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MUSEUMS AND THE CHALLENGE
OF CHANGE

Museums and the Challenge of Change explores the profound challenges facing museums and
charts ways forward that are grounded in partnership with audiences and communities
on-site, online, and in wider society.
Facing new generations with growing needs and desires, growing population diversity,
and a digital revolution, the museum sector knows it must change – but it has been slow
to respond. Drawing on the expertise and voices of practitioners from within and beyond
the sector, Black calls for a change of mind-set and radical evolution (transformation
over time, learning from the process rather than a ‘big bang’ approach). Internally, a
participative environment supports social interaction through active engagement with
collections and content – and Black includes an initial typology of participative exhibits,
both traditional and digital. Externally, the museum works in partnership with local
communities and other agencies to make a real difference, in response to societal
challenges. Black considers what this means for the management and structure of the
museum, emphasising that it is not possible to separate the development of a participative
experience from the ways in which the museum is organised.
Museums and the Challenge of Change is highly practical and focused on initiatives that
museums can implement swiftly and cheaply, making a real impact on user engagement.
The book will thus be essential reading for museum practitioners and students of museum
studies around the globe.

Graham Black has worked in and with museums for over 40 years. Today, he combines
his role as Professor of Museum Development at Nottingham Trent University, UK, with
museum consultancy. Exhibitions on which he has acted as Interpretive Consultant have
twice won the UK £100,000 Art Fund Prize, amongst many other awards. His previous
publications include two books: The Engaging Museum, published in 2005, and Transforming
Museums in the 21st Century, published in 2012, both with Routledge. In recent years, his
belief that future museum content should be much more agile, fast-moving, cheap, and
responsive has meant he has moved away from large, expensive re-display projects to
working with local communities and organisations taking approaches that he believes
can make a difference.
MUSEUMS AND
THE CHALLENGE
OF CHANGE
Old Institutions in a New World

Written and edited by Graham Black

First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Graham Black; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Graham Black to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Black, Graham, editor.
Title: Museums and the challenge of change : old institutions in a new
world / edited by Graham Black.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020038301 (print) | LCCN 2020038302 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367488291 (hbk) | ISBN 9780367488307 (pbk) |
ISBN 9781003043010 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Museums—Social aspects. | Museum attendance. |
Museums and community. | Museum visitors. | Museums—
Technological innovations.
Classification: LCC AM7 .M8819 2021 (print) | LCC AM7 (ebook) |
DDC 069—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038301
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038302

ISBN: 978-0-367-48829-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-48830-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-04301-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For Carolyn
CONTENTS

List of figures x
List of contributors xiii
Acknowledgements xvi
Preface xviii

Introduction: the challenge of change 1

SECTION I
Context 19

1 Societal change 21

2 Museums and the digital revolution 40

A Social media and participation: the selfie as a curious

cultural artefact 53
Jenny Kidd

B Museums and participatory culture: Wikimedia

and GLAM 60
Rebecca O’Neill

C “A series of interesting choices”: gaming and

gamification as participation 67
Daniel Brown
viii Contents

SECTION II
Museums in the wider world 77

3 Engaging diverse audiences 79

4 The activist museum 93

D Making the museum of making at Derby Silk Mill 103

Tony Butler

E Participation, trust, and telling difficult histories

in museums 113
Elizabeth Crooke

F Public health and museums: building a

strategic partnership 123
Mark O’Neill, Pete Seaman, and Duncan Dornan

G Facing the challenges of truly being of, by, and for all 131
Merel van der Vaart, Catrien Schreuder, Dorien Theuns,
Deirdre Carasso

SECTION III
Developing the participative experience 143

5 The informal museum learning experience 145

6 Creating an inclusive and participative museum

environment 160

7 Creating participative exhibits and activities 172

H Slow participation: the case of the Baden State Museum 196

Johannes C. Bernhardt

I Joint creativity for democratic transformations

in museums 204
Kirsten Drotner

J A case study on digital technology, AI, and participation

at the National Palace Museum, Taipei 211
Hsiao-Te Hsu
 Contents ix

K Designing for interpersonal museum experiences 224

Anders Sundnes Løvlie, Lina Eklund, Annika Waern,
Karin Ryding, and Paulina Rajkowska

