Jan. 12, 2006

Shaping Society: American Sports and Fitness in the 1950s opened November 29 in the Public History Graduate Student Gallery in the Randall Library. The exhibit interprets the major historical themes of the United States in the 1950s—suburbanization, increased demands for racial equality, the growth of television and consumerism, the escalating Cold War, and the baby boom—through the lens of sport. Artifacts include the tennis racquet used by Althea Gibson to win Wimbledon in 1957 (on loan from the Cape Fear Museum), fitness equipment like a stationary bike, a belt massager, and a “Slim Twist,” team and gym class uniforms, and clips from typical fifties television, including an “I like Ike” commercial and coverage of professional baseball. It also features a re-creation of a 1950s “rec room.”

The exhibit took a year to create. Work began in Dr. Gordon’s seminar on museum management, in which students conducted a front-end survey and prepared acquisition recommendations for artifacts related to 1950s sports and fitness. Students in Dr. Gordon’s Fall 2006 graduate seminar on museum exhibition continued research, developed the content into an interpretive plan, and designed and installed the exhibit. After the gallery opening, these students conducted a summative evaluation survey to determine whether the exhibition was effective in meeting its goal of inspiring visitors to learn more about the main historical themes of the 1950s.

Each student curator had individual and team responsibilities. Curators for each section are:

Alicia Thomas, Lead Curator, The 1950s: Decade of Hope and Fear and The Rec Room

Jonathan Donovan, Gender: Bodies and Power

Pat Kurent, The New Face of Professional Sports

Michael Scott, The New Medium

Sharad Shah, Fitness Advertising and Consumerism in the 1950s

Shannon Walker, Shaping Up America’s Youth

Katie Abbott and Michelle Cicero, Guest Curators, The Rec Room

The exhibition is receiving both national and local press coverage, and will be in the UNCW Public History Graduate Student Gallery in the Randall Library until October 1, 2007.

The exhibition was featured in the Wilmington Star News on January 2nd.  Ben Steel man, the author of the piece, noted that the exhibit includes an audiovisual loop of media from the era.  The article is available online at the following link.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070102/NEWS/701020301/1051/FRONTPAGE

To learn more about classes in museum exhibition, education, and management offered by the History Department at UNCW, visit http://people.uncw.edu/stonegordont/.