The Drama with the Custer Flag

It's why we pay lawyers to represent us in court and doctors to cure what ails us and exterminators to take care of those ants that keep coming back.

We trust these people to take care of our needs because they are skilled in their professions and are more or less experts at what they do.  They have a mastery of a profession that others do not.

So why are museums so freely criticized by those who do not understand the laws and processes surrounding museum operations?

I think a lot of it has to do with the idea that museums hold the public's objects and promises to take care of them... forever.  On the one hand, I am pleased when the public feels a sense of ownership for the objects in the museum.  On the other hand, I hate it when the people feeling ownership are completely illogical.

I think it must be common knowledge that people who rant on message boards and leave irate comments IN ALL CAPS at the bottom of web articles are not people to be reasoned with.  But darn it if I won't try!

This rant stems from a civil war (or, "war of northern aggression", as I've learned it's called down in Florida) flag that has ties to Custer (from Monroe, MI) and is owned by the DIA... but now the museum has plans to sell it.

The flag, complete with commemorative Custer illustration.

So, here's the story:

On June 25, 1876,  George Armstrong Custer, the pride of Monroe, led the 7th Cavalry into battle against the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne near the Little Bighorn River in Montana. It was not, shall we say, Custer’s finest hour. All 210 men under his immediate command died in the massacre. So did Custer.

As a burial detail surveyed the carnage a few days later, Sgt. Ferdinand Culbertson discovered a tattered swallow-tail American flag, known as a guidon, hidden beneath a dead soldier. He picked it up, folded it and squeezed it into his pocket. Four years later, according to an 1895 Free Press report headlined “Memento of a Massacre,” the first written document of the flag’s history, Culbertson gave it to Rose Fowler, whose husband was a military man. After Mr. Fowler died, his wife married another soldier and retired to southwest Detroit.

Eventually, Rose sold the flag to the DIA for about $50.  Now, the DIA has decided to put the flag up for auction at Sotherby's, where they expect it will sell for somewhere between 2 and 5 million dollars.

Currently, the DIA's collections budget (their budget for buying new art) is about $3 million.  If the flag sold for the expected amount, it could more than double that budget.

Fantastic, right?

Well, some people aren't so thrilled and they're even writing goofy letters to the editor about it.

There are so many ridiculous things in this article, I don't even know where to start...

"This isn't a piece of surplus artwork; this a priceless piece of history"
Exactly.  It's not art!  I agree that the flag has value, but so does all of the "surplus" art in the museum.  The flag doesn't fit within the mission or collections policy, so it simply has no place in the DIA.  There are no civil war historians on staff, thus there is no one to interpret the work.  There are no other civil war objects in the collection, thus there is no context in which to display it.  Should the flag remain in the DIA, it will stay in storage; unseen and unexplained.  Forever.

"give the people of Michigan time to donate and raise money so that the flag could stay here"
Seriously?  There have been countless fundraising campaigns over the years to support the DIA.  Did you donate then?  At the risk of sounding cliche, I will ask, given the economic troubles in Michigan at the moment, is raising $5 million to keep a single flag really at the top of everyone's priority list?

"I highly doubt that the soldier who gave his life protecting this flag had this in mind as he tucked it under his body."
Well, I guess we'll never know.  An art historian probably can't tell you much about the circumstances under which this flag was salvaged.

I know I'm playing the devil's advocate here. I mean, I worked at a historical museum for several years. I am not one to try and devalue historical objects. However, historical objects belong in historical museums, with experts than can interpret them correctly.

"Imagine if this flag ends up in Russia, China or the Middle East"
Wait... what?  Is this guy for real?

On other message boards and comment threads, people are all up in arms about the idea that there may be blood on the flag.  I've seen a lot of civil war flags (our historical museum had a hugely impressive collection of them) and many of them do have blood, dirt, grass stains, etc. from the battles-- so it is very possible that this flag does indeed have some blood on it.
 
So here's what people are saying about that:

"If this is Native American blood, wouldn't this fall under the various repatriation acts that require the flag to be returned to Native American tribes involved with the battle?"
Now, I don't claim to be a NAGPRA expert, but I know what the acronym stands for, so I feel that qualifies me enough to comment on this.  The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act exists to (rightfully) protect Native American graves, remains, and funerary and religious artifacts.  I don't believe that blood spattered on a flag qualifies as any of those things.

