The Montgomery County Historical Society is located in Red Oak, Iowa at 2700 N. 4th Street . This is SW Iowa, and the largest road in the area is Hwy 34. It is about an hour and a half from Omaha and two and a half hours from Des Moines. It is not too far off of I 80, and relatively close to the Danish Heritage Museum in Elk Horn. If you're just leisurely enjoying a trip across Iowa, drop by! Hillary Clinton did - she had a political rally there a few months ago. In the red heart of Republican country, no less!
Well, the Montgomery County folks are very lucky. About 5 years ago they received a significant endowment, matched by donation money and grant funds, and they have built a beautiful new museum building. It has one large exhibit gallery, one smaller gallery, and a nice meeting room, museum store, and central atrium. Unfortunately their artifact and archival storage areas and curatorial work areas are still unfinished rooms - but they have room to grow and they know that they need to develop these areas soon.
They got advice from (and employed) an exhibit design firm from Omaha. Both of their exhibit galleries are painted flat black, and have track lighting. The flat black paint is nice from a visual point of view, but when they change exhibits they're going to have to be constantly covering up holes and re-painting. I would have recommended a textured wall surface like carpeting, which would have been much more expensive but which would have been much more practical in the long run.
To be honest, I have no memory in the world of what is in their small gallery, which is meant for changing exhibits.
In their large gallery they have several permanent exhibits. The visitor enters into an area devoted to the history of the county, with a focus on the various townships. This exhibit does suffer from the magazine syndrome - lots of 2D text, maps and photos and few artifacts. If one stops and reads the labels, though, the information is interesting. And there is one somewhat interactive area, where visitors can lift parts of the display wall to find out more information. I believe there was also ambient sound, although I have forgotten.
Another permanent installation is a history of a local business - a construction company (or was it a concrete company?) That company gave bucketloads of money to the museum. The display includes mostly 2D materials, but also artifacts such as forms (molds) for their products. There is also a small room with a flat screen TV which shows a video about the company. Oh, well, boring but a legitimate use of funds since the company was an important employer in the community for many years.
Another exhibit area focuses on the Thos. D. Murphy Company, said to be the first company in America which printed color advertising calendars. Artifacts in this area include a Gordon press, a proof press, and sets of antique file drawers with the variety of type used when advertising copy was set by hand. On exhibit also are original calendars including the work of Arthur Elsley, R.Atkinson Fox, James Dobson and others. That was really very nice.
Their permanent gallery concludes with a history of transportation in the area which was primarily an exhibit of historic automobiles and trucks. Good labelling, and a nice 3D display.
In addition to their new museum the society has some outbuildings on their property, including an historic barn. The barn was fun, although they are having moisture problems which are affecting the structure. There was a model of a cow, and a variety of equipment on display. They also have an historic schoolhouse and log cabin on the county fairgrounds. These are wonderful structures in dire need of cleaning and repair, but great because of their age and local importance. And if you like, as I do, interacting with volunteers and going through actual old stuff instead of sterile exhibits, this is absolutely the best part of the historical society's holdings.
You know, I think the situation in Montgomery County illustrates the problems with modern over-designed over-conceptualized exhibits. The best part of the visit were the actual buildings with actual stuff inside. The exhibits were kind of sterile, and not very memorable. I think that I will say again here that I would rather see a building full of STUFF that a visitor can get close to, wonder about, and be visually stimulated by (ok, my grammar just got a little weird there) rather than a series of exhibits which are ILLUSTRATED CONCEPTS. Yep, that's it in a nutshell.
Applying the criteria for criticism, though, the Montgomery County Historical Society looks pretty good. The exhibits surely seemed to be accurate. The artifacts were displayed properly behind plex or in cases (except for the automobiles), so nothing is being damaged by the display methodology. (They really are going to have to solve their humidity problem in the barn, though).
Do the exhibits cause the visitors to think? Ummmmmmmm. Well, not me. Although maybe I just wasn't all that excited about the concepts. Were the exhibits propagandistic? No, although I wonder about excessive focus on that contstruction/concrete co. Was it really that important in the whole scheme of life in the county for there to be a permanent exhibit on the subject? Temporary yes, permanent, no (in my opinion). Were the exhibits innovative? No - standard modern displays. Were the exhibits object focused? I'm going to repeat here that the exhibits were, as is the case for many of us doing exhibits today, illustrated concepts rather than exhibits which start with artifacts and work outward to a variety of stories. I'm left with the feeling that the wonderful local folks who so love their county and volunteer their time and talents have been led by the nose somewhat by the design firm in Omaha.
Should you go see the Montgomery County Historical Society in Red Oak, IA? Absolutely! The museum building is lovely, and has huge potential. The outbuildings are great, and have wonderful potential, too. The volunteers are interesting and friendly. Montgomery County itself is truely picture postcard America - rolling fields of corn and soybeans, teeny little towns with beautiful small houses and decayed old buildings. Children playing in the streets and deer running down the byways. I was there during high school homecoming - what is more American than that? They get a grade of A-.
