Community Interaction Key to
Making History Relevant
During the quilt exhibit, the museum found
that they were looking between the layers of
not just the quilts, but the lives of those who
have left other artifacts behind. This led the
documentaries through their partnership with
Nashville Public Television, including a preview
of the Ken Burns series on Country Music, and
another on the Tiger Bells.
School tours, educational workshops, and
traveling trunks with hands-on lessons about
everything from agriculture to civil rights are
available as teaching aids. There are also lectures
and interactions with historians and artists, like
Red Grooms.
“We also ask our patrons to tell their stories on
our website,” added Pagetta. This came from a
partnership the museum has with the Tenement
Museum in New York as part of the Your
Story, Our Story initiative. The portal invites
Tennesseans throughout the state, “to share
personal stories of cultural heritage, American
immigration and migration through their everyday
objects.”
Changing Exhibits Allow for
More Diversity of Story
With the new space, has come growth and new
creation that the museum has had a home of
its own, allowing for a better presentation of
the state’s history. It provides an opportunity to
bring in borrowed items, and to show more of the
collection. The new museum itself only holds 2%
of almost 155,000 items, most still being stored
in the old space at Tennessee Performing Arts
Center.
Since the original Tennessee State Museum
opened in 1937 in the War Memorial building,
what stories are told and how they are told has
changed, even from time of the museum’s move
to the basement of the Tennessee Performing
Arts Center in 1981.
Additions to permanent galleries, and changing
exhibits in the temporary galleries, allow the
collection to be cared for and shown in ways
that are appropriate to other new trends in the
industry. For example, the mummy that was
famous with locals is no longer on display.
“In the 1920s,” said Pagetta, “Mummys were a
cool thing. People would tour Egypt, and then
have one shipped back to the States. The one
we have was just in a case, around a corner, with
no real care for what it was – human remains.
We treat them much differently now. It is being
stabilized and conserved. Because It is human
remains, it may not be displayed again.”
thenashvillenotes.com | Fall | Nashville Notes 11
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- Joseph Pagetta
/thenashvillenotes.com