INSIDE THE BABY-BLUE warehouse in a dreary suburban Portland industrial zone, the ambience is dark, quiet, and chilly as a tomb. But George Vogt, 66, the soft-spoken, bespectacled, soon-departing director of the Oregon Historical Society, looks like a book-rich man at home in his library, strolling through the two climate-controlled acres of shelves, drawers, and crates, stopping every few steps among the hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, maps, papers, and artifacts.
With genuine enthusiasm checked against an academic’s fear of overstatement, he singles out for our consideration a priceless Native American basket woven so tightly it can hold water, the box office from the 1911 Fox Theatre, a ’40s-era tuna canning machine, a grim-looking horse-drawn hearse, and a gym-sized architectural model of the Banfield Expressway (now Interstate 84).
“And can you guess what this is?” Vogt asks with an expectant twinkle in his eye, stopping in front of a 10-foot-tall mint-green wall of colored buttons and lights that—except for the fact that it’s solid steel—resembles a prop pilfered from a 1950s science fiction movie set. “It’s a control panel from Trojan,” he says, referring to Oregon’s only nuclear power plant, which was decommissioned in 1993 and demolished in 2006.
This is the Oregon Historical Society’s secret storage warehouse, or what Vogt prefers to call the “Oregon Vault.” More than 90 percent of the institution’s holdings are stored here—some 85,000 artifacts, 3 million photographs, 25,000 maps, and countless manuscripts and films, each cataloged, labeled, and neatly arranged by a staff that once numbered over 100 but has dwindled to 34. Vogt jokes that the 100,000-square-foot storage facility resembles the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark—priceless historical treasures stacked in endless, identical rows of wooden crates. The comparison may be more apt than he intends: After more than 20 years of public ambivalence, failed leadership, and a steady loss of intellectual brainpower, few of these artifacts have ever seen the light of day—other than the occasional appearance in an OPB documentary or the notes of a lone researcher. And unless the institution’s fortunes change fast, they may stay hidden forever.
OHS, the only private state historical society in the West, boasts one of the largest libraries and archives on the Pacific Coast yet has not had a staff exhibit curator since 1998. It is no longer actively seeking new materials. (The last collections curator departed in 2004.) The most recent major exhibit to pass through its doors left in 2003. Last August, a team from the American Association of Museums deferred reaccreditation until the society develops a new strategic plan, noting that “the museum appears to be in survival mode.” Indeed, when Multnomah County voters threw the institution a $10 million lifeline in November, the society was at the verge of turning off the lights for good. This month, one of the state’s most connected political operatives, Kerry Tymchuck, replaces Vogt as interim executive director, backed by a new board president, Jerry Hudson, known for his turnaround of a financially ailing Willamette University during the 1980s.
But even with new money and leadership, OHS faces a much more profound question than whether it can merely survive: can the society find an audience?
Published: April 2011
Is it too hard to say the words Oregon Historical Society without the acrimony? It’s a museum, not a mood ring; it’s a place of wonder and amazement even in low light. Thanks goes to Martin Patail for taking his shot, with a special thanks to Matt Love.
A cast of characters from a Charles Dickens novel once staffed OHS, which is appropriate if you’ve ever visited museums and met staff on a professional level. Where else could you find a library lady in a cape or a motorcycle riding department head?
It was a staff full of airs and accents you don’t hear from regular people, if such a thing ever existed. For some it was a treat, for others an obstacle to avoid or overcome.
OHS was an environment of tolerance. You could be who you were, or be who you thought you wanted to be, as long as you showed up as an OHS person. If that was too much to ask, your grant ran out.
A man from Chicago turned himself into a curator of Native American artifacts. A man from New York City turned himself into a curator of Technology. Of the three curators on staff in the 80’s and 90’s, one held a museum studies degree from Cooperstown.
If OHS struggles, maybe the model for a museum staff is broken. What was that model? Failed teachers who resurrected their careers as museum educators? Failed academics who bailed on their PhD thesis and hid their self-inflicted shame in some backwater office? Ambitious history majors from a diploma mill who learned to glow in the right environment?
