Bringing World-Class Exhibitions to Wichita

Musicians perform at the opening of *Spirited: Prohibition in America*. The Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum has hosted four such *NEH on the Road* exhibitions. Image courtesy of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum.

Founded in 1939, the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum collects and interprets local history through core exhibitions that showcase the period from 1865 to 1939. Since 2012, the museum has brought four NEH on the Road exhibitions to Wichita. NEH on the Road curates smaller versions of world-class exhibitions, originally funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. These exhibitions then travel the country, reaching people in rural areas and small and mid-sized cities. The Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum has hosted Our Lives, Our Stories: America’s Greatest Generation; House and Home; Spirited: Prohibition in America; and, most recently Jacob Riis. By hosting NEH on the Road exhibitions, the museum has reached new audiences, developed popular community programming, and expanded the capacity of its staff.

“The program has given us the ability to stretch beyond our mission and show our community how local history intersects with the wider world.”

–Jami Frazier Tracy, Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum

Visitors to the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum explore an *NEH on the Road* exhibition. Image courtesy of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum.

While hosting the exhibitions, the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum offers programs that bring that local history into dialogue with the national history represented by the exhibitions. With Our Lives, Our Stories, the museum hosted a World War II-themed event: it served period-appropriate food, distributed recipe cards, and screened cartoons from the war in the auditorium. For Spirited, the museum hosted a speakeasy event in City Hall. And for the Jacob Reiss exhibition, the museum offered lectures on early Wichita photographers and the history of child labor in Kansas.

NEH on the Road exhibitions come ready-to-install and with expert-designed curriculums and suggestions for local events. And as Jami Frazier Tracy, curator of collections at the museum emphasizes, “the quality of the exhibitions is exceptional. The scholarship is exceptional. Everything about them is exceptional.” NEH support makes it possible for local organizations to host the exhibitions for an extremely low cost—much less than it would cost to develop a similarly-researched temporary exhibition. At the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, the ability to offer an easily-assembled, high-quality temporary exhibition frees up staff time to develop other exhibitions and to focus on marketing, fundraising, and event programming.

Visitors explore the exhibition *Spirited: Prohibition in America* at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum's grand opening. Image courtesy of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum. — Visitors explore the exhibition *Spirited: Prohibition in America* at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum’s grand opening. Image courtesy of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum.