DEFENDERS OF THE GATE: A SOLDIER'S STORY
The process of selecting the objects and archives to display during the exhibit was no easy task. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s Park Archives and Museum Collection features a staggering collection consisting of over three million objects, documents, and photographs representing various areas and historical locations across the San Francisco Bay area. Since the exhibit was small and space was limited, the items chosen had to effectively represent the exhibit’s theme. Items were selected that either symbolized soldiers as a whole or embodied them on an individual level.
Curatorship
The research conducted for the exhibit came primarily from publications and information available through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Core information on the history of the Presidio and its neighboring military posts was derived from Erwin N. Thompson’s historical cultural resource guide, Defender of the Gate: The Presidio of San Francisco, A History from 1846 – 1995. Additionally, the GGNRA’s excellent website, maintained through the National Park Service, was consulted for information on the history and culture of the area and for their expansive database of historical photographs. Lastly, one of the most valuable resources was the knowledgeable and helpful staff at the archives and record center, especially when it came to understanding the scope of the collection. Staff and volunteers could quickly refer me to a collection of personal papers or to objects that were associated with a story that not many people have heard of before, and these were the stories I wanted to present.
In order to effectively tell the story of the items in my exhibit and to successfully interpret the themes outlined, it was critical that I communicated the importance of the objects through their labels. The basic formatting for the text was a universal style set by the Park Archives and Records Center. Using examples from their previous exhibits, I wrote the labels to communicate three main components: the object’s purpose, its relevance to the exhibit, and its provenance, if available. Being able to include all this information, while still keeping the label short and concise, was difficult. Fortunately, the review process at PARC included editing both object labels and text on wall panels for content, grammar, and style, and this in-depth process drew on the knowledge of various staff members.
The process of review and editing for the object labels and wall panels was a fairly involved procedure. For the wall panels, I used the Microsoft Publisher software to format and design the posters. For every round of edits the panels went through, the poster had to be reformatted to reflect the addition or removal of text and images. In the end, the object labels went through three rounds of edits while the wall panels went through six levels of various editing and corrections. Even though it was often tedious and frustrating at times, the process of review was a vital and invaluable tool that made the panels and labels products of the highest quality.