If it takes all kinds, they were all at OHS. Some wanted to do things in Oregon history they could only do at OHS, while others built little bully pulpits to promote their career. The problems arise when the career became more important than OHS.
Let’s be clear about one thing, the two men at the top of OHS for many years were former Marines, one from WWII, one from the Korean War. They were Marines, and that doesn’t sit well with everyone. They ran the museum the way they felt it needed.
Not everyone enjoys a military approach to problems. Some people can’t follow orders. It’s just not part of their make-up. It builds resentment.
But it also builds a museum. Tom Vaughan isn’t walking through the front door to make things right. Neither is Thomas Hoving of Metropolitan Museum of Art fame, or Joseph Henry, the first director of the Smithsonian.
Kerry Tymchuk, on the other hand, is walking through the OHS door every day, and that’s something to celebrate.
History still happens here.
David Gillaspie
There are a number of problems with presenting the problems of the Oregon Historical Society as a lack of synergy. If only that were all that is needed, there is no doubt the historical community would creatively rise to the challenge. I am particularly disturbed by the idea that other historical societies have thrived, and so by struggling OHS is deficient.
The Montana Historical Society is funded primarily by the state. It has also obtained a number of federal grants that support its many activities, grants that were written and are administrated by staff. Luckily for Montana, they have been reduced by five employees through the current crisis (soon to be 7). They still have 60 employees. Compared to what is happening elsewhere on a state by state basis this 5% reduction does not compare with what is happening elsewhere in the Northwest.
The nearby Washington State Historical Society has been cut by 20% twice in the past biennium and the remaining funds are about to be cut by more than half in the next fiscal year. The museum will be closed and we are fortunate that the building and collections will be cared for at all. No one would say that WSHS lacks creativity or dedication. What it lacks now is money. Until recently, WSHS also received much of its funding from the state. That stable support allowed for multiple programs, educational outreach, ongoing collection, and plenty of synergy. One could argue that both societies should focus more on private funding and that might be right.
My point is that in no way do other historical societies compare to the Oregon Historical Society, which in its heyday received at least half, if not more of its funding from the state. There was a time—even during the Great Depression—when state’s saw preserving their own history as deserving support. OHS funding was reduced to only 12% in the late 1990s, and cut completely at one point. The society has struggled ever since. I would argue that OHS does have problems, but its problems have as much, if not more to do with lack of financial support, as they do with synergy or creativity.
History Pub, by the way, is not free. It takes staff time and resources to put on programs like that. History Pub was conceived through a grant-funded partnership that included Holy Names Heritage Center, and it is due to the dedication of staff and the support of McMenamin’s that it continues.
I would not argue against more energizing exhibits or stronger leadership at OHS. The society has wonderful collections that are not visible. It also has minimal staff to make those resources available. It holds amazing treasures (manuscripts, images, oral histories) that are used by scholars near and far, educators, reporters, business researchers, genealogists, neighborhood organizations, and on and on. Access to those treasures has been sporadic as staffing has been repeatedly cut. Those resources exist because in its early years OHS resembled OJM. It was small and it grew through community support and strong leadership. The society became the repository for Oregon’s past. For many a year it received state funding and so continued to grow. Did it have problems? Yes. Did it have failures? Yes. Did it have successes? Uncountable numbers.
OHS has a chance to get on track, to move at least slightly away from the crisis mode of the past nearly fifteen years. The library will soon be open to the public for longer hours, making its resources available. The leadership and staff are working hard to come up with a sustainable plan after county funding stops. Multnomah County stepped up to support OHS in the hope that it will continue to collect and preserve the state’s history over the next century.
I believe it would be more constructive for the media to examine the real challenges the society faces, rather than making unequal comparisons that invalidate the work of OHS without providing solutions.
