It’s hard to believe that the John Haley’s Civil War museum exhibit is complete. It’s even more difficult to comprehend that a team of undergrad students, with excellent guidance, managed to pull it off. As far as I know, there weren’t any major snafus and I couldn’t find a single thing wrong with anything. That may be just the excitement and relief of being done talking but with the museum full of admiring eyes it sure felt pretty awesome.

Even as a part of the team creating this exhibition, there were still a couple surprises. I found the inscribed copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin to be a very cool addition. The ambrotype frame interactive was exquisite and created some cute memories. I hope that everyone gets a chance to visit and leaves with a better understanding of just how much Maine contributed to the resolution of one of the most tumultuous times in American history. I left with spray glue in my arm hair and paint on my favorite jeans. And of course, with the pride of what a lot of hard work accomplishes.

Walking into the blank room, destined to be filled with the story of John Haley’s experience during the Civil War, was at first entirely intimidating. It wasn’t until artifacts from the museum’s archives slowly began to fill the walls and cases, did the museum seem to come together. The room that once seemed huge becomes filled with all of our hard work and research. Text panels full of our words show off our research, and artifacts give visuals to the knowledge. The room in fact seems to shrink. It seems it’s impossible we are going to be able to fit all of our information and artifacts into such a space. But somehow, everything finds its place and it finally begins to look like an exhibit.

However, as the process extends into the days before the opening, we begin to realize just how difficult it is to be the one who sets up the exhibit, and not just the one who views it! So much thought goes into each detail, down to the fabric that lays inside a display case. A new appreciation has developed amongst us for those behind the scenes, those who make sure the staples on the backdrop are colored with black sharpie, so they don’t shine through the black fabric. We couldn’t be more excited about the days to come, to show off what a semester of dedicated work and hard research has led us to. We can only hope our visitors are able to take in the experience of our exhibit and appreciate the words that John Haley left behind for us.

There was palpable excitement and to a degree, nervousness I think in all of my classmates as we began the installation process for our museum exhibit.  While the class work and preparation we have diligently been undertaking throughout the whole semester was necessary, I at least would consider the installation process as the “meat and potatoes” section of this experience.

So much of the traditional, learned approach to history is memorization and if you’re lucky, heavy discussion in a classroom setting.  For me, this class, and more specifically the installing of an exhibit, is such a refreshing take on that learning experience.  Very few opportunities (at an undergraduate level) to design this type of experience in a historical setting for someone else seem available and as such make our work here so unique.  As daunting as this experience has been and will continue to be, I count myself lucky to be involved with such an enthusiastic group of people.

Once disassembling and rearranging of the removable walls in our floor plan began, there was a realization that we now are in the thick of things.  An excited focus brushed over the group, amidst the professional legitimacy offered by the presence of both a local newspaper photographer and our museum attaché Camille Smalley.  It solidified the sense that we are doing something important here at the Saco Museum, for the local community and historical admirers alike.  As our installation continues, I await the public reception of our efforts readily and hope we do John Haley and the Civil War experience justice.

Although it feels like the semester just began, we are quickly approaching opening night for our exhibit.  In a few short months, my classmates and I have become Civil War historians.  The amount of work and effort we have put into our research, design, and writing is increasingly evident as we begin to install our exhibit.  When the semester began, I quickly became overwhelmed with anxiety and uncertainty.  I was worried that I would not be able to adequately tell John Haley and his comrades’ stories.  The responsibility was daunting, and not one I took lightly.

Months have passed since my initial concern, and I am no longer feeling the stress of self-doubt.  The exhibit has shown me that I am capable of achieving my goals outside of a typical class structure.  My confidence as an independent worker has grown immensely.  The skills that my classmates and I have acquired at UNE are evident in the quality of our exhibit.  The hard work and dedication throughout the semester has not only resulted in an impressive exhibit, but also the reassurance that my classmates and I have the skills to succeed after graduation.

On May 3rd the Saco Museum will open its doors and welcome in the first visitors to the John Haley Civil War exhibit. This exhibit will open in two weeks, and stay up until November. I am starting to be able to see the museum exhibit in my mind’s eye. All those weeks ago we read the John Haley diary, and I couldn’t see the exhibit. Then we were placed into one of the four themes that would break up the exhibit, and still no vision was in my head. Afterwards we even wrote a research paper on subthemes of our choosing, and yet for some reason the exhibit did not seem to be real. We started writing our subtheme labels, captions, and interactive directives and a picture of the John Haley Civil War exhibit started to appear, albeit fuzzy, in my mind. This week, as a thematic group, we had to design the layout for our portion of the exhibit, placing the artifacts and the corresponding text. Then it hit me, next Wednesday we start the installation process. In two weeks, John Haley’s voice will be revealed to the public through our exhibit. I find myself hoping that we are successful in portraying Haley in a good light, along with preserving the Saco Museum’s distinguished reputation.