"If this is the blood of an American soldier, shouldn't it be returned to the family of the soldier who died possessing it?"
We don't know who that soldier was.  We only know who picked it up and put it in his pocket-- and that guy willingly donated it to Rose, who willingly sold it to the DIA for $50.  Why is nobody mad at Rose Fowler?  There was no DIA curator at the battle of Little Bighorn, going around and ripping flags out from under fallen soldiers. 

"If this was a flag used during a U.S. military operation, isn't it the property of the U.S. government?"
I can't say for certain that the flag was not, at one time, government property.  What I do know is that enough time has passed that the DIA does legally own the flag and can do with it what they please.

There are also many comments lamenting the sale as the DIA's "shameful" way to "make a buck".  I know I don't need to say this to any of my peers, but the money earned in the auction of the flag will not pay anyone's salary, nor will it keep the lights on in the galleries.  That money will be used exclusively for the purchase of great art-- art that will enrich the DIA's collection and serve the museum's mission of "creating experiences that help visitors find personal meaning in art".

The value of this flag comes from the story it can tell-- yet that story will not be heard and meaning will not be garnered if it remains in storage at the DIA.

Dedicated by the People of Detroit to the Knowledge and Enjoyment of Art

I have lived all but one year of my life in Michigan. That's 23 Michigan winters. But you know what? I'm still freezing. I don't know if I have poor circulation or an iron deficiency or something... but I don't handle cold temperatures very well. As I mentioned, the ODHR office is kept at near arctic temperatures. Maybe they're trying to keep Jimmy Hoffa fresh in one of those suspiciously unused cubicles-- I can't say for sure.

I just know that the weather is finally warming up outside, so I have an escape (and can stop running to the bathroom to run my hands under hot water).  So this afternoon, I took a little stroll outside  to warm up and walked around the entire exterior of the DIA. It's more impressive than I had remembered.

The museum underwent a massive reorganization, renovation, and expansion several years ago. I talked previously about the changes to the interior-- new text panels, smaller gallery rooms, new interpretive techniques, etc.-- but there were some major changes to the exterior of the museum as well.

For those who may not be familiar with the great City of Detroit, the Detroit Institute of Arts is located in what we refer to as the "Cultural Center" of Detroit. This area is home to other great Detroit treasures such as...

The Detroit Public Library

Wayne State University

The Detroit Science Center

The Scarab Club

(http://www.scarabclub.org)

My dad took me inside the Scarab Club once, when I was younger. It functions partly as an artist collective of sorts, and also as a community arts center. It's a crazy little historic building, and I remember being granted access to one of the top floors when we visited-- which is generally closed to the public. Upstairs are a number of artist studios, and I recall meeting one of the artists and discussing his work briefly. It was pretty neat.

Anyway...

It is easy to see where the "new" and "old" DIA meet each other. I recall there being some rumblings in the community about the look of the expansion. It does look much sleeker and more modern and is a definite departure from the traditional temple-style of the "old" DIA

Old and New DIA converge

One of my favorite things about this building (and I think most Detroiters would agree) is the Woodward entrance. Woodward is a major street in Detroit, and while much of the city has declined, Woodward Avenue remains both active and reminiscent of Old Detroit. Fittingly, this part of the DIA is about as reminiscent as it gets. In one of my classes last semester, we discussed the museum as being a "temple" for art (or history, or what-have-you) and that many museums were actually elevated off the street by impressive marble staircases and other heavily classic architectural features. The movement now is toward a more welcoming structure that is less separated (physically and metaphorically) from is surroundings. That's what is so interesting about the DIA-- you can actually see this shift taking place in its very architecture.

Classic Woodward Entrance

What is unfortunate these days is that Woodward is no longer a functioning museum entrance, and it's a damn shame. I think there is something transformative about walking up a flight of marble stairs, between two shooting fountains, and past "The Thinker" that prepares the visitor for a meaningful museum experience. What you can't see in the photo is that it's been gated shut.

