant and donated dollars, and has changed the way the Museum thinks and operates, particularly when it comes to planning permanent exhibitions. The Hall of Life’s personal and participatory format led directly to Space Odyssey and ultimately to Expedition Health. The Genetics of Taste lab is not only unique in a museum context, but it is the first community-based and audience-focused lab in the country that conducts real molecular genetics research.20 Paradoxically, then, health sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science is both a late arrival and a pioneer.

DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE ANNALS | No. 4, December 31, 2013 381 Carol Cochran, Bridget Coughlin, and Nicole Garneau

Literature Cited Garneau, N. & Hostetler, B. 2010. The Amazing Incredible YOU in Expedition Health. Museums & Social Issues: A Journal of Reflective Discourse – Wellness 5(2): 264–268.

Endnotes

1 DMNS Annual Report, President’s Report, 1987. 2 James Goddard, oral history, June 24, 2011, DMNS Archives. 3 Ibid. 4 First quote from Hall of Life exhibit mission statement; second quote from Hall of Life exhibit subcommittee meeting minutes, December 14, 1987, DMNS Archives. 5 Espenlaub, A. Exhibit Development Committee Meeting Minutes, April 17, 1987, DMNS Archives. 6 1993–1994 Hall of Life Health Education Center program brochure. 7 James Goddard, personal communication to Carol Cochran, October 31, 2011, DMNS Archives. 8 Core Competency Audit Committee. Health Sciences Report, July 14, 1998, DMNS Archives. 9 Horvath, P. Site Visit Report, April 20, 1998, DMNS Archives. 10 Zaremba, J. Site Visit Report, May 21, 1998, DMNS Archives. 11 Richard Stucky, personal communication with Carol Cochran, October 14, 2011 and November 27, 2011. 12 DMNS. Health Science Initiative Feasibility Study, September 2006: 4. 13 Ibid.: 5. 14 Ibid.: 8. 15 Bridget Coughlin oral history, August 31, 2011, DMNS Archives. 16 DMNS. Health Science Exhibition: Concept Phase Report, February 14, 2007: 7. 17 Ibid.: 8. 18 Ibid.: 10. 19 McNamara, P.A. 2010. Expedition Health: Summative Evaluation Report: iii. 20 DMNS website. http://www.dmns.org/science/museum-scientists/ nicole-garneau/the-genetics-lab

382 DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE ANNALS | No. 4, December 31, 2013 Appendix A

Denver Museum of Nature & Science Board Members 1900–Present