Moving Beyond the Reliquary: Stephen Weil, Amy Tyson, and the American Association of Museums

What is the function of a museum? Whose interests do they aim to serve? How does one marry historical expertise with broad appeal? How does a museum reconcile histories of conflict and oppression with stories of progress and patriotism?

These aren’t exactly new questions this semester, but our readings this week shift the focus away from individual historymakers and fix their lens squarely on institutions. By charting museums’ development in the twentieth century, particularly within the last thirty years, acknowledging their varied strengths and strategies, and forecasting their future, our readings this week serve as a call to arms. Throughout his collection of essays, Making Museums Matter (Smithsonian, 2002), Stephen Weil directly challenges future museum administrators to cast aside their prior identity as collectors and presenters of unique material artifacts and to embrace their role as public servant, to demolish the “cemetery of bric-a-brac” (81) and develop public institutions in the truest sense of the term. Implicit in this goal is recognizing museum’s now fixed position within the non-profit service economy and the need to intelligently navigate the potential frustrations and advantages of that world.


Our National Pasttimes's Reliquary: Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY



Amy Tyson likewise stresses the museum as member of the twenty first century service economy and the challenges of merging those responsibilities with socially and historically responsible content, namely slavery in the United States. Conner Prairie’s “Follow the North Star” program is an inventive, albeit extreme, example of the kind of participatory and experiential history that museumgoers desire. Programming of this kind takes risks, and as Tyson demonstrates, Historic Fort Snelling’s general unwillingness to take on similar risks weakened that site’s public value. Weil would certainly applaud the efforts of those working at the former.

Which brings us to the 2008 national report of the American Association of Museums, “A New Journey Begins.” The ideas presented in Weil and Tyson are littered throughout the AAM report. Ford W. Bell in his presidential address speaks of museum’s potential to combat public cynicism and the increased need for improved communication amongst museums themselves and their growing audience. AAM Chair Carl R. Nold identifies the public institution as “a bastion of lifelong learning, an economic engine, a social services provider, a therapeutic oasis, a source of civic pride, and an invaluable community asset,” among others. From the perspective of these museum professionals, (Weil, Tyson, AAM leadership) the museum is no longer about the collection, it is a vehicle toward personal enrichment, and as Weil makes clear, this should be the principal goal of any successful institution. The days of gilded treasure hunts are over; for museums to thrive in a contemporary setting, they must learn to move beyond the reliquary.