Entrances to the DIA are now on the sides of the building, and feature a more contemporary and low-key style. Does this make for a more positive and less intimidating visitor experience? I don't know.  Museums never intimidated me, so I can't even begin to answer that.

Contemporary Farnsworth Entrance

I'm pretty neutral about the new style of the expansion. I liked the old DIA, but I like the new one, too. I think the white marble is sleek and solid looking in its simplicity. But there will always be a place in my heart for the ornate design of classic museums.

Road Rage

I haven't started my internship yet.  I'm not in Detroit... or even the Midwest yet.  But I have something that needs to be discussed.

While driving up I-75 this afternoon, somewhere between Chattanooga and Knoxville, TN, I saw a billboard.  Now, I had been looking at billboards non-stop for about 7 hours at this point but one still managed to catch my eye.  It was for a Titanic "exhibition" in Pigeon Forge, TN. 

Now, I have been to Pigeon Forge.  In Pigeon Forge, there are no less than 20 go-kart tracks, with miniature golf courses and "old-timey" photo booths interspersed between them.  Pigeon Forge is also home to the infamous Dollywood.  Nowhere in Pigeon Forge did I ever see anything that resembled a museum.

I was unable to snap a photo of the billboard because I was driving, but I managed to find a similar image on their website-- now that I am safely at my hotel in Knoxville.

The billboard I saw on I-75 featured this same woman.  However, she was gesturing toward an image of the ship as if to say, "Welcome aboard!" with a big, toothy grin... something similar to this:

There are so many things I find appalling about this (both the billboard and the "exhibition") that I think it would be best to just make a list.

1. Who is Steve Casuco?  I too saw the Titanic exhibition in Chicago, and much like the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., it combined educational tactics that can engage visitors of all ages and education levels with a general sense of reverence and respect for the massive loss of life that the exhibition commemorates.  I can certainly acknowledge that there are other aspects to a Titanic exhibition than tragedy alone.  There are great feats of engineering, environmental issues, social stratigraphy, and marine science that all warrant discussion within the context of such an exhibition.  However, these things must be approached with a certain amount of sensitivity, and the exhibition that I visited in Chicago achieved this with resounding success.  As a child, I was engaged (as was my father, who was with me) by holding on to a "boarding pass" throughout the exhibit, which allowed me to become invested in the life of an actual Titanic passenger.  This boarding pass is the only thing I could possibly cite as a "gimmick"
2. Why is the woman on the billboard smiling?  She is dead.  This woman is dressed as a maid of some kind, and thus most likely did not survive the sinking of the Titanic.  Although I am fairly certain that this was not the intent of the designers behind it, this ad strikes me as a kind of mockery.  Imagine a theme-park modeled after a Katrina-stricken New Orleans, in which you would be greeted by a woman standing on a rooftop, smiling and waving towel to greet you.  I find this kind of characterization-- turning a shipwreck victim into a mascot-- to be completely tasteless and lacking in any kind of educational value.
3. Some of the "activities" that accompany this "exhibition" seem highly inappropriate.  Weddings?  Really?  If that's not enough, you can also "Send an SOS signal from the ship's wireless communications room".  I could even get behind a hands-on component that deals with Morse code and early wireless communication... but does it have to be an SOS?  Something about that strikes me as being a mockery of real events.

After all of that, I found the website to have one redeeming quality: their "Education" section was very comprehensive.  They claim to have activities for math, science, geography, and language arts / social studies lessons.  While the math and geography activities were a bit fluffy, the science activities weren't bad, and the language arts / social studies activities left some room for critical thinking and discussion, which is great.

I see this as being a "lowest common denominator" issue.  When groups of kids are visiting the "exhibition" with teacher guidance, they are presented with opportunities for reflection, critical thinking, discussion, and sensory engagement.  Yet, when the same "exhibition" is marketed to the general public, it is portrayed as a kitchy, fun, day trip that has no connection to the catastrophic event on which it is based.

I would like my peers' input on this.  Am I being overly critical of a simple roadside attraction?  Or is the Pigeon Forge Titanic a prime example of what can go horribly wrong with "blockbuster" museum exhibitions?  Also-- thoughts on this?