Newsletter - Spring 2003
Feature Story

At the Museum

Living History

One museum goal is to offer the public firsthand experience with art to stimulate inquisitive looking. A fun and dramatic technique to meet this goal with school children was realized in conjunction with last fall's exhibition Changing Prospects: The View from Mount Holyoke.

Among several cooperative educational programs available for elementary schools was a living history interpretation about climbing Mt. Holyoke in 1910 by Colleen Kelley from Amherst's Hitchcock Center for the Environment. Dressed as a Mount Holyoke student in period costume, Kelley regaled youngsters with stories about Mountain Day, hiking to the Summit House, and staying overnight with her classmates—a bold adventure for women then. She spoke of famous people, like Emily Dickinson and Jenny Lind, who visited the site (once the nation's second most popular tourist destination after Niagara Falls) and artists who painted the view.

Sharing their different perspectives of the river, Kelley showed how art can be useful to study scientific change. Conveying her excitement about attending a school where women could study science, she moved the children into an experiment. Using sand and water tables, they formed riverbanks, oxbows, and deltas and observed how landscapes change over time.

When the children came to the museum for their docent-led tours of the exhibition, they were well-informed observers. As for living in an earlier time, Kelley says, "I'm really glad I didn't. I just can't imagine hiking up a mountain in those clothes."