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>organized by themes, rather than chronologically.

I agree with Kim Kenney on this, and I think that Charlie Stout's
lovely scheme of lineages and cultural analogs could be easily
incorporated into a thematic organization. Just be sure to pin things
down with dates or a systematic use of "X years ago" so people get
their historical bearings.

In case an example helps-- "A State of Health: New Jersey's Medical
Heritage" exhibition had to cover 4-plus centuries of NJ history,
from Lenape stone mortar & pestles right up to the eve of the 21st
century. But of course there was far more material from the 20th C
than earlier periods, and I wanted to make sure it didn't overload
the show.

I divided the exhibition into 4 thematic sections: Epidemics,
Children's Health/Public Health, Healers and Hospitals, and "Jersey
Cures for Jersey Ills" (NJ is the Silicon Valley of
biomedical/pharmaceutical R &D and mfcting), and sub-divided them by
topic as well. Within a single panel of the traveling version, the
organization tends to run chronologically.

Throughout, I tried to emphasize the issues about health and medicine
that people everywhere, in all periods, have to cope with --how do
you raise healthy children, how do you train the healers and
caregivers, how do you prevent epidemics or keep them from spreading,
how do you find new treatments, how do you know they work? (Except
for an 18th C doctor's receipt-book, I admit to dodging the today's
biggest issue: how do you pay for it?)

Since there was no way to make the themes absolutely parallel, I had
a lot of fun cross-cutting the themes--there are sick kids and
miracle drugs in every section, for example. (Made the catalogue's
index hell to prepare, though.)

With history of science, technology, and medicine topics, a big
difficulty is to keep from making the exhibition nothing but a series
of "firsts." People love them, but it's hard it is to prove that X
was indeed The First.  The designer, Lou Storey Exhibition Design,
suggested a compromise that worked well-- little placards, "A New
Jersey First,"  that didn't belabor the issue.

For talks to community groups, the Then & Now approach is effective.
I have had no trouble finding a batch of recent news stories and then
showing how they have their origins or parallels in the past--AIDS
compared to tuberculosis, WEst Nile to malaria, modern
pharmaceuticals from natural sources to old remedies.

Karen

Karen Reeds, Ph.D.
Museum consultant and exhibit curator
Curator, "A State of Health: New Jersey's Medical Heritage"
Exhibition showing at Jersey City Medical Center, June 2004. For
information about visiting or hosting the exhibition: (973) 972-7830:
[log in to unmask] Exhibition catalogue now available from Rutgers
University Press, (800) 446-9323 http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/
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