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Slavery on Exhibition: Display Practices in Selected Modern American Museums

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Slavery on Exhibition: Display Practices in Selected Modern American Museums Slavery on Exhibition: Display Practices in Selected Modern American Museums by Kym Snyder Rice B.A. in Art History, May 1974, Sophie Newcomb College of Tulane University M.A. in American Studies, May 1979, University of Hawaii-Manoa A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 31, 2015 Dissertation directed by Teresa Anne Murphy Associate Professor of American Studies The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University Certifies that Kym Snyder Rice has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of November 22, 2014. This is the final approved form of the dissertation. Slavery on Exhibition: Display Practices in Selected Modern American Museums Kym Snyder Rice Dissertation Research Committee: Teresa Anne Murphy, Associate Professor of American Studies, Dissertation Director Barney Mergen, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Committee Member Nancy Davis, Professorial Lecturer of American Studies, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2015 by Kym Snyder Rice All rights reserved iii Acknowledgements This dissertation has taken many years to complete and I have accrued many debts. I remain very grateful for the ongoing support of all my friends, family, Museum Studies Program staff, faculty, and students. Thanks to each of you for your encouragement and time, especially during the last year. Many people contributed directly to my work with their suggestions, materials, and documents. Special thanks to Fath Davis Ruffins and Elizabeth Chew for their generosity, although they undoubtedly will not agree with all my conclusions. I also deeply appreciate substantial support I received from The George Washington University, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, especially from Iva Beatty, Tara Wallace, Chris Sterling, Roy Guenther, and Peg Barrett---as well as faculty and staff of the American Studies Department. I also want to recognize my committee, the current members and those who helped me in the past. In particular, until his retirement in 2013, John M. Vlach served as my greatest cheerleader and assisted me in countless ways over many years. John’s scholarship in African American material culture continues to inspire me. I also remain grateful for the past contributions of Jim Horton and the late Phyllis Palmer. My greatest debt, however, is to Terry Murphy. Without Terry’s patience, kindness, and input over the last several years, even as she took on increasingly demanding administrative work for GW, I would not have completed this project. I especially will miss our talks. Much of this work mirrors my long career in museums developing exhibitions that began in 1975 and reflects my struggles to understand my own small iv place within a rapidly changing landscape. I am very grateful to all the individuals--- too numerous to mention here---who sustained, tolerated, and boosted me during my exhibition work. I do want to single out the exceptional impact by dear friends Tucker H. Hill, Barbara G. Carson, and Fredrika J. Teute to both my life and career. Hardly a day goes by that I do not think fondly about our conversations, shared interests, and enduring friendship. Finally, I give special recognition to my beloved family, my daughter Claire, my husband Mark, and several generations of canine companions for their extraordinary support and love. I regret that my mother Jean M. Snyder did not live to see my PhD finally completed. Both my parents provided great introductions to history, museums, and culture to me and my brothers but it was Jean who gave me a deep and abiding curiosity about the world. v Abstract of Dissertation Slavery on Exhibition: Display Practices in Selected Modern American Museums In the postmodern museum, exhibitions frequently serve as charged sites for ongoing debates occurring in society over subjects that include authenticity, authority, difference, representation, identity, exclusion, and inclusion. This dissertation explores how modern American museum exhibitions became critical locations for ongoing efforts to interrogate slavery. Slavery first received sustained attention in mainstream museums some forty years ago through a series of pioneering presentations positioned against a portrait of the American past as divisive and troubling. Initiated following the Civil Rights era, when museums struggled for inclusivity on several fronts, these projects illustrate multiple approaches advocated by social history methodology, which legitimated slavery as a subject for serious consideration in American culture. A series of history