L On dialogue and the museum as a social space 240

Mette Houlberg Rung

M Showcasing science and facilitating interaction:

science slams for museums 249
Philipp Schrögel

SECTION IV
Managing change 255

8 Managing change 257

N Design (re)thinking a legacy institution: strategic

planning at the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Drexel University 266
Scott Cooper

P National Museums Northern Ireland: managing

change, a case study 274
Kathryn Thomson

Concluding thoughts 293

9 Concluding thoughts: if not now, when? 295

Index 300
FIGURES

0.1 Museum Futures 9

1.1 ‘Museum Lates’ event at National Museum Scotland 29
A.1 The @GettyMuseum Challenge call to action 54
3.1 Museum Access Zones 87
D.1 Derby Silk Mill, frontage on to River Derwent 104
D.2 STEAM learning session with Dale Community Primary
School 106
D.3 Curator Daniel Martin with participant at Art of Artefacts
workshop 108
D.4 The Civic Hall, artist’s impression 110
E.1 The 2009 Troubles Exhibition, Ulster Museum 118
E.2 A leather jacket from the punk band The Outcasts displayed
at the entrance to The Troubles and Beyond exhibition 119
E.3 People’s stories displayed at The Troubles and Beyond exhibition 120
G.1 A group photo taken after the local banner parade, part of
the Banners and Stories project, one of the first co-creative
projects the museum undertook (2017) 132
G.2 Participants in the belly-painting festival (2019) 135
G.3 Schiedammers eating together in the foyer during an Iftar
organised at the request of, and together with community
partners (2019) 136
G.4 One of the boxing matches, held in the museum lobby (2019) 137
G.5 The Modest Fashion exhibition (2019) 138
G.6 Sharing different perspectives. ‘Ask away’ event, where
visitors were invited to share their curiosity about modest
fashion with women who dress modestly (2019) 139
 Figures xi

6.1 The Holistic Museum Experience 161

7.1 Slow Art Sunday, Ulster Museum Belfast 176
7.2 & 7.3 Match SMK, Danish National Gallery 177
H.1 Karlsruhe Palace/Baden State Museum 197
H.2 Archaeology in Baden – Expothek 199
H.3 MuseumCamp 2018 201
J.1 The Universal World of Ferdinand Verbiest (Kunyu Quantu
Interactive Installation) 215
J.2 Up the River During Qingming VR – The Rainbow Bridge 216
J.3 The Spirit of Autobiography VR 216
J.4 The Tibetan Dragon Sutra Immersive Interactive Installation 217
J.5 Marvels in the Sea Immersive Interactive Theater 218
J.6 ANiMAL – Art Science Nature Society at the City University
of Hong Kong 219
J.7 The Magic STEAM Train Project 220
K.1 Participants playing Never Let Me Go in the National Gallery
of Denmark, Copenhagen 226
K.2 Participant using the Gift app by Blast Theory in Brighton
Museum 227
K.3 Alice in Wonderland. Oil painting by George Dunlop
Leslie, c1879 229
K.4a–f Text in the One Minute Experience app, about the painting
Gabrielle, Niece of the Artist by Glyn Philpot 231
K.5 Advertisement for the Your Stories exhibition by NextGame
and the National Museum in Belgrade 237
L.1 Conversation starter cards in the exhibition Danish Golden
Age – Word-class art between disasters 244
L.2 Tables in the Anna Ancher exhibition, showing the stacks
of sheets used for the visitors’ Questions for Anna Ancher 245
L.3 Close-up of the question and answer sheets in the Anna
Ancher exhibition 246
M.1 A science slam in the Museum of Natural History Berlin 253
N.1 Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University 267
N.2 Every staff member, trustee, and partner was involved
in the process 268
N.3 New ‘Identity Model’ for the Academy of Natural Sciences 271
P.1 The business model 275
P.2 The scale of the challenge 276
P.3 Defining the Vision 279
P.4 A common purpose – focusing on the ‘sweet spot’ where
roles intersect 281
P.5 The five key areas of audience activity 282
P.6 Game of Thrones Tapestry, first panel 284
xii Figures

