Criticism: Montomery County Historical Society (Iowa)

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-.

Criticism: Judy Garland Museum (yes, really!)

Oh, my gosh, I HAD to stop at this museum! Actually, I only live a couple of hours away and had been meaning to go there forever. All I had heard of it before was that it once displayed a pair of the original ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz (I guess there are 4 or 5???) and they were stolen maybe a year or two ago. Sad!

Anyway, the Judy Garland Museum is located in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, off of Hwy 169. You have to watch carefully to find it - the area is kind of full of strip malls and Targets and whatnot. I missed it at first and had to turn around to find it. The museum is fairly new and consists of 3 parts: The home in which the Gumm family lived in Grand Rapids, where Frances Gumm (JudyGarland) was born, two galleries of Garland exhibits, and several large galleries of a children's museum. The museum's website is: http://www.judygarlandmuseum.com/ On the day I visited there were several other visitors, mainly adult couples in their 50s and 60s. The museum staff were present, dragging boxes around and cutting up boxes, which was a little distracting.

At present you enter the museum in the center of the complex, then either go left to see the Judy Garland displays or right for the children's museum galleries. It is important to note this, because it seems from the vague chronology of the exhibits as though the visitor was originally intended to start in the house and then flow through the Garland galleries then into the children's museum. Maybe they changed this flow for security reasons after the ruby slippers were taken? Am not sure.

Anyway, the house was rather bare. It was supposed to represent the period 1922 - 1926 when Judy Garland lived there. There were labels that explained that none of the furnishings were original to the Gumm family. There were also signs that a specific "interior designer" had helped to furnish the historic house display. I am in doubt about the accuracy of the furnishings - there were several pieces which pre-date the 20s (which is fine, I know) but there were also some textiles which I KNOW due to designs dated as late as the 1950s. Someone could quibble with me on this, as I'm not an absolute textile expert - but I would have to see proof of dating! The labels on the materials in the house were very odd, and kind of tie into my primary criticism of the entire museum - there was no clear chronology or storyline. For example, on the bed which was meant to represent the bed on which baby Judy slept in her parents' room, there was labelling about her death and funeral. Since there was the rest of the museum in which to address her later life, I would have been more impressed if the house really focused on the 1923 - 1926 period in Judy's life, her parents' lives, and in Grand Rapids history.

From the house there was a kind of connecting hallway which had some Garland displays, including a dress which either WAS or represented Garland's screen test dress for the Wizard of Oz. Pretty cool if it was the original! WOZ is such an iconic movie for many of us! But again, there was a problem of unclear labeling, lack of lableing, and no clear chronology or storyline.

From the hall way the visitor enters the Garland gallery. The gallery consisted of a large television playing an ongoing video about Gumm/Garland's life, and several wall displays, vitrines, and enclosed room displays. This gallery seemed a little flat, as the majority of materials were posters, original photographs, and song sheets. There was, however, the carriage in which Dorothy et al rode in the Emerald City (drawn by the horse of a different color.) It did seem clearest here that the visitor was intended to come from the house then go out through this gallery into the central hall, but at present the visitor flow is reversed. Even though I think I could tell what the intended flow was, many of the exhibits contained materials from a mix of periods, and there was no clear storyline. The video was interesting, but the staff said it was an hour and a half long! I wonder if it was originally made for television? At any rate, no museum visitor is going to sit and watch a video for a full hour and a half. I take that back - maybe some Garland crazies do.

I'm not going to criticize the children's museum portion because I don't feel qualified to do so. It seemed fairly big, and there was one room which had lots of nice tables, drawers, and a sink area for arts and crafts (wouldn't most of us just love this?). The part I most enjoyed was "Treesa", a giant plastic tree that talked - it had eyes that open and closed! I want one of my own. Kind of tackycool.

There is also a nice small garden next to the house, with a grove of apple trees and a gazebo.

Were the exhibits object oriented? Yes. I think because Garland is such an icon herself, objects from the icon become icons themselves. Were the displays accurate? Well, I have some quibbles about mixing periods together, but in general I think they were fairly accurate. Were objects displayed in such a way that they were not harmed? Yes, I think so. Most items in the gallery were behind plex. The objects in the house were open to being touched, though, and there was no human security. There may have been video security, though, I don't know. So security may have still been an issue there. Were the exhibits propagandistic? No, but they didn't cause me to think, either. The museum in general, as you could tell from above, needs to have a much clearer storyline and labels which directly relate to the objects with which they are displayed. I would say that this museum is not innovative.

Would you enjoy visiting this museum? Yes, I think so, if you're not a stickler for a clear storyline. My grade: B.