Interpreting Native American History at Public History Institutions: The Louisiana State Museum's New Traveling Exhibit as a Case Study

The interpretation of Native American history by public history museums and other public institutions has been the subject of recent academic works focusing on the efforts to overcome a legacy of distrust between Natives and non-Natives.¹ Given recent efforts to reconcile the misunderstandings of the past, the Louisiana State Museum (LSM) assembled a traveling exhibit called Native Nations of Louisiana as a collaborative effort between the museum and Louisiana tribes. Louisiana State University anthropology student Katherine Kovich interned with me and exhibit designer Jenelle Davis to create this exhibit. As the museum historian who oversaw the project, I share our experiences as relevant to ongoing efforts to improve relations between public museums and Native Americans.

Interpretive Services Internship Project

The project began in the fall of 2008, when Kovich accepted an interpretive services internship at LSM. In discussing with Kovich her academic interests, we agreed that we would attempt to create a traveling exhibit on Indians in Louisiana. We believed that the exhibit should include history but also focus on contemporary Native American life in Louisiana — to make the exhibit as relevant as possible to a variety of audiences. Our goal was to promote the state's Native heritage as well as the current state of tribes and their cultural tourism activities. We hope that through this exhibit, people gain a new understanding of and appreciation for this heritage and perhaps even be inspired to visit powwows and tribal museums.

The LSM traveling exhibit program partners with the State Library of Louisiana, in a system where public libraries in all sixty-four parishes (counties) can sign up for an LSM exhibit. Our traveling exhibits consist of four flat two-sided panels (44 inches by 66 inches) that pack into two traveling cases and are displayed on free-standing mounted frames. Kovich's internship had been initiated in 2008 to create new traveling exhibits for this program and to provide student interns with practical exhibit-writing and design experience. The process is meant to teach interns the skills of creating concise and comprehensive scripts on any topic, and particularly those related to Louisiana history and culture. After being manufactured at the LSM shop for minimal cost, the exhibit travels around the state through the LSM's program at no cost.

Throughout the fall semester, Kovich developed and wrote the text for the exhibit. In this process she worked with Louisiana State University archaeology professor Robb Mann to create a bibliography and reading list, providing her with the intellectual and academic understanding of Louisiana's Native history. Historian Dan Usner of Vanderbilt University was also kind enough to provide his very thorough bibliography, which included essential citations on Louisiana Indians and the recent works on public interpretation of Native history.

As part of this exercise it was imperative that Kovich understand the issues of mistrust that many museums, historical societies, and public history institutions had encountered in the past with tribes over interpretation. One of our main priorities was to include the tribes in the development and approval of the text and images. We wanted to make sure that the lines of communication were open at all times, and that the tribes' cultural interpreters and historians felt free to comment, provide suggestions, or offer revisions.

At the end of the semester Kovich had successfully completed a working script for the exhibit. The text included an introduction, a section on current issues, sections on the four federally recognized tribes, and a final section on state tribes. The creative challenge lay in meeting word limits while also being comprehensive in content. Introductory paragraphs are generally limited to 250 words, and most secondary paragraphs are limited to 150 words. Kovich did a thorough job of summarizing contemporary issues of health care, housing, education, and preservation of cultures. She provided images from both the Coushatta and the Houma Nations, and she photographed scenes from the Louisiana Indian Heritage Association's annual fall powwow in Gonzales, a suburb of Baton Rouge.

Graphics and Approval

After Kovich...