Date of Award

3-2024

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in Anthropology

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Anthropology

First Advisor

Nicole Herzog

Second Advisor

Christina Kreps

Keywords

Chinese immigrant miners, Collaboration, Industrial museum, Reflexive museology

Abstract

The Gold Rush, which brought many new immigrant communities to the American West, made a permanent impact on American culture by prompting the development of many Western towns. However, the Chinese immigrant mining population in the Boise, Idaho area has had little museum representation despite the more than 300,000 Chinese people who emigrated to the US between the 1840s and 1880. To rectify this, the Idaho Museum of Mining and Geology (IMMG), in collaboration with members of the Payette National Forest, the Asian American Comparative Collection, Boise State University/US Army Corps of Engineers, and the University of Denver, developed an exhibit on the lives, histories, and contributions of Chinese immigrant miners who lived and worked in the Boise region. The exhibit opened at the IMMG in spring 2021. This thesis is a reflection on and analysis of that museum exhibition development process. It focuses on the collaborative work necessary to curate a humanities-focused exhibit in an industrial science museum. This thesis also explores the process of creating an exhibit during the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in March 2020 and has impacted almost every aspect of this research and project.

Copyright Date

3-2024

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Jordan Kathleen Bennett

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

192 pgs

File Size

12.1 MB

Discipline

Museum studies

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