P.7 Game of Thrones Tapestry 285

P.8 Bob Johnston, Basket Weaver, in his workshop at
the Ulster Folk Museum 286
P.9 Replica of the Game of Thrones throne created by Bob
Johnston on display at the Hotel de Doyen in Bayeux 288
P.10 The Troubles and Beyond Gallery 289
CONTRIBUTORS

Johannes C. Bernhardt is Digital Manager at the Baden State Museum and pre-
viously led the Creative Collections project, which is dedicated to the participa-
tive development of digital concepts and the integration of the museum in the
culture of digitality.

Daniel Brown is a specialist for digital products, responsible for strategies and
participation dynamics in both startups and corporates. He also provides his
skills and expertise to museums and cultural institutions.

Tony Butler is Executive Director of Derby Museums. He was previously Direc-

tor of the Museum of East Anglian Life, where he also founded the Happy
Museum Project.

Deirdre Carasso was appointed Director of The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in

2016. Previously she worked in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
first as head of education, public programmes and education, later as director of
development.

Scott Cooper has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Academy
of Natural Sciences of Drexel University since December 2017. Prior to that he
was the Vice President of Collections, Knowledge and Engagement at the Royal
British Columbia Museum.

Elizabeth Crooke is Professor of Heritage and Museum Studies, Ulster Univer-

sity, where she works closely with the museum sector, with a particular involve-
ment in community engagement.
xiv Contributors

Duncan Dornan was appointed Head of Museums and Collections at Glasgow

Life in 2013. Glasgow Museums runs Glasgow Life’s nine civic museums, which
welcomed more than 4,000,000 visits in 2019–20.

Kirsten Drotner is Professor of Media Studies, University of Southern Denmark,

where she directs R&D work with the museum sector, with a particular focus on
communication for cultural citizenship.

Lina Eklund is Lector in Human Computer Interaction at Uppsala University,

Sweden, where she works on digital sociality, with a particular focus on muse-
ums and games.

Hsiao-Te Hsu is the Chief Curator of the Department of Education, Exhibition

and Information Services at the National Palace Museum, Taipei and special-
ises in educational outreach, digital content development, and law and business
management.

Jenny Kidd is Reader in Digital Culture at Cardiff University. She works in close
collaboration with colleagues in the cultural and creative industries, in particular
on digital projects.

Anders Sundnes Løvlie is Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenha-

gen and works with experience design, play, and media. He was coordinator for
the Gift project (gifting.digital).

Mark O’Neill worked in museums in Glasgow for 30 years, including as head

of service. He is now Chair of the Jury of the European Museum of the Year
Award.

Rebecca O’Neill is Project Coordinator for Wikimedia Community Ireland,

working closely with cultural and educational organisations, drawing on her
experience of working in the museum sector and doctoral research.

Paulina Rajkowska is a PhD student at Uppsala University. She is a lecturer

teaching within the fields of HCI, Social Media and Communication Studies.

Mette Houlberg Rung is an art interpreter and researcher at Statens Museum for
Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Karin Ryding is a PhD fellow at the IT University of Copenhagen and works on

play design with a particular focus on performativity, relationality, and affect.

Catrien Schreuder was appointed head of collections and exhibitions of the Ste-
delijk Museum Schiedam in November 2018. She is an art historian specializing
 Contributors xv

in postwar Dutch art. She has worked in museums for more than 20 years, always
in roles tasked with broadening audiences.

Philipp Schrögel is a research scientist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Besides being a science communication researcher, he also is the organizer and
moderator of several science slam events in Germany.

Pete Seaman is Associate Director at Glasgow Centre for Population Health, a

cross-sector organisation that works to generate evidence, insight, and support
for the development of new approaches to improve health and reduce inequality.

