Signage, specific signage for any exhibit is limited in the museum. The Archives Center case displays only go up for a two month period so it is “bare bones.” This may also explain why our docents perhaps did not know more about the display. They are volunteer and do their best to know what is happening in the museum, they are briefed daily on the various displays. The other cases are directly beside the main case and main label.

Each object in the main case was chosen for a specific reason. The main case, a small space, is designed to show the diversity of our LGBT Collection which is a collection of wide ranging ephemera, newsletters, etc. The display is image heavy in content so museum goers would be drawn to look at the case rather than pass by. The RFD magazine with the lesbians was a visual, as opposed to putting in a “Daughters of Bilitis” newsletter, for instance, that would have to be read. The LGBT Collection does not contain “Off Our Backs” or “The Ladder” but the Archives Center would be happy to accession issues if someone offers them for donation. The other two cases focus on three different collections, one highlights The Shamrock Bar in Bluefield, WV, a oral history/photography documentation by Carol Burch Brown, a noted photographer, who is lesbian. The other two collections are John Manuel Andriote’s Victory Deferred Collection, a noted gay author, and the extensive HIV/AIDs Collection on pamphlets and material related to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Here is a recent communication from another museum goer who had a different experience (edited for length), ” . . . it never occurred to me how important museums are in terms of legitimizing history and culture until I saw something that reflected a group of Americans that I have recently become a part of: the Stonewall display cases.

When I saw them I was elated and moved to tears. It is my fondest hope that in ten years, for the fiftieth anniversary, the NMAH will have a full exhibit devoted to this important historical event.”

We were delighted and excited to see this exhibit when we saw it on the SI’s website. So we bravely (on a Sunday in peak tourist season) went down to the Smithsonian *specifically* for this exhibit.

Well, you need to know that we had a hell of a time finding it. I have since been told by the director of the local Gay History group that there were THREE cases of material. Well, that would’ve been nice to know of there on site and to have seen them. A friend reported to us that when he asked a docent for the location of the exhibit he was taken to this one window case and not told about any other part of the exhibit. So not only NO signage, but the staff didn’t know of the full extent of the exhibit.

I was delighted to see all the covers of ONE magazine. Many of the covers confirmed the long-standing issues that have long been in the fore-front of our struggle. The early issue of “One” about Gay servicemen and the cover on Whitman were nice reminders. But the slapdash nature of the items and the lack of any detailed information left us with a lot of questions.

For example, based on this one exhibit case (the only one we know of) I have to ask why you chose “RFD”, a historically Gay men’s magazine (I served as an editor for RFD so I know the magazine quite well) to showcase Lesbian presence? You chose the one issue of RFD on Lesbian issues with a photo of kissing women. It was an odd choice in an exhibit case with all male magazines and images. Do you not have copies of landmark Lesbian publications like “Off Our Backs” or “The Ladder” in your collection?

Again, if they were in one of the other two (invisible) cases, you’ll forgive the above-average museum-goer for thinking that this exhibit was badly designed and miss-weighted towards the Gay male side of the story.

I hope that next year you’ll not only be able to have an exhibit but be able to have signage alerting people to its location and the extent of its size. Would it be crazy to desire an actual room of its own? At the very least how about a title on the wall above the glass case telling you this is what it is?

I’m sure there was a HUGE amount of conversation about even pulling of this exhibit at the SI, given its conservative nature, so maybe I should be glad for even these small crumbs. But I’m not. I’m dissatisfied with this very hush-hush, closeted non-occurrence of an exhibit.

Our history is part of American history and deserves to be told in the country’s pre-eminent history museum. I commend you for the attempt to do this, but you need to be more bold. Tell people what you’re doing more clearly.

Dan Vera
Washington, DC