Exhibition Review

In 1998 the American Association of Museums (AAM) established the "Museums and Communities Initiative." Its goals were to "explore an expanded civic role for museums in building social capital and contributing to community life; discuss creative strategies for effective community-museum engagement; and establish a framework for continuing conversation about museum-community relationships." ("Museums & Community Initiative" <www.aam-us.org/initiatives/m&c/index.cfm> [Sept. 6, 2002]). The initiative sponsored a series of dialogues in six cities throughout the country, developed a national task force, and conducted exhaustive research on potential new roles for museums. The issues that the initiative is addressing are not, however, new to the museum field. Museums have grappled with their community roles and responsibilities since the nineteenth century. For many institutions, the events of September 2001 and their aftermath threw into sharp relief the challenges that AAM identified.	1
The leaders of museums around the country understood that museums could play a unique role in fostering conversation about the challenging issues that Americans faced after September 11. Although colleges and universities conducted teach-ins and churches, mosques, and synagogues held prayer services, these events were not intended for the general public. Some museums helped make up for this by providing a place for civic engagement around a range of topics, creating a new public square for their communities.	2
Several museums in the New York area were actually called into alternative service on the eleventh itself. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, located on the path uptown from the World Trade Center, offered food and bathrooms to people making their way home. The Liberty Science Center, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, was commandeered more officially by rescue workers.	3
Throughout the fall, art museums around the country promoted themselves as places of refuge and contemplation. Children's museums provided much-needed information through the mail, on the Internet, and through e-mail to help young people cope with the tragedy. The Field Museum in Chicago held a series of heavily promoted and well-attended town meetings in mid- and late September. The Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles reminded its visitors and members of the connections between that community's experience during World War II and the profiling of racial, religious, and ethnic groups. The impressive efforts of institutions such as the New-York Historical Society and others in developing programs and exhibitions have provided a model for the field.	4
In the Philadelphia region, the museum community presented a unique, coordinated response through a series of programs entitled "A Nation Challenged: Museums Respond," held in November and December 2001. Funding by the Philadelphia History Exhibitions Initiative (PHEI), a program of the Pew Charitable Trusts administered by the Independence Visitor Center Corporation, supported the programs themselves, as well as promoting and advertising them. These efforts not only publicized programs at the individual museums, but conveyed a message to the general public that museums could bring communities together and connect the past to the present.	. . .