Cape
Girardeau: Development of a River City, Cape River Heritage Museum
Review
by A.J. Medlock
Instructor:
Dr. Criblez
4/16/2013
Academic and public historians
frequently remind one another that they are no longer interested in the lives
of illustrious political and military leaders. Instead, they have shifted their
focus towards large swaths of humanity that historical monographs have
traditionally ignored. This dynamic approach has increasingly gained popularity
in recent decades as a growing number of influential historians claim they are
“doing history from the ground up.” If this is truly the case, then
community-based history museums must be at the forefront of this relatively new
approach. In many cases, these museums are integral because they provide one of
the few outlets for historical inquiry catered to an audience that is largely
skeptical of academia.
The
Cape River Heritage Museum is one many museums throughout the United States
that provides an essential outlet for historical inquiry. A not for profit
museum located in the heart of Cape Girardeau, Missouri the Cape River Heritage
Museum’s mission is to preserve and celebrate the history of Southeast
Missouri. Museum staff and volunteers have recently revamped the Cape River
Heritage Museum by increasing patron access to educational programs, tours and
“ever-changing exhibits,” thereby reinforcing their dedication to the museum’s
core mission statement.[1] With these issues in mind, this essay
evaluates the Cape River Heritage Museum’s presentation of the past through an
assessment of its premier exhibit, Cape
Girardeau: Development of a River City. This essay provides an overall
summary of the exhibit, where the museum curators succeed and fail, and
suggestions for future modifications.
Cape Girardeau: Development of a
River City is
the first exhibit visitors encounter, providing them with an introduction to
Cape Girardeau’s history through three displays dedicated to commerce,
education, and economics; this sets the stage for the rest of the museum as
patrons visit various exhibits throughout the museum dedicated to the
community’s founding and impact on Missouri and the United States. Although
some museum professionals might critique Development
of a River City for limiting its scope to commerce, education, and
transportation, the Cape River Heritage Museum’s relatively minuscule budget
and limited space prevents the museum’s curators from expanding the exhibit.
Despite these limitations, the curators of Development of a River City manage
to excel in certain aspects of the exhibit’s design by successfully conveying
the exhibits “big idea” to patrons and creating interpretive labels.
As Beverly Serrell notes, the ‘big
idea” is essential for curators wishing to educate the public. The big idea is
usually one sentence that concisely summarizes the subject of the exhibit, its
narrative structure—Do the curator’s adopt an authoritative narrative or
incorporate different points of view?—and what it intends to accomplish.[2]
The curators at the Cape River Heritage Museum accomplish this by using the
exhibit’s title, Cape Girardeau:
Development of a River City, to convey the “big idea.” This
straight-forward title informs visitors that the exhibit will focus on Cape
Girardeau’s development throughout history through the prism of economics,
education and transportation. The title also educates visitors on what they
will most likely not find in the exhibit. For example, patrons will probably
not find a comprehensive examination on medical advancements in Cape Girardeau
amongst the artifacts.
The “big idea” also establishes the
interpretive nature of the exhibits labels, connecting each artifact’s story to
the exhibit’s grand narrative. According to Freeman Tilden, exhibits should
“…reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by
firsthand experience…rather than simply to communicate factual information.”[3]
This strategy not only reinforces an exhibit’s overall narrative, but engages
and provokes museum patrons, creating an intellectually satisfying visitor
experience.[4]
In order to accomplish this task, museum labels must tell a clear and concise
story behind each artifact that encourages visitors to read the next label. The Development of a River City
accomplishes this task with the majority of its displays. For instance, the
exhibit’s commerce section displays a steamer that Frank Carroll, a local
entrepreneur, used to heat and sell hot tamales along Broadway Street during
the 1920s and 30s. Using 42 words, the Cape River Heritage Museum’s curators
were able to convey to Frank Carroll’s enterprising achievements selling
produce in an era before large food chains.
Despite the exhibit’s laudable
achievements, the cumulative effect of Development
of a River City is underwhelming. Although the Cape River Heritage Museum’s
staff has created an extensive historical overview of commerce, education, and
transportation as it pertains to Cape Girardeau, I left the museum asking
myself, “So what?” When I asked myself this question, I became deeply troubled.
I have dedicated nearly three years of my life as a graduate student in public
history extensively studying the history of Cape Girardeau; would be a shame if
all of my coursework turned out to be a waste of time. Upon further reflection,
I realized that Development of a River
City lacked historical context, an essential ingredient to creating
meaningful museum exhibits. Historical context illuminates the events
surrounding the period in question and provides meaning to those events.
Without historical context, museum pieces simply become a collection of
glorified art objects.[5]
On a basic level, Development of a River City manages to
illuminate the historical context surrounding the exhibit. The curators
arranged the artifacts in logical groupings reflecting the exhibit’s primary mission:
educating visitors regarding commerce, education, and transportation in Cape Girardeau.[6]
However, none of these displays delineate the broader context surrounding the
importance of these themes. For instance, the commerce display spends an
inordinate amount of time exhibiting the products local Cape Girardeau
businesses produced in the early twentieth century. While this may elicit a
momentarily nostalgic response from patrons, it immediately becomes evident that
the display is nothing more than a glorified showcase for commercial goods from
yesteryear. The transportation display takes a similar route, providing a
showcase of steamboat and aviation artifacts rather than a contextual narrative
that ties the whole exhibition together.
