+
08
ARTS & CULTURE
KANSAN.COM
VALERIE HAAG/KANSAN
Top: Brittany Keegan, one of the museum's curators, shows off her favorite artifact, a 1950s x-ray that measured feet and shoe size in shoe stores.
Bottom: Cole Finley, collections assistant, explains how to retrieve a basketball from a peachbasket used in the original versions of basketball. The artifacts are on display at Watkins Museum.
Alumni tell Lawrence history through work at Watkins Museum
KATE MILLER
@_Kate_Miller
On the northwest corner of Massachusetts and 11th Streets, the big red building has stood since 1888, a tribute to Lawrence's rich history. Fittingly enough, it houses an homage to that very history — the Watkins Museum.
Exhibiting history and artifacts from as early as the 1850s, the Watkins Museum turns 40 this year. While multitudes of University students have explored the Museum during a walk along Massachusetts Street, some of them wandered in and never left.
Brittany Keegan and Cole Finley are just two among a plentiful staff of University alumni and students within the museum. Both began as volunteers while studying toward their bachelor's degrees in history, deciding to stay with the museum after graduating.
"With a job like this, you would think it's a day after day kind of thing, but it's not," said Finley, a collections assistant and 2014 graduate. "You never know what to expect." Whether it be planning and implementing new exhibits, categorizing collections and new donations or answering questions from researchers, the museum keeps the two of them busy.
"It seems like all the time we're looking for something," Finley said. "That's always something to look forward to — the surprises that come along."
Keegan and Finley both emphasized the storytelling of history as their main interest. History is always
changing despite its age, Keegan said, and the fluidity of those stories intrigues her.
"History is stories about people in the past," said Keegan, a curator and collections manager and a 2010 graduate. "I think it gets taught as very abstract or lesson-based things you see — good guys and bad guys but it's not that.
"It's very much people making the same decisions we make today in a different time period with different technologies or for different reasons. It's as complex as people are," she said.
The Watkins' exhibits are far from abstract, as the staff aims to continually bring in new audiences to the museum. The permanent exhibit displaying Kansas' history through the Civil War and beyond incorporates several multimedia elements. An exhibit that celebrates John Brown includes an audio recording of "John Brown's Body"; visitors can follow along with General William Quantrill's 1863 raid on the city with an interactive touchscreen map.
But the museum also features traditional artifacts. Keegan's favorite is a 1950s X-ray machine used for measuring feet and shoes in shoe stores, and Finley's is a collection of artifacts from veterans in World War II—his favorite era of history.
"Picturing those objects is my basic time portal to the past," Finley said. "I can hold an object and it's a hundred years old and that connects me to that time. You have actual stories of those people who went through those events. That, I think, is the best way to learn about history."
COUNSELING SERVICES FOR LAWRENCE & KU
340 Fraser | 864-4121
http://psychclinic.ku.edu
Exhibits about the University are commonplace in the museum; with the history of Lawrence tied so closely to that of the University's, a great deal of the artifacts have some connection to the University.
"We try to tell Lawrence's story," Keegan said. "Lawrence is many things — it's KU, but it's also outside of KU; it's Lawrence, but it's Douglas County as well — and we try to tie a lot of those things together." The museum features original hardwood from when basketball was played in Hoch Auditoria, newspapers from championship basketball years, and a desk that once belonged to James Naismith — which Finley likes to believe was what the original rules of basketball were written on. For all the exhibits on display in the museum, there are hundreds more hidden away in storage in the attic, as well as off-site. The staff tries to rotate temporary exhibits out every three to six months to display artifacts buried in the back of the attic. The most recent exhibit, one that Keegan helped to develop during her time at the University, celebrates the 150th anniversary of emancipation by exploring the Underground Railroad.
Students and Non-Students Welcome
Through a partnership with the Museum and the Museum Studies Department at the University, three graduate students were able to develop the exhibit five years ago. Keegan said it aims to tell a different
Confidential
SEE MUSEUM PAGE 10
785.832.8228
944 Massachusetts Street