Thread by @dpmckenzie

Last session of this day of #AASLH2019: "Objects are Complicated Too."

Session will delve into Active Collections Manifesto to talk about objects. #AASLH2019 #s70

Laura Keim: Goal of session to move beyond biased or racialized notions of objects. One addition to Charles Montgomery 14 points of connoisseurship is question of who moved and cared for object. #AASLH2019 #s70

Keim discussing idea of Colonial Revival that brought about origins of many historic sites. Ancestor worship, Anglo-philia, fear of racial minorities and new immigrants, lots of nostalgia. #AASLH2019

Now Jessie MacLeod talking about interpreting slavery in @MountVernon's collections. Reminder that more than 90% of the people at Mount Vernon were enslaved. Yet their stories not traditionally told. Site founded as shrine to George Washington. #AASLH2019

@MountVernon MacLeod: Used site's own collection for new exhibition on slavery. Oral history & archaeology in there, but also made sure to use site's decorative arts collection. Big questions:
- Economic context
- Daily use
- Provenance

#AASLH2019

@MountVernon MacLeod: Goal to move beyond fine art, beauty interp of decorative arts. E.g., quotation describing horror of enslavement in Barbados shown with punch bowl, along w interpreting Washington's sale of grain to West Indies—proceeds from which he bought people. #AASLH2019 #s70

@MountVernon MacLeod: Another strategy of interpreting object: daily use. Whose hands touched objects? Enslaved people erased at time, in interp since. Goal to reinsert enslaved people into interpretation, like silhouette of Frank Lee, enslaved man, into scene with drink service. #AASLH2019

MacLeod: Another strategy is provenance. Example of donated chair from Mary Gibson Hundley—descendant of Syphax family, enslaved at Mount Vernon, and likely descendant of George Washington Parke Custis. Thus chairs have complicated family stories. cc @CassAGood #AASLH2019 #s70

MacLeod: If you don't think you have the collection to interpret slavery, you probably do—have to ask different questions of what you do have. But keep collecting—don't just interpret lives of enslaved people through their relationships with slaveholders. #AASLH2019 #s70

David B. Voelkel, then at Valentine Museum: Did an exhibition of 50 objects for Richmond.

Question of when you don't have objects for story you want to tell. Read it differently.

(I also like @berincole @mnhs solution of empty case.)

#AASLH2019 #s70

Ah, Voelkel used a blank case for the "51st object." Empty case with label that encouraged people to go onto social media to point out exclusions in exhibitions. #AASLH2019 #s70

Voelkel: Worked with VCU program to do 3D prints of objects, to have drawers with replicas underneath actual objects. #AASLH2019 #s70

Voelkel's next step: Now at Maymont, a late 19c Gilded Age 100-acre estate, decorative arts oriented. Goal: Blowing story up, expanding it to Jim Crow-era labor experience. Many objects that would've told story disposed of by museum founders in 1930s... #AASLH2019 #s70

Question from audience about Worcester Art Museum re-labeled. MacLeod responds that loves how museum kept old labels next to new ones, to show differing interpretations. #AASLH2019

I liked that Spanish Governor's Palace, an inaccurately-named building in downtown San Antonio, did similar—preserved 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival labels next to more modern interpretation. #AASLH2019 #s70