The Changing Face of Public History: The Chicago Historical Society and the Transformation of an American Museum by Catherine M. Lewis (review)

148 Michigan Historical Review Catherine M. Lewis. The Changing Face of Public History: The Chicago Historical Sodety and the Transformation of an American Museum. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005. Pp. 172. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $22.00. Professor Lewis has written an insightful book about how, why, and to what degree an American museum, the Chicago Historical Society (CHS), created by and for the elite has been, or rather is being, transformed into one by and for everyone. As she and others have put it, the museum has gone "from a temple to a forum" (p. 9), in which questions are raised and competing voices can be heard. Working with the underlying assumption that "interpreting museum collections is a form of power" (p. 9), she unravels moments of actual or potential change within this transformation. Lewis defines "change" as that which "1) has an institutionwide impact, 2) requires financial and intellectual support, and 3) challenges the institution's exclusive authority over the interpretive process" (p. 9). She attempts to discover whether American museums have been convinced by debates over multiculturalism to relinquish this "exclusive authority" and, if they have, towhat extent and where they have done so. What she finds is that while the CHS, like other museums, is addressing wider audiences and making use of a greater number of voices and skills, it is precisely its claim to expertise and authority that defines it as amuseum and thus allows it to function. At least for now, then, an equal distribution of authority cannot occur; the CHS can "cooperate" but not "collaborate" with its broader community, as some deem desirable (p. 120). I enjoyed this well-written book immensely, particularly the microhistories of specific organizational changes and the creation of particular exhibits found in chapters two through six. My primary wish is that the roughly 120 years after the society's founding in 1856 and before the late-twentieth-century culture wars had been more substantially addressed. Did the museum's pre-WWII elite supporters really always agree on the desirability of presenting a national "patriotic past," as the author implies? Did the challenges to object-based knowledge studied by Steven Conn impact their understanding of the museum's role at the turn of the twentieth century, and if so, how? Was the 1977 decision by the society to focus on collecting local history unusually late in comparison to other historical museums? Such questions aside, I will certainly use The Changing Face of Public History in my museum-studies classes to help reveal what happens "behind the scenes" in a museum. The book would be an excellent Book Reviews 149 choice for history, historiography, and cultural-studies classes that address questions of authority, expertise, and accuracy, the definitions of which, as Lewis clearly shows, have been highly contested elements of museum work and undoubtedly will continue to be so. Susan N. Smith Bradley University Peor?a, Illinois David I.Macleod, ed.Mapping in Michigan & theGreat Lakes Region. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2007. Pp. 377. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Maps. Notes. Cloth, $69.95. Cartography, the making and studying of maps, was once the realm of professionals and amateur enthusiasts. Recendy, however, a wider segment of the population has taken an interest in the details of mapping and the purposes of maps. This may be attributed in part to a pair of well-received books on the subject by Andro Linklater, and the ubiquity of easily accessed electronic maps on websites such as Google Earth and MapQuest. Yet, as anyone who has attempted to use these high-tech resources knows, the clutter of advertisements on these sites diminishes their utilitarian value. The fact that the makers of maps often devised them with different purposes inmind than those of the users who employ them is not a recent discovery. It is the reality of mapmaking, and it is the lesson that is driven home in Mapping in Michigan. David Macleod has assembled a collection of essays designed to address the political, social, and cultural developments that underlay cartography. Although each contribution focuses on the Great Lakes region, and Michigan in particular, the time periods these essays examine range from...