The History Colorado Center is working with a new strategy lately, building its major museum exhibits around the resources it holds in-house, namely the millions of objects and records the state has collected over the years. Its latest attraction, “Zoom In,” featuring 100 of them, demonstrates why that’s a good way of doing business; the exhibition is a tightly-edited, entertaining and, at times, moving tribute to the place we call home.
It’s an old way of doing business, of course. For decades, the museum put its collection front and center for the public, though for the first half of the 2010s, it shifted its major focus to traveling shows on topics like the history of toys and the civil rights movement. They were were fine fare, really, but had little to do with Colorado in particular, and the public stayed away. In response, the museum changed leadership and its game plan.
“Zoom In” gives folks a reason to return to History Colorado’s headquarters in the museum district. The hook, and it’s clever, is that the number of included objects connects directly to Colorado’s nickname — the Centennial State. History Colorado’s researchers combed through their archives and connected with community groups to select the lineup.
They got it right, for the most part. There’s a fascinating array of things, some of them very old, starting with a spear point found at the Lindenmeier archaeological site near Fort Collins, that dates back 12,000 years and tells the tale of Paleo-Indian populations. The exhibition moves chronologically forward with current things, such as a bong saved from the 2014 Denver County Fair, meant to show how we’ve evolved today to the point where we’re allowed to smoke marijuana without criminal penalties.
In between, there are 98 other objects filling in the blanks: clothing, furniture, coins, guns, gas masks, bicycles, beer taps, tools, farm equipment, commercial products and more.
A few things are predictable, easy grabs, like the early copy of the state constitution; or one those ski suits from the 10th Mountain Division that get hauled out all the time; or one of John Denver’s favorite guitars. Some objects feel too purposefully selected to show the diversity of people and geography in the state.
But others are fresh surprises, like the can of malted milk made by Coors in 1923 as the company shifted products to stay in business during Prohibition; or a set of Christmas lights from the early part of the 20th century as people were adapting holiday traditions in the wake of recent technology — electricity; or Wellington Webb’s New Balance shoes, recognizing the “sneaker campaigns” he waged in the 1990s to become Denver’s first African-American mayor.
Each object gets a description that tells visitors what it is and why it matters. They’re brief but compelling, and the thing that makes this exhibit interesting. It’s all personal.
We don’t just get a chair, we get Mary Smith’s longhorn steer chair made of hides and horns and learn that her brother-in-law, Christopher Smith, made it himself after starting one of Denver’s earliest meat-packing plants in 1894.
Instead of a random mining pick, we get Joe Zanetell’s mining pick, and information about how his family was terrorized by mining company operatives in the wake of a worker strike in 1913. It’s a critical story, told through one object and just over 100 words.
That’s just one of many sad stories that make “Zoom In” an emotional journey through time. Visitors delight at the sight of Ellen Jack’s adorable and neatly-embroidered baptismal gown from 1895, only to be deflated by information that the little girl died at age 8 from typhoid. They marvel at John Cisco’s sawed-off shotgun from 1869, then learn quickly that the stagecoach driver was killed by American Indians during a hunting trip.
Indeed, Colorado history can be violent and a bit unsettling. Two early revolvers on display were used by brothers Filipe and Jose Espinoza in a murderous rampage in 1863 that killed 32 people to avenge injustices their family suffered in the Mexican-American War.
A sympathy card sent to Columbine High School updates the trail of violence to 1999, when two teenage students killed 13 of their schoolmates and injured 20 others. Enough said.
The signage can feel politically corrected at times. Next to Kit Carson’s coat, we learn in the first paragraph that he was a fur trapper and military officer. In the second paragraph, we learn he was integral to the brutal and deadly campaign to displace American Indians from their homeland. This is a careful balance meant to please those who see Carson as a hero and those who see him as a mass murderer. But a more honest description of the man might have put the genocide part first.
Similarly, we read as we approach a coat made of buffalo hide that the animal skins kept early settlers safe from the elements and fueled economic trade; then we get word that hunting almost decimated a living species. The info is all there, it just feels reversed.
“Zoom In” does a good job, though, of getting into the nooks of history. It’s impossible, for sure, to tell a story thousands of years long in just 100 objects, and things get left out. For example, there’s an abundance of functional art used in sacred objects and articles of clothing, but a shortage of art for art’s sake. The show could use more objects directly related to painting, music and architecture that delve into a more ethereal, but equally important, side of our history.
But it’s complete enough, and a lot to take in already, and it does offer an inclusive and mostly comprehensive view of the state over time. It’s also full of visceral thrills.
And it comes along at the right time, just as a lot of us are panicking over how quickly the state is changing in an era when the economy is prospering and population is growing. “Zoom In” reminds us things have always changed quickly here, and that’s part of our identity. The exhibit tells all those folks worried about gentrification that they can relax a little.
Exhibits like this play best when things are in flux. Those of us drawn to Colorado, by birth or by choice, have one thing in common — we’re stewards of this land, this state, in our time. “Zoom In” shows how previous Coloradans fulfilled this role and how we might do it ourselves. It brings us closer to our past and more aware of the present. Native and newcomer, it unites us.
“Zoom In: The Centennial State in 100 Objects” is now on permanent display at at the History Colorado Center, 1200 Broadway. Info at 303-447-8679 or historycoloradocenter.org.
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