Exhibit Work

I worked on the exhibit almost all day today. In the morning, I continued researching for my cases and looked for objects that would be appropriate for the topics I am covering. In the morning, I met with Chris, who I will be working on the "Creation of the National Park Service" case with. Chris is an intern at the archives here at the HRC. We spent about an hour looking for photos and documents in the archives and discussing our game plan for the exhibit. At first, we had different ideas about what the case should cover. Chris wanted to focus on animal management issues because he had uncovered some really great photos and documents from the early years of the National Park Service related to this topic. Some photos even showed President Coolidge feeding bears during a park visit in the late 1920's. I had a different idea of what the case should be about after reading through the book on the history of park management in Yellowstone. We discussed our viewpoints and decided to focus more on the administrative history, especially since another case will likely cover animal and tourist management during the Army years.

After lunch, I met with Maeve, an intern from the library who I will be working on my Army years case with. Maeve and I went into the museum storage area and examined all the objects I had found in ANCS+ that might work in our case. Yesterday, we had thought the case would cover both Army responses to poaching and animal management. Now another group will cover animal management and our case will cover how both the Army and civilian scouts fought poaching in the park. Some of the objects we will be using include skiis (used by Army and civilian scouts to patrol the park in the winter), bear and beaver traps, a gun confiscated from a poacher, a leather book of rules and regulations for army and civilian scouts, and photos of scouts, army officers, and poachers with their kills.

Because the library and archive interns have only a few hours every week to meet with us about the exhibit, today Bridgette gave the museum interns the okay to take the lead on the exhibit cases as we will be working exclusively on the exhibits from here on out. We will be consulting our partners for their opinions about things, to edit labels, and things like that, but we are now able to start making executive decisions and choosing objects to put in the cases and scanning photos for the exhibit. This will definitely allow us to make more progress on the exhibit and I am excited to get to work!