Dorien Theuns has been working for the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam since the
start of 2019. As city programmer, she works with individuals and organizations
from Schiedam to make the museum more of/by/for all.

Kathryn Thomson has been Chief Executive of National Museums NI since

March 2016. Prior to that she was Chief Operating Officer at Tourism NI for
11 years.

Merel van der Vaart is city history curator at the Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam
since the start of 2019 and is pursuing her PhD at the Amsterdam School for
Heritage, Memory and Material Culture, University of Amsterdam. Amongst
other posts, she worked previously as associate curator of public history at the
Science Museum, London.

Annika Waern is Professor in Human Computer Interaction at Uppsala Univer-

sity, Sweden, where she works on design for embodied play and playfulness over
a number of domains.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I must thank the contributors who generously gave of their
time and expertise – both in developing their papers and for commenting on
my work. Their input has transformed the book. I wish also to thank Daisy Li
for her invaluable support in translating Hsiao-Te Hsu’s paper into English and
answering my related queries.
I am grateful to those in recent years who have invited me to present papers,
allowing me to test my ideas as they developed, including the Alberta Museums
Association; the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe; the Bundesakademie fur
Kulturelle Bildung, Wolfenbüttel; the Commonwealth Association of Museums;
the German Association for Education in Museums; Hamburg Museums; the
Irish Museums Association; the Leibniz Foundation, Berlin; National Museums
Northern Ireland; the National Museum of Culture, Oslo; the Horizon 2020
funded ‘Reach’ Project; the Slovenian Museums Association; and the Tretyakov
Art Gallery and Technical University, Moscow.
I am fortunate that the following kindly read and commented on much of
my content:

Katja Gondert, coordinator on behalf of NORDMETALL Stiftung of the

Hamburg ‘Relevant Museum’ Audience Development project.
Andreas Grünewald of the Bundesakademie fur Kulturelle Bildung,
Wolfenbüttel.
Danielle O’Donovan, Programmme Manager, Nano Nagle Place, Cork.
Nicole Scheda, Head of LVR-Industriemuseum Gesenkschmiede Hen-
drichs, Solingen.
Chris Reynolds of Nottingham Trent University and William Blair, Direc-
tor of Collections, National Museums Northern Ireland, for involving me
in the work of the Ulster Museum.
 Acknowledgements xvii

Heidi Lowther of Routledge for her enthusiasm for the book and for gently
steering me though the process.
Ramachandran Vijayaraghavan and his colleagues at Apex CoVantage for
their support throughout the production process.

I am grateful to my university colleagues Stuart Burch and Deborah Skinner

for their practical and creative support – and for ‘being there’ for me.
My wife, Carolyn, has again good-humouredly put up with my obsessiveness
while writing the book.
Throughout the book I have tried to credit all those whose work I have con-
sulted or adapted over the past 45 years, or who have inspired my own thinking.
If I have missed anyone, it is by accident.
Finally, my thanks go to organiser JD, Frankie Hibbins and my fellow mem-
bers of the Bridge4 Parkinson’s Disease gym group in Leicester – your comrade-
ship and support really matters.
PREFACE

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it
was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it
was the winter of despair, we had everything before us . . .
( Dickens, 1859: 1)

As Charles Dickens could have said, it is the best of times yet also the worst of
times to work in museums. It is the best of times because we have become more
outwards-focused, while also having opportunities to engage our audiences in
ways that our predecessors could only have dreamed of. It is the worst of times,
however, for those museums that are failing to keep up with societal change and/
or are under financial pressure, putting their very survival at stake and many jobs
at risk. And the reason for the constant turbulence is ‘Change’. Our world and
thus our publics are in a constant state of evolution. Museums, those supposed
symbols of continuity, are being buffeted from all sides. Change is a constant; it
is everywhere and it is inevitable, for museums as for the rest of society. And, as
everywhere else, change brings challenges for our sector – not least knowing that
society will move on whether or not museums move with it. And change today
was already happening at a faster rate than ever before. Then came the COVID-
19 pandemic, which sped up things even more and has had a dramatic impact on
the museum sector, adding to the challenges faced. But challenges bring oppor-
tunities as well as threats. This book sets out both to explore and to suggest some
ways forward. There will, of course, never be a single answer.
The book is the third and final element in what has turned out to be a trilogy
exploring the evolution of interpretive purpose and practice in the audience-
centred museum, following in the footsteps of The Engaging Museum (2005) and
Transforming Museums in the 21st Century (2012), both published by Routledge.
 Preface xix

