Cape Girardeau: Development of a River City, Cape River Heritage Museum

 

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.             

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[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.