Presentation to American Precision Museum Board of Advisors, August 2013. Technology museums have a long history, and each era creates a museum that is useful to it. As museums change "from being about something to being for someone," how does the American Precision Museum carry out its mission?

1. Steven Lubar
Brown University
For American Precision Museum
August 2013

4. A long history for today’s industrial and
technical museum: anthropology, art,
commercial, cultural, design, educational,
historical, natural history, patriotic,
scientific....
Each era gets the museums it needs!

6. A representation of the nation as orderly,
progressive, part of natural order of things.

7. Organized mechanics exhibitions so that
inventors and manufacturers could show off
their products and learn from each other. These
were both technical and commercial events

8. Patent models on display; a democracy of
learning. Science and invention in the service
of entrepreneurship and business.

10. The popular museum, hoaxes and humbug as
well as nature and technology. Interactive in a
very modern way; Visitors engage with curators
to decide what’s real, what’s true

15. “The museum of the past must be set aside, reconstructed, transformed from a
cemetery of bric-a-brac into a nursery of living thoughts.”
—George Brown Goode, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1889

16. Maritime exhibit, from most primitive to most
advanced

17. Textile technology from throughout the world,
across time, organized by degree of
sophistication

18. Sponsored by the industry: relics, synoptic
series, contemporary trends

21. The first task of every museum is “adding to the
happiness, wisdom, and comfort of members of
the community.”
—John Cotton Dana, 1917

22. Industrial museums in service to industry;
informing employers of new safety apparatus.

24. “An endeavor to preserve, for educational purposes, the
most important tools and developments of industry, with
particular reference to metal working tools“
“Fostering and furtherance of commercial and industrial
education”

25. To collect and display machinery, and as a
school for apprentices.

26. Inspired by Deutsches Museum. A teaching
museum, popular, providing a large audience
with notions of progress.

28. To show the wonders of modern industry and
the value of engineers. One of several similar
schemes of the 1920s, including Museum of
the Peaceful Arts, New York

32. “A fetishized history, focusing on technological
developments and ignoring social relations of
production, to say nothing of class struggle.”
--Michael Wallace, 1981
 Boeing: Museum of History and
Industry, Seattle, 1952
 The American Iron and Steel
Institute: Restored 17th-century
ironworks in Saugus, MA, 1954
 .R.J. Reynolds, Inc.: helped restore
Miksch Tobacco Shop (1957) in
Old Salem, 1950s
 Textile industry: Merrimack Valley
Textile Museum, 1950s-’60s
 Do-All Exhibition, Chicago, 1960

33. Textile Machinery and Fiber Exhibit,
Smithsonian Institution, 1960

34. Exhibits of machinery, machine relics, models
of machineries, with a good bit of “how it works”
text.

36.  Putting people back in the story; articulating
the relationship of people and technology
(technology as part of cultural and social
history)
 Putting technology back in culture; beyond
autonomous technology
 Overcoming notions of “progress”: How to
make technology part of history, but not
simply tell a progress story?

40. Using objects, but not making the show
about objects
Telling stories without obvious artifacts
Moving beyond “how it works”

44. Tool chests as symbols of pride and indicators
of skill

45. Many voices telling many stories

46. Moving from a parking lot of old cars...

47. ...to an exhibit that addresses infrastructure,
immigration and migration, travel, trade and
commerce. Mass transit mixed with the
individual cars.

52. Increasingly, a public that doesn’t have a
personal connection to the subject
More interest in very recent technology
How to involve the audience and the
subjects in the museum in appropriate
ways?

53.  Museums should foster “the ability to live
productively in a pluralist society and … contribute
to the resolution of the challenges we face as
global citizens [and have] respect for the many
cultural and intellectual viewpoints that museum
collections stand for and stimulate.” —Excellence
and Equity, 1992
 Museums as tourist hubs and economic engines
 Museums as schools or replacement for schools

55. New technology, new techniques
New stories to tell
New audiences
New goals
New challenges!

56. MUSEUM QUESTIONS
How can museums connect history to present-day
concerns?
How can they attract new audiences?
How can they involve the audience and the subjects in the
museum in appropriate ways?
How might they serve as tourist hubs and economic
engines?
How might they supplement the schools or serve as a
replacement for schools, especially as part of job training
or retraining?

57.  Museum as site for hobbyists
 Museum as economic engine
 Museum as educational institution /
supplement to schools/job training site
 Museum as tourist attraction
 Technology and industry as a small part of a
larger story

58. Volunteer, Do-it-yourself, collections and
workshops
Hobbyist

59. After-school arts and engineering programs;
teach students to make things.
Hobbyist
Education

60. “The Institute has become a dynamic agent of
change through its rich array of internationally
recognized exhibitions and programs, lectures
and discussions themed to illuminate issues in
contemporary science, community outreach
initiatives particularly targeted to girls and to
urban youth, and its series of innovative
partnerships in public education. “
Tourist Attraction
Education

61. “Encounter ideas that change the world, travel
through America’s past, embark on America’s
greatest factory tour and more. It all comes
together at The Henry Ford, America’s greatest
history attraction”
Tourist attraction
Education
Commercial

63. “...providing learning experiences that support
students and teachers making meaningful and
tangible connections between what they learn
in school with what they value in the world
beyond classroom walls through Design
Challenges.
School

65. Developed by the BNYDC, an organization
whose goal is to promote local economic
development, this exhibit will share space with
a Job Training Center whose participants will
take inspiration from the stories of hard work
and invention told in the exhibition half of the
building.
Job Training
Development

67. Increase science literacy in the general public
Encourage young people to develop and maintain their
natural interest in science and innovation while learning
to apply these skills to real life problems
Help people understand scientific and business
principles and the associated career opportunities.
Job training
Economic development

68. History of industry and technology subsumed under the
history of business and innovation.
Education
National Identity
History
National story
Innovation

69. Complete renovation; moving from rows of
historic machine tools to an interpretive center.
“The guiding principle for the next five years is
to blend old and new to tell how the history
preserved in the museum and its collections is
connected with precision manufacturing and
the world of today. “

70. APM FOCUS
Innovation—What is it? How does it occur?
Work—How are technical training, craftsmanship, and skill passed
along? How important are these attributes today?
American Culture—How did the machinists and tool builders of
“Precision Valley” influence the course of American history, helping drive
rapid industrialization, the emergence of the United States as a world
power, and the development of the consumer culture?