The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Your View

May 6, 2012

Your View: Museums are preservers, not interpreters

Gwen Rohwer, Mankato

— Like hundreds of other children who grew up in Mankato in the 1960s and 1970s, I spent many a rainy Saturday afternoon at the Blue Earth County Historical Society, then located in the Hubbard House.

The rooms were filled with artifacts. No matter how many times I went, I always discovered something I had not seen before. It was a magical place for a child, a far cry from the current museum’s sparse displays and stale “special” exhibits.

The controversy over the scaffold timber has reminded me of all the wonderful and interesting artifacts the historical society possesses, many of them donated by families like mine with long histories in Mankato.

Why aren’t those items on display? Where are the hundreds of arrowheads, the coins, the both extraordinary and ordinary items from the past that were in the filled display cases I remember?

Museums are not interpreters of history, but preservers of it.

I challenge the current director and president to open up their storage room. The donated objects belong to all of us and should be out for all of us to see.

I want the museum of my youth back for my children and grandchildren.

If current leadership is unwilling to do that, maybe it is time for a different kind of housekeeping.

 

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