exhibition case studies presented chronologically, beginning with the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History’s “After the Revolution” (ca. 1984), reflect on how slavery has been “museumified.” As American museums re-imagined national history and identity through these “re-presentations,” these projects attempted to resist the museum’s powerful tendency to fix or homogenize difficult subjects. In the late 1980s, two pioneering exhibitions in Richmond, Virginia, organized by the Valentine Museum and the Museum of the Confederacy offered up an image of slavery to the public that challenged their own racially nostalgic institutional histories. “In Bondage and Freedom: Antebellum Black Life in Richmond” at the Valentine and the Museum of the Confederacy’s “Before Freedom Came: American Life in the Antebellum South” vi strengthened each museum’s own legitimation but also brought to public attention the latest historiography, which focused on enslaved agency and the ability of slaves to create lives that were autonomous from whites. Foreground against the subsequent decades-long contestation over representations of historically marginalized groups, “At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland” (2005-2007) resulted from a close collaboration between artists, Maryland Institute College of Art students, and several Baltimore museums. This example permits a behind- the-scenes glimpse at the continuing role that both memory and contemporary racial dynamics can play in exhibition making. Finally, “Slavery at Monticello: Paradox of Liberty” (2011-2014), a collaboration between Monticello and the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture focused on Thomas Jefferson and his slaves. The exhibition hoped to demonstrate how slavery helped to shape a collective national past, which African Americans and whites share together. As demonstrated, despite decades of presentations related to slavery in museums, greater familiarity with slavery as an historical event does not translate into significant change with respect to race in the national discourse. Scheduled to open in 2016, exhibitions at the National Museum of African American History and Culture promise to employ a hybrid approach that will work across difference to embrace multiple perspectives, simultaneously creating a post-national turn. NMAAHC’s embrace of slavery may finally help to reconcile elements of our troubled racial history within a national museum. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgments iv-v Abstract vi-vii Chapter 1: Introduction 1-16 Chapter 2: Introducing Slavery to the Exhibition 17-59 Chapter 3: Slavery in the Exhibition: “In Bondage and Freedom: Antebellum Black Life in Richmond, Virginia” and Before Freedom Came: African American Life in the Antebellum South” 60-114 Chapter 4: “At Freedom’s Door”: Experiments in Exhibiting Slavery 115-158 Chapter 5: “Slavery at Monticello: Paradox of Liberty”: An Exhibition Collaboration between the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation 159-193 Chapter 6: Conclusion 194-207 Bibliography 208-230 Appendices 231-251 viii List of Figures 1. Object theatre. After the Revolution (Courtesy, The Smithsonian Institution) 234 2. Entry sign. Before Freedom Came: African American Life in the Antebellum South 234 3. Entrance, Before Freedom Came 235 4. Clenched fist charm, collection of The Hermitage, Nashville, Before Freedom Came 235 5. Archaeological objects related to spiritual practice, Before Freedom Came 236 6. Plantation life section, Before Freedom Came 236 7. Urban life section, Before Freedom Came 237 8. Ex-slave narrative audio stations, Before Freedom Came 237 9. Ivory bust of Nora August, c. 1865, collection of Sea Island Company, Jekyll Island, Georgia, Before Freedom Came 238 10. Exhibition panel with audio, Mining the Museum 239 11. Kirk silver set with shackles, Mining the Museum 240 12. Runaway slave broadsides and hunting rifle, Mining the Museum 240 13. Klan robe in baby carriage, Mining the Museum 241 14. Class brainstorming session, At Freedom’s Door 242 15. Selecting the big idea, At Freedom’s Door 242 16. Exhibition Development students in class 243 17. Opening festivities at the Maryland Historical Society 243 18. Exhibition opening sign and first several galleries, MHS, At Freedom’s Door 244 19. Slavery in Maryland section, MHS, At Freedom’s Door 244 20. Joan Gaither, “Maryland, My Maryland” quilt (partial), MHS, At Freedom’s Door 245 21. Maren Hassinger, “Legacy” installation, MHS, At Freedom’s Door 245 22. Civil War case, MHS, At Freedom’s Door 246 ix 23. Entry area with Holmes gate, Lewis Museum, At Freedom’s Door 247 24. “Beyond the Door” section, Lewis Museum, At Freedom’s Door 248 25. David Claypool Johnston, “Early Development of Southern
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