I offer the following background:
Bill Tramposch, the OHS Director who had the misfortune to come after T.V.‘s 35-years as OHS Director, did not “clash” with the board and staff. He took the helm of an organization, that despite years of state support was In Debt, at least $250,000 and getting worse. And while staff/programs had increased, the management of OHS was in the Dark Ages.
OHS was also bleeding operating cash, a lot of it, through the institution of a vanity “research” program, the North Pacific Studies Center. This was a bonbon for Mrs. Vaughan, who became its Director as her husband finally left his position. She attended OHS staff meetings and could thus report all of the doings under the new director to her retired spouse.
The NPSC was federally funded, complements of Sen. Hatfield and Rep. Les AuCoin through the USIA. (How they persuaded the USIA to include this in their budget is a topic for a Masters thesis) The NPSC occupied luxurious offices, and had a large, very-well paid staff, ensconced in the Sovreign Hotel (an OHS property/money pit, acquired in the late stages of Mr. Vaughan’s tenure). The NPSC spent a lot of money on old maps, documents, and “research materials” having to do with exploration of the North Pacific Rim, probably duplicating a program already in place in Hawaii. Whether such research had much to do with Oregon history is an open question, considering how strapped the other departments were for cash. NPSC’s accomplishment, was a “scholarly symposium” featuring presentations on this important? part of PNW history, attended by specialists whose esoteric presentations were of marginal interest or value to Oregon history. Why did Sen. Hatfield and LesAucoin underwrite this piece of pork? Perhaps some of the OHS board members were campaign supporters? It would take a really dedicated reporter to winkle out the reasons.
In any case, the NPSC and the remodeling of the Sovreign for their offices were paid for out of OHS operating expenses for two years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the end of the 2 years, OHS submitted their bills for the expenditures and the feds then looked at their “receipts” and reimbursed OHS. But not for all of it….in the meantime, the 2 years of out-of-OHS budget expenditures meant there was less cash for regular OHS programs.
Dr. Tramposch was stuck with this mess. In retrospect, the board should have hired an interim director to let the board and staff adjust to the departure of their only director, and then brought on a permanent head of staff. But Dr. T. had to try to tell the board that they had been asleep at the wheel, in terms of oversight, and indirectly let them know that they been charmed into a pleasant doze by his predecessor. He had to tell department managers that they would now submit budgets and were going on a spending diet. A rude awakening was NOT what either the board or staff expected. They considered themselves “special” and superior. Staff ignored visitors who were trying to find their way around the internal hamster tubes of the original OHS/Sovreign Hotel/Ellipse complex.
However, staff did not discuss their unease with the new director because professionally they were immature children. “Dad” had always taken care of them and now they had to grow up and be managers, but they did not know how. Some of the uneasy staff presented the uneasy board members with a “petition” of “grievances” and these rudely-awakened board members, perhaps sensing their own inattention, called Dr. Tramposch “on the carpet.” HIS “performance” (of 3 months – he had hardly had time to do anything) was rigorously examined. The board received unsigned letters accusing Dr. T of his inequities. A board member had a notebook full of these and yet refused to give copies to Tramposch. On and on it went, and finally Tramposch was “cleared” by the board, which remained divided into cliques. And several employees continued the assault.
The bottom feeding press (the “independents”) were fed “information” by staff who “feared retribution.” The mainline press had a member on the OHS board, but a rigorous examination of OHS was not in the works. Dr. T. made an important mis-step, in that he did not fire all of the managers who had signed the petition. He attempted to right the OHS ship, but it had a big hole in its hull. No board members resigned.
This ugliness all played out in the press, who were continually “informed” of the on-going dissent by anonymous insiders. Tramposch could not respond due to personnel regulations. There was growing concern among legislators that money and staff time was being wasted. Why give public tax money to an institution that appeared out of control, to employees who did not acknowledge the chain of command (Board to Director; Director to Staff), and get back to work?
