Schifferstadt Architectural Museum Post 2

In the following weeks at Schifferstadt Architectural Museum, I began working on a main project, an event known as Frontier Day.  Frontier Day is an annual event held at the museum (this is its third year) that celebrates the history of Frederick during the period of the French and Indian War. This event is the second time throughout the year that the museum presents living history.  

When learning about living history in preparation for the events of Frontier Day, I turned to Amy Tyson’s The Wages of History which details the role of living history among museum professions while describing the emotional and financial toll that it often takes on its interpreters.  At the Schifferstadt Architectural Museum the reenactments are on a much smaller scale than Tyson describes in The Wages of History, with only around 13 people participating in total.  We had a blacksmith, frontiersman, spinners, weavers, and a rifleman who taught eager young children and adults how life was perceived in the 1700s. The emotional toll was in no way comparable to Amy Tyson’s during her time at Fort Snelling but similar problems came about when dealing with how to tell history through reenactors.  We questioned what history or facts would be included and what would be left out and determined the openness with which our reenactors would communicate to visitors.

                Alongside living history reenactors, during Frontier Day we presented archaeological materials that had been found on the Schifferstadt site from digs in 1975, 1989, and 1995.  My boss was aware of my background in archaeology and tasked me with presenting and displaying various small artifacts that had been found at Schifferstadt throughout the years.  Our artifacts included a milk pan dated to the early 1800s, a utensil handle made of bone dated 1810-1850, a complete medicine bottle displaying the words “Dr. D. Jayne’s Indian Expectorant” (1840-1849), and smaller finds like a copper alloy thimble (1750-1770), a clay marble (1760-1850), and a floral teacup (1850-1849). One of the collections that I was most excited to work with was a small collection of arrow flints donated to the museum by a Frederick resident, who had found them on the Schifferstadt property as a boy on his way to and from school.  Through this collection of arrow flints, I could see the connections between a small museum and its community in how history was collected, maintained, displayed, and shared. 

                Another interactive event I planned for Frontier Day was a mock archaeological dig for the children who would be visiting the museum that day. Though Schifferstadt mostly has older adult visitors during regular hours, during events children are often present and it is essential to include them in the day’s activities. We decided to build a mini-dirt box that would contain “fake” artifacts, meant to represent the actual finds that were made by archaeologists at Schifferstadt. It was great to see children interact with history in a fun and informative manner. Meanwhile, their parents could view the real artifacts in display cases stationed next to their frantically digging children.

From working on this project, I have come to see how events like Frontier Day are important for small museums like the Schifferstadt Architectural Museum.  These events help fundraise, bringing in money for the museum, and help to get the local community involved in its history.  In the following weeks, I look forward to beginning to work on Schifferstadt’s next major event, Oktoberfest.

References: 

Tyson, Amy. The Wages of History: Emotional Labor on Public History's Front Lines. University of Massachusetts Press, 2013.