%0 Journal Article
%T Museums theme – Beyond the Black Box: reflections on building a history of chemistry museum
%A Jennifer Landry
%D 2018
%V 
%N Autumn 2017
%K analytical instrumentation
%K black box
%K chemistry
%K content development
%K design development
%K exhibit design
%K exhibition
%K Museum
%K museum audience
%K museum construction
%X This paper shows how the curatorial team of the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) dealt with institutional tensions in the process of creating a new museum within an existing institution. The initial desire to emphasise narrative evolved into an exhibition that was much more about structuring narratives around artefacts: ‘the two guiding principles were to structure the narratives around the artefacts and to emphasize the social context over the scientific or technical information.’ The importance of determining audience early in an exhibition project and allowing the audience decision to drive content decisions is explored. The paper emphasises, moreover, the need to satisfy several competing interest groups. It was important to maintain an objective distance from the chemical industry, normally assumed to be calling the shots in exhibits such as this, but also not to be so distanced from public expectations as to evoke the well-recalled wrath that had attended the Smithsonian exhibition, Science in American Life. The crisis in museums, as perceived by the team, was therefore an active factor both in provoking an approach to issues of social and technical impact and in warning of the limits.
%Z The paper presented at Artefacts 2009 was largely based on an earlier paper, co-written by the author with Erin McLeary, chief curator of the permanent exhibition. A further paper by the author with Rosie Cook is published in Boyle, A and Hagmann, J-G, 2017, Challenging Collections: Approaches to the Heritage of Recent Science and Technology.

%Z Early references to the development of the museum at CHF are found in the Chemical Heritage Foundation Institutional Archives, which are currently unprocessed and are housed at the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

%Z In Museum Exhibition: Theory and Practice, 1998 (London and New York: Routledge), David Dean outlines the exhibition development process and breaks it into four phases: Conceptual, Development, Functional, and Assessment. Traditional museum theory was not always applied during the museum project but there were concerted efforts to follow the first two steps of this project model.

%Z The report contained seventeen assumptions in total along with eight objectives. Matthew, ‘Exhibit Planning Report’, pp 2–3

%Z At the forefront of the assertion that for museums to continue to have value they must have impact on their communities, see Weil, S, 2002, Making Museums Matter (Washington: Smithsonian Books).

%Z The private donors and foundation grants were predominately from individuals or organisations with a connection to chemistry or industry. However, the donations did not have specific restrictions attached to them in relation to content presented. In fact, donors often supported the organisation because of its ‘honest broker’ status.

%Z Science in American Life and the Enola Gay are well-documented cases of a negative reaction and political fall-out at a national museum.

%Z The planning document made a specific mention of the ‘Enola Gay controversy’ in reference to the mid-1990s planned exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum that would have debuted a restored Enola Gay as a central artefact in an exhibition marking the fiftieth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The planning of the exhibition, which was to be an attempt to present a balanced social history of the aircraft and the consequences of the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, was pulled into public and political discussion and debate after several veteran’s groups expressed concerns over the Smithsonian’s approach. The furore that grew led to Congressional interference, a pulling of the planned exhibition, and the resignation of the Air and Space Museum’s director. In the end, the Smithsonian chose to open a ‘simpler’ exhibition that focused on the aircraft and its crew. The Lehigh University Digital Library features a website devoted to the controversy which includes a wealth of primary materials from the time period (see Edward Gallagher, ‘The Enola Gay Controversy’, http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/enola/about/).

%Z CHF admittedly has a challenging name: ‘Chemical Heritage Foundation’ is a bit nebulous to its American audience. Shortly after opening the museum, CHF would adopt the useful tagline ‘Library, Museum, and Center for Scholars’, which helped make enormous strides in clarifying the messaging for the organisation.

%Z The architectural firm chosen was SaylorGregg Architects of Philadelphia and the design firm was Ralph Appelbaum Associates of New York City.

%Z As Dean explains: ‘The storyline is a compound document that serves design and production by providing the framework upon which the educational content of the exhibition hangs – a written blueprint for the exhibition.’ Dean, Museum Exhibition: 103

%Z Fritz Haber is arguably one of the most significant chemists of the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Germany in 1868, he developed a passion for chemistry at a young age. In the first years of the twentieth century, the world was facing a crisis in how it would feed the growing population. Fertilizer, in the form of nitrates, was needed to increase crop yields but its chief source was guano deposits in Chile. Nitrogen was in abundance in the air but there was no way to capture it. Haber developed the catalytic high-pressure process to fixate nitrogen from air to synthesise ammonia and from that ammonia, nitrates could be synthesised to produce both fertilizer and explosives. As a result of his discovery, Haber was considered a scientific hero and rose in prominence in his homeland. When the First World War raged, Haber volunteered his services to the German government and developed poison gas and the method for delivering that gas on the battlefield. One of the great horrors of the First World War, his deployment of chemical warfare overshadowed his legacy of feeding the world. For more information on Fritz Haber, see Hager, T, 2008, The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery that Fed the World and Fueled the Rise of Hitler (New York: Crown Publishing).

%Z A grant was received from the Historic Philadelphia Program of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage to fund First Friday programming in 2010 and conduct a formal evaluation. Houting, B A T, 2010, ‘Evaluation of First Friday Programming’, CHF Institutional Archives, Chemical Heritage Foundation Collections (30 November)

%Z For more on the exhibit Molecules that Matter, see the accompanying catalogue, Giguere, R (ed), 2008, Molecules that Matter (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation and the Francis Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College).

%I The Science Museum Group
%@ 2054-5770
%B eng
%U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/beyond-the-black-box/
%J Science Museum Group Journal