Agricultural History Review, Volume 66 Part 1 (2018), p. 164

Deborah Reid invites those of us tasked with working with and researching museums and historic sites to urgently become proficient at interpreting agriculture, ‘as the future of humanity on the planet depends on it’ (p. xiii). In this volume Reid – who is Curator of Agriculture and Environment at the Henry Ford Museum and Professor Emerita at Eastern Illinois University – has gathered together contributions from a range of curators, museum educators and academics working across America to develop a handbook for agricultural interpretation which aims to be as provocative as Freeman Tilden’s 1957 landmark text, Interpreting our heritage.

Anyone who has ever worked in a museum or curated an exhibition will know that developing interpretation is a time-consuming and complex process, and in the first four chapters, Reid therefore focuses on simple ways to incorporate agriculture into heritage displays and programmes. She stresses that the interpretation of agriculture doesn’t have to be limited to rural sites and historic farms; most museums have objects that can be traced back to agriculture through the materials they are made of or the scenes they depict, and any site can be used to grow plants and start a conversation about where food comes from. Reid advocates a ‘humanist’ approach to strategies for incorporating diverse human perspectives into agricultural interpretation and developing interpretation that is engaging and at the same time encourages critical historical thinking about agriculture. This first section also provides a comprehensive overview of attitudes toward collecting agricultural objects in the USA and the development of agricultural and living history museums as specialist institutions.

The second section of the book contains examples of research-led approaches taken by museum professionals as well as chapters covering practical guidance on identifying, documenting and caring for agricultural collections. In the chapter, ‘You can’t eat gold: Agriculture in early Colorado City, 1858–1867’, museum professional and historian Carol Kennis Lopez skilfully demonstrates how contemporary concerns about food security informed her research in preparation for the Pike Peaks sesquicentennial (1858–1861 to 2008–2011). Lopez found herself asking who provided the food for the swathes of settlers who descended on the peaks in search of gold and charts her research into the agricultural practices of settlers in early Colorado City. Her chapter demonstrates that national and local centennials can be timely opportunities for new research into how agriculture impacted people in a certain time and place, and the importance of agriculture and food histories to wider narratives about resettlement and migration. Another highlight of this section is the tribute written by William S. Pretzer (currently Senior Curator for History at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture) to his former colleague at the Henry Ford, Peter Cousins. In his chapter, ‘A curator’s legacy’, Pretzer recounts the unswerving dedication with which Cousins worked towards acquiring a Ben Pearson Rust Cotton Picker known affectionately as ‘Grandma’, a task which took twenty years. Pretzer’s moving dedication to his late colleague provides illuminating insights into humanities-centric collecting agendas and how effective museum collecting needs to be underpinned by rigorous research and sensitivity to the personal wishes of individuals who choose to donate the tools of their trade to a museum.

The third section of the book comprises of a series of case studies on localized approaches to interpreting agriculture. Deborah Reid and Cameron L. Saffell (Curator at the Museum of Texas Tech University) illustrate the significance of roads and transportation in interpreting agriculture and provide a case study of the relocation of the Pecos River Bridge to the New Mexico Farm Ranch and Heritage Museum. Barbara Carson (veterinary doctor and farmer at Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation) provides a rich chapter on horse-drawn vehicles and harness function, which includes indispensable information for researchers and museum workers tasked with the often baffling job of identifying and interpreting archaic (and often unprovenanced!) bits of equipment.

Living history museums became extremely popular in the USA in the late twentieth century, leading to a proliferation of sites containing full-scale farms and herds of stock animals to care for. In chapter twelve, Debra Reid and Jonathan D. Kuester (Farm Manager at Volkening Heritage Farm in Illinois) provides a balanced evaluation of the benefits and potential risks of collecting livestock. The authors describe the problems that can blight living history farms, such as demands on staff time, animal welfare concerns and difficulties in maintaining historically appropriate equipment. Reid and Kuester are both advocates of living history and the benefit that can be gained from interpreting agriculture through livestock, but they stress that animals should never become ‘lawn ornaments’ and, to make the interpretation of livestock meaningful, animals must be well cared for on a scale appropriate to a museum’s resources.

After considering individual examples of different research-led approaches across the USA, the final section of the book returns to the nuts and bolts of developing good museum interpretation. Reid’s final chapter provides a ‘multi-step process’ to guide museum staff in developing new interpretation plans for agriculture which focuses on skills in reading material culture and developing historical thinking. The book then concludes with two further case studies: of how agriculture has been incorporated into the Magoffin Home in El Paso and how students at Tusculum College in Tennessee explored the agricultural legacy which built their college.

Interpreting Agriculture is a stimulating and enjoyable read, which is not only packed with practical information about the art of museum interpretation but also a wealth of information about the development of agriculture and farming heritage in the USA. At times, the sheer wealth of information can disrupt the pace of the book, as the focus shifts away from building the case for the social benefit that can be achieved by interpreting agriculture in a museum setting toward detailed examples of scholarship on the history of farming in the USA. The text would also have benefited from more references to relevant contemporary scholarship in Museum and Heritage Studies – for example, Elizabeth Merritt’s work on museum futures and Nina Simon’s work on the participatory museum – which could have been used to support Reid’s case for the power of ‘humanist’ interpretation. Nevertheless, Reid and her collaborators achieve their goal in providing an excellent handbook for museums and historic sites to utilize when approaching the topic of agriculture. It is also an insightful read for researchers studying the production of agricultural heritage sites and how museums communicate agricultural knowledge.