This
is unfortunate considering that Cape Girardeau’s downtown commercial district
serves as a microcosm for the rise and fall of locally operated downtown
businesses. Throughout the twentieth century, highways and automobiles became
prevalent in large and small communities throughout the United States, quickly
making traditional transportation technologies—Railroads and
Steamboats—obsolete. Highways and automobiles also connected American’s in new
ways, ushering in the advent of chain stores, eventually causing the decline of
historic downtown business districts and locally owned stores, as businesses
and residents migrated from traditional downtown businesses districts to be
closer to major highways.[7]
This theme has the potential to connect the commerce and transportation
displays in a way that confronts patrons with the toll that new technological
innovations, including mass transportation and chain stores have had on local
businesses. Unfortunately, Development of
a River City misses this opportunity.
The Development of a River City’s education
display encounters similar problems through its presentation of K-12 schooling
and higher education in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Along with photographs and
artifacts from Southeast Missouri State University and various local K-12
schools, the curators dedicated a portion of the display to African American
education, featuring photographs from the John S. Cobb School, Cape Girardeau’s
primary school for African Americans before the Supreme Court invalidated segregated
schools throughout the nation in 1954. The curators also decided to include a
biography of Costella Patterson, the only remaining African American teacher in
the Cape Girardeau school system after desegregation. Considering that
American’s concept of race has played a crucial role in the development of the
United States, it would be intriguing to learn how this affected education in Cape
Girardeau. While Missouri was never historically apart of the old south,
southern culture and racial mores exerted a strong influence on Southeast
Missouri and Missouri, in general, after the Civil War. Missourians primarily enforced segregation
through social custom, restricting African American access to decent homes,
medical care, and schooling.[8] An
examination of racial segregation and desegregation in Cape Girardeau through
the prism of Costella Patterson’s experiences would be an intriguing way to
explore racial segregation. Unfortunately, the curators of Development of a River City have declined to take this route.
A
large portion of these problems stems from the Cape River Heritage Museum’s
mission statement. The museum staff and board members clearly state that they
desire to “preserve and celebrate” the history of Cape Girardeau and Southeast
Missouri. While this is admirable, celebratory history does encourage serious
historical inquiry or require cognitive exertion from patrons. Although many
local non for profit history museums remain wary of any discussion regarding
racial segregation and community decline, the curators at the Cape River
Heritage Museum may still find ways to discuss these issues without angering or
overwhelming patrons. The curators at the Scott Joplin House State Historic
Site achieved this balance by working closely with concerned community members,
finding ways to discuss poverty, sanitation, and sexually transmitted diseases.
For instance, many concerned citizens residing near the Joplin home feared that
a frank discussion of these topics would reinforce common stereotypes of
African-American behavior. However, by illuminating the context surrounding
Joplin’s life, these issues became less contentious for community members as
historians placed Joplin within the context of his times, illustrating that
poverty, sanitation and sexual transmitted diseases were apart of larger social
forces that affected African American life.[9]
Of
course, the subjects museums and historic sites will be able to discuss will
vary for each community (It is doubtful local patrons would appreciate the
staff at the Cape River Heritage Museum discussing STDS setting). However, the
staff at the Cape River Heritage Museum can take several small steps to modify Development of a River City. One
possible solution would be to change the title to Cape Girardeau: The Development and Transformation of a River City.
While Cape Girardeau’s development is an intriguing subject, the exhibit would
become truly engaging if it included Cape Girardeau’s transformation throughout
history; this would incorporate technological advancements such as automobiles
and highways that have simultaneously encouraged growth and decline in the
area. The Cape River Heritage Museum could also improve Development of a River City by section labels for each individual
display case. Section labels explain how the display connects with the overall
theme, what they will expect to find in the display, and provides a helpful
segue to the rest of the exhibit.[10]
The popularity of local history museums will
continue indefinitely as Americans become increasingly interested in historical
figures traditionally ignored by texts. This being the case, their presentation
of history will continue to be critical as the historians modify and progress
beyond rote memorization and the study of military and political leaders. The
Cape River Heritage Museum has partially achieved this by formulating a “big
idea” and interpretive labels for Development
of a River City, yet the curators will need to address the broader context surrounding
the artifacts and delineate which themes and questions they want to ask
patrons. This will create a more intellectually fulfilling visitor experience
than before and ensure that Development
of a River City will be more than simply a collection of artifacts.
[1] “Welcome
to our Website,” http://www.caperiverheritagemuseum.com (accessed April 1, 2013).
[2]
Beverly Serrell, Exhibit Labels: An
Interpretive Approach, (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 1996), 3-6.
[3] Freeman
Tilden, Interpreting our Heritage: Principles and Practices for Visitor
Services in Parks, Museums, and Historic Places, (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1957), [insert page #] quoted in Michael Belcher,
Exhibitions in Museums, (Washington
D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1991), 155.
[4] Serrell,
12.
[5] Belcher,
147-148.
[6]
Ibid, 148.
[7]
Grady Clay, Close-Up: How to Read the
American City (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973), 46-49; Joel
Rhodes, Historic Cape Girardeau: An
Illustrated History (Texas: The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, 2004),
69, 79.
[8]
Richard Stewart Kirkendall, A History of
Missouri: Volume V 1913-1953(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986),
10, 14-15.
[9] Timothy
Baumann et al, “Interpreting Uncomfortable History at the Scott Joplin House
State Historic Site in St. Louis, Missouri,” Public Historian 33, no. 2 (2011): 38-39, 54-57.
[10]
Serrell, 22-24.