The purpose of the Exhibits & Special Projects Division has been to concentrate on developing a long-term exhibition program and schedule and to oversee special projects that enhance the Society’s reputation through public outreach, the development of partnerships with academic and cultural organizations, and service to the museum profession. This one-person division is tasked with utilizing internal as well as external resources to meet various public needs for history-based programming. It also has the charge of making sure that these projects reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the Society’s collections.
Exhibits
The ability of the public to see more of our collections rests, to a large degree, on developing and installing exhibits. In 2010-2011, the Vice President’s position allowed me to do extensive work on a variety of small exhibits. Following is a list of the projects worked on:
• Produced audio and computer graphics for the Rally ‘Round exhibit of Civil War flags and banners.
• Installed and maintained annual Holiday Trains display
• Installed exhibit of photographs from the Allen Cole collection to promote new book
• Designed and installed exhibit of bicycles from the Crawford collection.
• Designed and installed exhibit about the marketing of the Thompson Products Company 1930s to 1950s
• Conducted extensive research about Cleveland and the Civil War, developing public presentations and digitizing photographs and archival materials.
• Designed and produced interim interior exhibits for Steel Heritage Center at Steelyard Commons, a collaborative project between WRHS, Cleveland MetroParks, City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, and the Ohio & Erie Canal Corridor
• Began basic research for “East Versus West,” an orientation exhibit about the history of Cleveland and the Western Reserve
CWRU MOU Digitization of Collections
I worked with the WRHS Library/Archives to prepare material from the Great Lakes Exposition collection for transfer to Kelvin Smith Library at CWRU, including the creation of metadata for those materials.
Talks & Tours
As part of our focus on public outreach, I gave several public talks both at the History Center as well as at various venues within the community, covering four topics:
• History of the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit
• History of Cleveland Municipal Airport
• History of Steelmaking in Cleveland and the US
• Cleveland and the Civil War
In addition, I developed and presented two new walking/bus tours about Cleveland history that were used in teacher workshops and for Elderhostel bus tours, including:
• Tour of near West Side, Tremont, and the industrial Flats
• History of the building of the Shaker Rapid Transit through Cleveland’s East Side
Workshops
Collaboration with and outreach to the academic community are considered staples of the WRHS educational mission. To meet this charge, I assisted in the development of sessions and teaching materials for the third year of the US Department of Education’s Teaching American History grant at Cleveland State University and was a presenter during the WRHS NEH-funded workshop on Immigration in America during the summer of 2011.
Teaching
Staff also engages in bringing their expertise through teaching. During FY2011, I taught classes for the CWRU Sages program; taught classroom sessions as part of the WRHS Summer Intern program; and directed work of two summer interns, who did research about the Civil War report in Cleveland newspapers, the end product of which will be hosted on the WRHS website.
Grants
This past year was the final year for two grant funded projects. The NEH funded project, “An Artificially Intelligent Artifact Interpreter,” attempted to create digital interactive exhibit that would engage museum visitors in exploring history through objects. A working prototype was created and tested with volunteer visitors. At the writing of this report a more permanent exhibit display is being produced by Gallo Displays using additional funds from a local foundation.
Additional testing will continue over the next year. The joint venture with other community organizations to create a steel heritage center at Steelyard Commons shopping complex ended its first phase. WRHS has been the fiscal agent for this project since 2005 and will close out this funded phase in September, this month. Operation of the center has been turned over to Cleveland MetroParks.
Professional Organizations
I continued to participate in the Museum Assessment Program of the American Association of Museums. This is my 26th year of participating in this program that provides consulting services to our colleagues in the museum field. I also served on the Program Committee for the Annual Meeting of the Association of Midwest Museums in October in Cleveland. I also organized a session and presented in that session about the NEH AI2 project at WRHS.
Edward J. Pershey, Ph.D.
Vice President for Exhibits & Special Projects