by Brandon Dieckmann ::

History as it is remembered and history as it is experienced are seldom one in the same. My summer and autumn spent at the Washington County Museum gave insight into the contrasts and overlap between these worlds. Currently at the museum stand two displays in the main gallery that exemplify them. The first, a logging exhibit which uses objects, photographs, and supplementary captions to present a very particular representation of Washington County’s past. The second, an agricultural display which plays voices retelling the oral histories of less familiar pasts. There is a juxtaposition, one history of authoritative facts open to interpretation and another history of individuals interpreting their experiences. The two exhibits tangibly represent the challenges and exciting opportunities that are unique to studying the past.

I came to perceive the logging exhibit as a very modern kind of history. There is a satisfaction to cataloging and indexing objects and facts. History can be a means of preservation. Through these objects we can understand material truths about what kind of tools a logger used to shave lumber or what kind of food they ate for breakfast. But what I find lacking is the social, human experience of those people. How did they interact with each other? What kinds of things might they grumble about their bosses? Essentially, what kind of people were they? Not just mustachioed axe swingers, surely.

These types of questions is where the AgriCulture exhibit illustrates social aspects missing from the logging display. You can hear the words of Jose Jaime, a man brought to Washington County from Mexico through a Seminary program and community organizing. You can learn about the experience of two women forced into Japanese internment. The oral histories of those still living are voiced by the speakers themselves, which adds another layer of humanity to their stories. These were and are flesh and blood human beings, a layer often lost in textbooks. Oral histories are nothing new, but the exhibit pairs them with painting and photography created by local artists. The mural on the wall is an original design meant to weave these stories together. The exhibit informs through subjectivity which allows the audience to engage subjectively as well. It is through this subjectivity that the audience can become active participants.

It is the active participation of the public that can sometimes be lost in translation that the Washington County Museum is reviving through the AgriCulture. History is more than the recitation of facts and dates. History is best understood as a fundamentally human experience, along with the blind spots and human perception. If we attempt to understand it purely as the memorization of facts and objects without the connective tissue of the human experiences behind those facts, we lose the human aspect of history.

Header Artwork by Anke Gladnick is featured as a wall mural within the AgriCulture exhibit

Want More? Check out:

• Washington County Museum’s ‘AgriCulture’ exhibit highlights rural roots. The Oregonian, September 25, 2018.
• Washington County Museum puts the culture in ‘AgriCulture,’ Pamplin Media Group, October 3, 2018.
• Jose Jaime | Oral History, Washington County Museum Facebook Page, December 5th, 2018.