History students bring the 1920s to life with the Detroit Historical Museum

Last semester, a group of Wayne State University graduate students were given the unique opportunity to design exhibits for the Detroit Historical Museum.

The students from Professor Tracy Neumann's Intro to Public History class researched and developed two exhibits for the Midtown Detroit museum. One focuses on World War II and the experiences of the marginalized populations that worked for Detroit's "Arsenal of Democracy." The other examines 1920s advertisements and how "ad men" marketed their wares to different social groups throughout the city. The exhibits opened to the public on Friday, Feb. 12.

Andrew Wilhelme, a graduate student in WSU's School of Information Science, is one of the students involved with this project. Wilhelme said his team was given a list of topics to pick from for the exhibit's subject. They chose to focus on World War II and the experiences of women and African Americans in the war production industries.

Wilhelme said his team was involved with the exhibit's design and research while under William Wall-Winkel's supervision. Wall-Winkle is both a curator at the museum and a student in Wayne State's Public History graduate program. Wilhelme explained that they were responsible for the exhibit's writing and research but not the exhibit's actual installation due to COVID-19.

"Basically, we were given instructions for word count and the number of images we should gather," said Wilhelme. "My group then collaborated on how to divide up the work."

Wilhelme said that conducting this research was similar to what he would have done for a research paper. He studied secondary source literature to gain a general understanding, then moved to archival sources to get more personal and detailed information on his topic.

While the research was similar to what he would do for a traditional paper, Wilhelme said the writing differed from what he was used to doing. He had a limited word count while also keeping in mind the audience he was writing for was mostly middle school and high school students. Wilhelme had to write in short and direct sentences to make the exhibit understandable to the general public.

"Each of us was given approximately 500 words with which to tell our story. That's roughly two double spaced pages in Microsoft Word," said Wilhelme. "What's more, we were writing for the public rather than an academic audience."

Wilhelme faced other challenges in the project due to COVID-19. He explained that he didn't have full access to libraries and the resources needed to do his research. Some of Wilhelme's resources were digitized, but not all were limiting his sources.

Despite these challenges, the project was a success. Wilhelme hopes that people walk away from the exhibit with a better understanding of Detroit's history. He hopes that guests at the museum recognize the United States' tragic irony of fighting against fascism abroad while having a racist caste system in the U.S. during World War II.

"My portion of the exhibit focused on the experience of Detroit's African American community during the war," said Wilhelme. "This experience was both liberating - the demands of war production opened up thousands of jobs and opportunities for advancement for Black workers - and crushing."

Wilhelme explained the heartbreaking reality of how African American workers were penned into overcrowded, decaying neighborhoods and were unable to move to other parts of the city because of violence and discrimination.

His favorite piece in the exhibit is centered on the Black labor leader, Sheldon Tappes, who first helped organize the foundry at the Ford River Rouge plant. He also helped lead the UAW organizing drive and strike that culminated in Ford's recognition of the union in 1941.

Wilhelme said he has always loved history and historical research and has a history and historic preservation degree. His hope for the future of his career is to find work in the public history or history archives field in a museum or historical library.

"We simply cannot replicate this kind of hands-on experience in a traditional classroom," Neumann said. I want to make sure more of our students have the opportunity to learn from the pros in the future."

"By studying Archival Administration, I am hoping to help open wider access to the historical record so that it more broadly represents all peoples and communities who have contributed to our collective history."

Neumann said she is looking forward to seeing her students work out in the real world. She acknowledged their hard work despite facing obstacles due to the pandemic.

"They worked remotely and without full access to libraries and archives," said Neumann. "I think it's a real testament to both our students and the DHS staff. They were stretched in a million ways that no one could have expected when we initially planned this project. They were able to design and install not only one, but two exhibits and they did it with such grace and good humor."

Neumann said that both of the exhibits offer different perspectives on what people may consider familiar topics. The one exhibit tells the untold stories of Black and White women and Black men living in Detroit in World War II, while the other tells the story of advertisements in the 1920s. She said that race and gender were essential parts of both of the exhibits.

"One exhibit looks at the experiences of White and Black women and Black men in Detroit during World War II, but instead of just retelling some version of Rosie the Riveter story, it shows us women's struggles to find childcare when they went to work in the factories and African American workers struggles to find decent housing in the city while supporting the war effort," said Neumann.

Neumann described the 1920's advertisement exhibit as stunning. She said the images tell an interesting story about how "ad men" marketed their wares to different social groups.

According to Neumann, the Department of History has an excellent relationship with the Detroit Historical Museum and several WSU alumni work at the museum. To her knowledge, she didn't think that students had ever served as guest curators to an exhibit and felt lucky that the students had this experience.

She was grateful to have award-winning curators to mentor the students and teach them about developing an exhibit. The students got to experience everything from selecting an appealing topic to budgeting out the project.

"We simply cannot replicate this kind of hands-on experience in a traditional classroom," Neumann said. I want to make sure more of our students have the opportunity to learn from the pros in the future."

By Hannah Naimo, Public Relations Associate