Our exhibit planning is well under way! We are continually writing and revising our introduction panels, sub-theme panels and captions for our various themes. This has been, by far, the hardest part of the class. Whittling down our papers into a couple of paragraphs is incredibly difficult, especially when you want to include ALL the information. We have to pick and choose what information will be most beneficial to the museum visitors and their understanding of the exhibit. As a class, we also have to determine what is the best way to display our information, either in panels, captions, graphics or interactive components.

Along with developing our panels and interactives, next week we have our section design presentations. For this we are each building a diorama of our museum section. This will help us figure out the best flow and placement of items in our part of the exhibit along with getting an idea of how the entire exhibit will flow together. Finally getting to this part of the project is incredibly exciting because it means we are that much closer to the actual installation of the exhibit. The next couple of weeks are going to fly by as we busily continue to develop and plan our exhibit and prepare for the opening!

We’re getting closer to that time! Less than a month and we open the exhibit! We are finalizing drafts of text panels, captions, getting together artifacts, and the designing each section. I can’t wait until we can start creating and doing the hands-on installing. Surprisingly, I am excited for the workshop to learn how to use tools and smart tips to help us successfully create this exhibit. There are so many ideas running through my mind that I have to jot down my thoughts on paper so I don’t forget how I want to design the Homefront theme. Talking about the different interactives and artifacts each group has makes it seem so surreal. I still can’t believe I was fortunate enough to have this experience as a sophomore in college. I’m so grateful that I am able to be included in this amazing opportunity with such great people. It will be such a huge accomplishment for me, and also the entire class. Hard work will hopefully pay off when we see the positive and happy expressions on the faces of our audience on opening day. Being able to see the outcome of the exhibit and our audience’s responses will be the most rewarding part of this process. I can’t wait!

Over the past few weeks, we worked on composing and editing the text panels and captions for our exhibit.  This process began when we wrote essays on our selected topics, and then we had to narrow our entire essays down to a couple of paragraphs.  This was a difficult process because with the dramatic cut in length came a large decrease in the amount of our research that we could include.  Since then, editing and perfecting our two paragraphs has been the main focus.  We also developed and discussed which interactive elements would be included for each of the four themes, and began gathering the necessary materials.

 Next come our group presentations during which we will explain what our section will look like, and how each element will be integrated into the design.  On Wednesday, each team must submit a list of artifacts that they will need so that our coordinators can begin retrieving them.  Soon, our text will be printed, our interactives will be built, and the exhibit will start coming together as a whole when we begin construction at the Saco Museum on April 24th.  I am excited to see how our hard work pays off on opening day!

This week in class, we’ve been writing and editing our text panels. Each theme will have a large introductory panel in order to relate to the audience what that particular area of the exhibit is going to be about. Then we’ve been working on writing the material for our sub themes. These tasks have proved to be tedious but necessary. We’re trying to tell our story by using the best, most concise language possible, and this is something that takes time to achieve. However, we are all helping each other so it’s all less daunting.

We have decided on what quotes we are going to highlight in the exhibit. We have all remained adamant about wanting Haley’s personal words to be the focal point throughout the entire exhibit. Therefore, we’ve gone through his diary for what seems like the hundredth time to select these words. We tried to pick passages that did a nice job in summarizing the different themes; we gravitated towards passages that were eloquently written and thought-provoking.

We have design presentations coming up, where each theme will have to decide what is going where. This is difficult because of the mass amount of possibility. Where do we put that moveable wall? What’s the best use of that alcove? Do we even have an alcove? All of these questions remain unanswered as of now, so the next few days are going to be spent sketching floor plans and sharing ideas.

We are only a couple days away from the month mark. In just a few weeks, the exhibit will open and I think the class is getting anxious about it. It’s hard to picture the final product while doing drafts of text panels, visioning artifacts, and maneuvering the design layout in our minds. However, we remain faithful in the process and we are all positive that this exhibit will be a rewarding one. It’s just a matter now of finding the right words to tell our story.