Visual Display and Exhibition Politics in the Smithsonian's Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Much like the Triangle shirtwaist factory, El Monte has taken on a larger life—iconic of points of change.

—Peter Liebhold, exhibition curator

The Smithsonian is taking a political position by focusing on sweatshop conditions rather than the apparel industry's broader contributions to American life and commerce. We cannot stand idly by. We want to turn this exhibit plan into another Enola Gay.

—Ilse Metchek, executive director, California Fashion Association

By sponsoring this highly politicized exhibit, the Smithsonian Institution is engaging in a taxpayer-funded smear against the U.S. apparel industry. . . . this exhibit is the latest in a series of programs. . . that has sparked controversy due to its lack of balance.

—Larry K. Martin, American Apparel Manufacturers Association

This exhibition serves as a poignant reminder that vigilance and cooperation by all parties involved—manufacturers, enforcement agencies and retailers—is essential if these conditions are to end for good. The curators are to be applauded for presenting a balanced view of this difficult issue.

—Tracy Mullin, President, National Retail Federation

She does not pay minimum wage, but she serves her workers tea. She makes them work until midnight, but she drives them home afterward. She uses child laborers, but she fusses over them, combing their ponytails, admiring their painted fingernails, even hugging them.

—Jane Lii, New York Times reporter, describing Maggie Zhen, owner of the Chai Feng sewing factory in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York

By the time it opened on April 22, 1998, the National Museum of American History's exhibition Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A History of American Sweatshops, 1820 to the Present had endured more controversy than its modest 3,300 square foot size might seem to have deserved. Dogged by accusations of "political correctness" and a failure to celebrate American history, beset by funding woes related to accusations of favoritism toward labor unions, and threatened by closure as manufacturers' associations attacked the plan on numerous grounds of representational fairness, the museum prevailed with a display that provided two valuable exhibitions in one. The first gave viewers what it advertised: a history of the garment industry sweatshop beginning in the nineteenth century and culminating in a study of the infamous El Monte shop, whose Thai workers were held in virtual slavery until the 1995 raid that liberated them. The second "meta-exhibition" engaged new methods of community involvement in exhibition development. Through that process, the exhibit took on the subject of museum controversy itself by including conflicting positions in the debate about the prevalence and meaning of sweatshops. ¹ In some instances, this meta-exhibition addressed the audience directly through the voices of curators, workers, or manufacturing and retailing spokespersons. In others, it placed participants in dialogue with these voices and, through comment books, with other exhibition visitors. In each instance, these voices were woven into a tactically compelling mode of exhibition display produced by exhibition designer Mary Wiedeman Quinn. This design provided a unifying "visual voice," which, unlike those of curators and participants, was only indirectly acknowledged by viewers. By examining the content and design of the exhibition alongside the controversy generated prior to its opening, I will argue that this powerful exhibition design voice amplified the show's introductory claims that sweatshops, like slavery, are part of the unpleasant side of American history, that museums need to stage responsible displays of such conditions, and that educated citizens can then participate in the struggles against unfair social and labor practices. In short, a clear anti-sweatshop message, embodied in the design itself, ultimately made that message more potent than exhibition detractors might have imagined.

A word about my own position is in order here. I am an American art historian who works on the representation of working women and who teaches a museum course with a particular focus on the visual strategies...