Visual design and exhibition politics in the smithsonian's between a rock and a hard place

Radical History Review

Volumn 88, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 139-162

  Todd, Ellen Wiley ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 77449115782     PISSN: 01636545     EISSN: 15341453     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/01636545-2004-88-139     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. These methods as they apply to the organization of this exhibit are discussed below and also in detail by exhibition curator Peter Liebhold in "Experiences from the Front Line: Presenting a Controversial Exhibition during the Culture Wars," Public Historian 22. 3 (2000): 67-84.
2. Stuart Silverstein, "Exhibit May Draw from a Sweatshop of Artifacts," Las Angeles Times, May 23, 1996. As Liebhold points out, the exhibit would also have been part of an ongoing exhibit series on work and the history of technology conceived in a social historical perspective, following the exhibits Engines of Change in 1987;
3. Symbols and Images of Labor in 1988;
4. Who's in Charge? in 1992; and Images of Steel in 1994 ("Experiences from the Front Line," 69 n. 3).
5. All quotations appear in Joanna Rainey, "Smithsonian Readies Sweatshop Exhibit," Women's Wear Daily, July 7, 1997, n. p.
6. Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), all quotes on xxi-xxii.
7. Mike Wallace, Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 120-28, in his chapter entitled "Museums and Controversy."
8. Quoted in George White, "Smithsonian Exhibit Plan Wins Backing," Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1997.
9. Quoted in George White, "Plan for Sweatshop Exhibition Draws Fire," Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1997.
10. Quoted in Marcia Stepanek, "Museum's Sweatshop Exhibit Assailed," San Francisco Examiner, September 23, 1997
11. and Marie Cocco, "Portraying Sweatshops Can Be a Messy Business," Newsday, September 24, 1997.
12. Quoted in Kristin Young, "Debate over Smithsonian Exhibit Heats Up," California Apparel News, August 2g, 1997, 8.
13. Quoted in Joanna Ramey, "Trade Groups Snub Smithsonian Exhibit," Women's Wear Daily, September 12, 1997, 15.
14. Quoted in Young, "Debate over Smithsonian," 8.
15. Ibid. ; a talk by Harry Rubenstein at the NMAH on April 14, 1998.
16. White, "Smithsonian Exhibit Plan." I thank Peter Liebhold for helping me with the chronology of these events and the initiatives of various players in an e-mail correspondence dated August 3, 2001.
17. I. Michael Heyman, letter to the editor, Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1997.
18. This letter also appeared in The Torch, October 1997, 3.
19. Ramey, "Trade Groups Snub," 15.
20. Mike Wallace makes these points about the aims of the Air Force Association and the broader contexts for understanding the controversy in his chapter, "The Battle of the Enola Gay," in Mickey Mouse History, 286-301.
21. Liebhold, e-mail correspondence with the author, August 3, 2001.
22. Liebhold, "Experiences from the Frontline," 79-80.
23. Joanna Ramey, "Smithsonian Gets $ 5,000 from Calvin for Exhibit," Women's Wear Daily, November 18, 1997, n. p.
24. George White, "Sweatshop Exhibit Rends Garment Industry," Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1997;
25. Julia M. Klein, "The Views from Sweatshops in America," Philadelphia Inquirer, April 22, 1998.
26. George White, "Trade Group Now Supports Sweatshop Exhibit," Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1998;
27. Klein, "Views from Sweatshops."
28. Introductory plaque. The reader may want to refer to the Web site for the exhibition at americanhistory. si. edu/sweatshops/index. htm.
29. Curator Liebhold discusses the need for this "quiet approach" in "Experience from the Front Line," 72. He also points out that "a liberal sprinkling of contemporary quotes does give a little sting to the script through the safety of other people's words."
30. Jane Lii's description of three versions of contradictory behavior on the part of sweatshop owner Maggie Zhen at the heading of the article, for example, reinforces the Between a Rock and a Hard Place conundrum signaled by the exhibition's title.
31. Included in this case were early 1990s industrial codes for responsible contracting that appeared alongside a Department of Labor field agent jacket and badge. The case also documented the 1978 formation of the Concentrated Enforcement Program, which emphasized the dilemma in the exploitation versus the alien status of illegal workers.
32. Liebhold, "Experiences from the Front Line," 74.
33. These cases contained news stories that broke the EI Monte raid; a photo of freed workers; letters to or from workers (often not mailed or distributed); goods sold at the "company" store (a coffee mug, a tube of Colgate toodipaste, a rice bowl, mung beans, Dial soap, and cough medicine); and two exterior site snapshots of the apartment complex accompanied by
34. the handwritten letter from the boyfriend of an escaped El Monte worker. Written in broken English on yellow legal paper, it provides instructions on how to enter the complex while urging investigators from the California Department of Industrial Relations to be cautious in their approach.
35. The handout included a chart providing a partial list of countries with 1996 dollar import figures and hourly wage rates for each. Visitors were instructed to visit their closets, identify countries where their own clothes were made, count the number of different countries, describe the advantages and disadvantages of producing in these countries, and mail their responses to the NMAH.
36. While no one mailed responses to the Smithsonian directly, the game received substantial attention, and curator Liebhold continued to receive positive responses from teachers even after the show closed (Liebhold, e-mail correspondence with the author, August 3, 2001).
37. The cases for the spokespersons contained the following texts or objects, listed in parentheses: Robert D. Haas (original Levis 501 jeans and the company's "Business Partner Terms of Engagement," specifying conditions for manufacture in multiple languages)
38. Julie Su (a Sweatshop Watch newsletter, a garment workers' protest banner, an El Monte workers' rally photo, and a poster on garment markup-$157 nets the worker $3);
39. Floyd Hall (a store photo, Kathy Ireland and Jaclyn Smith tags, a code of conduct for working conditions);
40. Jay Mazur (a 1994 photo of a garment workers' rally, a Barbara Kruger shopping bag, UNITE buttons, quotes); Maria Echaveste (photos of a meeting with President Clinton and Alexis Herman, an ad for the "No Sweat" campaign, the Web site for the U. S. Department of Labor)
41. and Kathie Lee Gifford (Wal-Mart's "Standards for Vendor Partners;" children's drawings from Cassidy's Place, a center for children with disabilities resulting from exposure to crack).
42. Occupations, for those who listed them, were described as follows: child advocate, revenue officer, interpretive dancer, secretary, bank teller, energy analyst, importer/wholesaler, philosopher, social worker, pizza delivery driver, restaurant worker, environmental organizer, financial services manager, editor, engineer, information designer, writer, Nation publicist, law school dean, trade union representative, clothing designer, draftsperson, street maintenance specialist, environmental scientist, full-time mother, garment manufacturer, national organizer against sweatshops, museum tour guide, seamstress, state legislator, union plumber, nurse, doctor, attorney, UNITE labor representative and AFL-CIO community activist.
43. For some additional comments on audience response, see Mary Alexander, "Do Visitors Get It? A Sweatshop Exhibit and Visitors' Comments," Public Historian 22. 3 (2000): 85-94.