Minnesota Historical Society Oral History Project Minnesota Historical

Janis Obst Narrator Rhoda R. Gilman Interviewer Saint Paul, Minnesota April 11, 1990 RG: Janis, we’ve been reviewing your career with the [Minnesota] Historical SocietyProject a little bit, and maybe I’ll just try to get some of that on the record before we start. You were hired in 1958 as a museum assistant. You stayed with the museum at the main building at 690 Cedar Street until the spring of 1969, when you went to Historic Sites as head of historic houses. And then in 1977, you left that position and undertook several, more or less short-term, research and development projects including the work of refurbishing the Commandant’s House beforeHistory your retirement in 1980. First off, Janis, I’d like to have you tell me a little bit aboutOral your personal background. What was the path that lead you to the MHS [Minnesota Historical Society] in lateSociety 1958? JO: Well, I didn’t get my degree in history at the University; I’m about fourteen credits short. And I also had courses in journalism. Just before I applied for the job at the Society, I had been in the news bureau and alumni division of Hamline University.Society At that time, I was contemplating a divorce and I had a number of children to support, and I was lookingHistorical for something with a little more security. RG: Had you had other jobs before, or was this a matter of getting back into the working world after having been a wife and mother pretty much? JO: No. In my first job I hadHistorical after I was married, I did reports for Dunn & Bradstreet in my home. This was interesting. It was farm-related and would be taking documents and letters and so forth and compiling reports. I guess thisMinnesota helped me a lot in my love for writing, putting ideas together. RG: Yes, and keeping records. JO: Yes,Minnesota keeping records. RG: So how did you happen to get the job at MHS? Did you see it advertised? JO: No. I wrote a number of letters to companies, businesses and other organizations where I felt I would like to work, and one of them was to the Historical Society. Bob Wheeler called me the day he got my letter and had me come in, and I got the job the same day. RG: Bob didn’t waste any time when he made up his mind. 9 JO: No, he didn’t. I think that he was anxious to fill the job in the museum at that time. RG: Yes. I started in 1958, also. I started in February. So I had been there a few months before you. As I recall, this was about—wasn’t it in November or December ‘58? JO: I believe so. RG: Bill Gamber had just been made head of the museum, as I recall. JO: Yes, right. RG: Sandy Cutler had left in the summer, and Bill had accepted the job sometime in the fall. Project JO: Right— RG: My recollection is that the one person that was working in the museum at that time was Karen Haase, now Karen Avaloz. History JO: Right. Oral RG: And she then was transferred to the Donnelly project and workedSociety with me for a couple of years on that. That’s how I got to know Karen. During that sort of interregnums between when the museum did not have a head, between the time Sandy left—Sandy had hired Karen in the spring, and then he left in the middle of the summer—the museum was without a head until Bill was hired in late fall. I know she felt that it was a prettySociety tough time for her, fresh out of college, just a kid left in charge of that museum up on the third floor therHistoricale, all alone most of the time with a variety of supervision, including Chet Kozlak, Arch Grahn and Bob Wheeler. Less of Bob than the other two, I think. She liked Bill very much, but you had already been hired, and she had essentially been fired. But I think Bill argued—at least the story Karen told me was that he argued that an injustice had been done to her and, therefore, she was rehired for the Donnelly project. So, what were your duties at that time? Were you the onlyHistorical one on the staff besides Bill? JO: That’s right. We gave schoolMinnesota tours. We accessioned artifacts. We did research for the exhibits. [Laughter] RG: Exhibits didn’t change very much in those days with that tiny a staff. Minnesota JO: No. They couldn’t. RG: One of my early recollections is the way the museum was constantly short on space and spread around the building. Now you had the galleries on the third floor, and your office space was in a closet up there, as I recall. JO: That’s right. RG: The storage areas were down in the Northwest Terrace then? 10 JO: Yes, although there were some closets in the galleries on the third floor. RG: Oh, that’s right. JO: We called it the “gun closet” and the “costume closet.” But after I’d been there about four years, in looking over the records, I wondered where all the silver was that was in the catalog, and I wasn’t able to find it. One day the fellows were moving one of the big cases and something rattled, and we opened up the bottom and here was the silver. [Chuckles] But that was the case with the storage. Artifacts were put wherever there was a spot or where it would fit. RG: Tucked away in corners. That brings up a question, too, about the records. Record keeping was pretty abysmal, as I recall. Project JO: Yes, it was. Except I did feel that the woman who had been there maybe three or four years before—maybe her name was Esther? RG: Esther Sperry. History JO: Okay. She had made an attempt to get the records in order.Oral I started working on the card catalog immediately, because otherwise in the condition it was in, it was practicallySociety impossible to find what you wanted. And my criteria for organizing that was, “If Russell Fridley should send Ardene [Flynn, his secretary] up to get something out of the catalog, would she be able to find it?” And I used that. RG: That was a good. Society Historical JO: . Not especially, except at the museum. RG: But very practical under the circumstances. JO: Practical, right. Historical RG: That raises another question.Minnesota Did Ardene often come up on such an errand? JO: No. [Laughter] RG: I recallMinnesota in that era it was quite customary for us to loan out things like our costume collection to groups that wanted to have benefit fashion shows or historical pageants or whatever. JO: We did try and tighten that up, though. But oftentimes we would be nay-sayed by the director. RG: By the administrative office. JO: Right, the administrative office. RG: I guess, my impression has been that at that point as well as later on, in some ways the museum 11 was really regarded as a bit of a stepchild of the institution. JO: That’s right. RG: We had a very strong library, manuscripts, and publications departments, but the museum was just there. JO: That’s true. In addition, money for exhibits was very scarce. RG: Yes. Now, at that time, Chet Kozlak was on full time. He did most of the exhibits, is that right? JO: Yes. Project RG: And we had not yet acquired Historic Sites, so his energies hadn’t been drained off into doing sites. Did Arch Grahn have much to do with the museum at that point? JO: No. History RG: You didn’t feel that he. Oral JO: . I didn’t feel that he—I don’t recall that he had any kind ofSociety a controlling position. RG: Well, he was the field director. But I asked him the same question. He answered it much the same as you, though he said as a close friend of Chet’s, he was often called on. It was a personal connection more than an organizational one.Society And certainly Arch wasn’t particularly close to Bill Gamber. Of course, Bill didn’t stay very long. HeHistorical was only there until—well, about a year I guess, before he quit to go into the priesthood. Then Alan Woolworth was hired in 1960. Do you feel that that made a big change in the museum now that it had a permanent head who did stay for a good many years? JO: Yes, I do. I think that itHistorical did. Looking back, I think it was a bit tumultuous at the time, because Alan had come—I think he had worked in the Henry Ford Museum. Minnesota RG: I know he was in Michigan. He came to us from Michigan. RG: Right. But he did have a museum background, and I believe he had some experience in exhibits,Minnesota too. So we did have some controversies about the exhibits. RG: You mean between Chet and Alan? JO: Chet and Alan, yes. RG: I see. JO: Alan really was head of the museum and the exhibits, and I think it was hard for Chet to relinquish authority, because he had taken control when control needed to be taken. 12 RG: During the period when there was no director, he had been in charge. JO: That’s right.

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