Josh Howard, Doctoral Candidate, Middle Tennessee State University
Proposal Type: Roundtable OR Working Group
Seeking: Additional Presenters, General Feedback and Interest
Abstract: Sports history museums – museums that use sports as their primary interpreted focus – have the potential to challenge the exclusive past by exploring the complicated intersections of race, class, and gender through the lens of recognizable and relatable athletes and their stories. By making beloved and familiar moments of sports history the vehicles for a more complex understanding of the past, sports history museums can make contested history accessible and entertaining. But does this aspirational view match reality at North America’s 600+ sports history museums?
Kathy Shinnick and Josh Howard hope to present our research and further discussion on this topic with either a roundtable discussion or as a working group.
Seeking: Sports history museums – museums that use sports as their primary interpreted focus – have the potential to challenge the exclusive past by exploring the complicated intersections of race, class, and gender through the lens of recognizable and relatable athletes and their stories. By making beloved and familiar moments of sports history the vehicles for a more complex understanding of the past, sports history museums can make contested history accessible and entertaining. But does this aspirational view match reality at North America’s 600+ sports history museums?
We find that many sports history museums create their own exclusive pasts, creating a powerful barrier to more nuanced and rich understandings of important moments in the history of sports such as the rise and fall of segregated sports teams. Often, sports history museums invest in a “hall of fame” interpretive model that consecrates athletes and their achievements and creates a past populated exclusively by exceptional individuals destined to overcome great odds.
This session will explore the role of sport history in museums of all types and seek to address challenges faced by sports museums including: What are the best practices for interpreting sports history? How do sport museums differ from other museums? Do sports museums function with fundamentally different goals and missions than traditional history museums? Are these differences reflected in the interpretative style? How are sports museums interpreting the marginalized past? Are they? Are there limits to interpreting the marginalized past in sports museums that are not present in other museums? Are sports museums “held back” by the hall of fame style of interpretation? How can sports museums tap into the great public interest in sports history as seen through the popularity of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series?
Kathy Shinnick and Josh Howard bring their collective experience working at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, International Tennis Hall of Fame, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and adidas. This session will also be supported by a sports museum survey of leading sports museum professionals conducted by Kathy and Josh. Finally, the session or working group will inform the research of a written project regarding the best practices towards professional approaches in sports museums.
We hope to present our research and further discussion with either a roundtable discussion or as a working group. We feel this session is needed because sports history museums and collections are largely undiscussed in public history literature. Sports-related sessions have not appeared on the NCPH program for the past three years. This session will benefit by the addition of professional public historians who are presently or have previously worked in sports museums, sports history, or with sports collections. We welcome participants who believe they can add value to the conversation.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to share contact information for other people the proposer should reach out to, please get in contact directly: Josh Howard,joshua.howard[at]mtsu.edu
If you have general ideas or feedback to share please feel free to use the comments feature below.
All feedback, and offers of assistance, should be submitted by July 3, 2015.
Related Topics: Archives, Museums/Exhibits, Sports History
Hi Josh: Please reach out to the folks at the Babe Ruth Museum and Sports Legends Museum in Baltimore. Walking distance from the Conference Hotel. Seems like a great location for a workshop. Let me know if you need help.
Thanks for the suggestion! Kathy and I are definitely reaching out to those museums. We will definitely be in touch if something comes up.
I am pleased that you and Kathy are proposing this session/round table. I am hoping to be at the NCPH and if I am I will certainly be at this session. Hope you get some more positive feedback. I can think of some people in Baltimore you might contact, like David Zang of Towson State and Mike Gibbons of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum & Sports Legend Museum. Good luck with this.
Thank you Dan. We have been getting in touch with these individuals at the past week greatly appreciate your suggestion!
Kathy and Josh, interesting panel! If you are exploring methods to integrate sports history into more general representations rather than seeing sports history limited to sports museums–and I’m not sure if that is one of your goals–you might look at Indian boarding school histories and other narratives about Native Americans and sports. A number of terrific Native athletes attended Carlisle and Haskell Indian schools, and there are a number of good scholarly works about Native athletes, from runners to baseball players to rodeo riders. Good luck.
Laurie, thank you for the suggestion. We will definitely be looking into museums that discuss the Native American past, per your suggestion. Much appreciated.