Several board members finally got a very rude awakening. Three of them went to Salem to appear for the OHS “hand-out” from the Ways & Means Committee. Instead, the members of that committee handed them their first REDUCTION. Ginny Burdick, who had been hired by the OHS board to try to “make things better” was present, though not at that time a legislator. Ways & Means members, especially Frank Roberts, were obviously angry and disgusted with the inept OHS board members, who could not or would not reign in the dissenters.
Dr. T. had resigned and left a month before the budget hearing, so now the board held the mess. The Board did a “national search” for a replacement and ended up with second rate applicants. No one with Dr. Tramposch’s professional credentials and experience would apply for the job. The legislators who had supported OHS for years began to retire and there was no institutional memory of the value of OHS. Their state budget $ continued to decline, staff was laid off, hours shrank. No one has really addressed the question of why state money should be given to a private corporation without much accountability (such as a performance audit; not financial). Should OHS be a state institution? There are pros and cons, obviously.
The other change that took place was a statewide “decentralization” of Oregon history. T.V. certainly built up OHS, got it a permanent home and all was well for a period of time. But while a big ego can create big results it can also alienate people. OHS grew at the expense of local historical institutions. It was made clear to them, who the Big Boy was – OHS got the state $ and counties had to fund themselves locally. There were some good Field Reps at OHS, who did outreach to OHS “affiliates.” But Oregon is a big state and driving to Portland to do research or visit an exhibit is not convenient for a lot of Oregonians, whose roots may go longer and deeper than folks in the metro area (75% of visitors to OHS are from the metro area)
So local people in other parts of the state began to build up their own historical institutions (Umatilla County, Baker County, Sherman County, Southern Oregon, Douglas County, Marion County, Clackamas County, Bend. come immediately to mind). And during the very successful Oregon Trail commemoration, several great new regional facilities (at Crate’s Point near The Dalles; near Baker City; at the CTUmatilla Indian Reservation outside of Pendleton, and the End of the Trail Museum at Oregon City) were built. Some of these are experiencing financial woes, but the point is, they were, perhaps, constructed in response to OHS “getting it all” for many years. Many of these institutions have collections of docments and artifacts that they use in award-winning exhibits.
A ;ong story but really never told. I hope it provides some insight into OHS’s funding decline, but also lessons. When I left OHS (a month after Dr. T.), two board members were conducting staff interviews. Stafford Hansell asked me who, in my opinion, I answered to. I replied, “the citizens of the State of Oregon whose taxes pay my salary.” I still belive that, but I do not feel that other employees OR board members really understood that. Or said Thanks.
We live in the information age, so I think the holdings of the library should be made accessible. A complete cataloging should be done, first of all! There have been too many “stops and starts” in the cataloging process. Make materials available electronically; open the library to 40 hrs/week (as it was when I began doing research there, in the early 1970’s) Or sell the OHS block, build a library-only building at PSU and open it more hours. Employ work/study students to help professional staff, to everyone’s benefit.
Deaccession collections or library materials that are duplicates (or triplicates, etc.) or out of field. Reduce the Stuff; you might make some $$ or make room for things that you need.
Visit other institutions around the state and ask, “How can OHS help you?” This might mean transfering Stuff to other insitutions or at least making more loans. Perhaps fabricate exhibits that would travel, to schools-OHS used to have a “van of history.” You can’t expect people to come to you; find a way to go to them!
Perhaps you sell the museum building and instead have a warehouse/exhibit fabrication facility.
Do kids really need to go downton to OHS to see an exhbiit enmasse, or is there a better way? Should “experts” go into the classroom, such as artist in the school programs? Perhaps a small exhibit for visitors, somewhere downtown is necessary, but it should encourage visitors to get out and see history wherever they go, all around the state.
As a historian and long-time member I do not want OHS to “go away” or disappear. The lessons of history should inform future decisions, for OHS as well as other entities. That is the reason for all of the previous information – to try to explain, from my perspective. of What Went Wrong. Their situation makes me sad, but I hope they ask for advice, not just money, or nothing will improve.