It comes as the culmination of my 45-year career working in and with muse-

ums. Re-reading the first book, I find that most of my thinking has remained
the same. I believe more strongly than ever in access for all and the need and
responsibility to diversify museum audiences to ref lect wider society. I continue
to promote the museum visit as a holistic experience. Like all interpreters, I
remain committed to an approach based on direct audience participation leading
to learning. I am still convinced that museums are defined by their collections,
but what matters most is what we do with them. I still seek to combine innova-
tive practice with academic underpinning. From the second book, I continue to
focus on turning ‘visitors’ into ‘users’, to ref lect a move away from the one-off
visit to sustained engagement, and the need for a new relationship between the
museum, its users, and its local communities based on a partnership of equals
sharing a journey.
What I have learned, however, is that my practice must constantly evolve in
response to the changes taking place in society. So in this third – and final – book
I try to rise above the day-to-day challenges facing museums to explore the
actions we can and should take to retain responsibility for our own foreseeable
future.
Unlike my previous books, I also recognised that it was not a text I could
produce on my own. The book includes 15 contributed chapters, involving 24
authors. I feel fortunate, honoured, and grateful that so many from both within
and outside the sector so willingly shared their ideas and experiences. The book
is transformed as a result.
Graham Black, July 2020

Reference
Dickens, C. (1859) A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman & Hall
INTRODUCTION
The challenge of change

Change, participation, and an underpinning philosophy

Two words and an underpinning philosophy provide the foundation for this
book. The words are ‘change’ and ‘participation’. The underpinning philosophy
is defined by Scott Cooper in his chapter:

what the commercial sector often practices, and natural history museums
always preach – “it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the
most intelligent, but rather the one most responsive to change.”
Scott Cooper, referencing a quote itself adapted
from Charles Darwin

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED, 2010) defines the verb ‘to change’ as ‘the
process of replacing something with something new or different’. The word is
also a noun, ‘the act or result of something becoming different’. ‘Participation’
is ‘the act of taking part in an activity or event’ (OED, 2010). But the reality for
both words is much more complex.
‘Change’ cannot exist on its own – we need to know why, from what to what,
for whom, how do you make it happen, what difference will it make, what does
it mean for us – and none of these questions is easy to answer. It is no surprise,
therefore, that ‘The Challenge of Change’ is a term beloved by management
gurus. Type it into Google and you will get 1,560,000,000 results in 0.68 sec-
onds. From this, one can safely deduce that museums are not alone in facing the
issue.
‘Participation’ is portrayed in this book, and across the museum sector, as
part of the solution to the urgent need for change. But, beware: it is one of those
words – ‘community’ is another – designed to elicit a warm-glow, feel-good,
2 Introduction

happy mood rather than stimulate analysis of its meaning or practice. And the
term has a complex recent history. It was used regularly by social campaigners
in the 1960s and 1970s – concerned with empowering people through inclu-
sion in the political decision-making process (Carpentier, 2011: 14). The original
political meaning gained fresh relevance for museums across the Western world
in the 1990s, as they established new roles for themselves as sites of social action.
As a result, museum professionals tend to associate the term with community
engagement – personified in the work of Nina Simon (e.g. 2010).
However, this is only a part of the story. The term is ‘an infinitely malleable
concept, “participation” can be used to evoke – and to signify – almost anything
that involves people’ (Cornwall, 2008: 269). One website (Nonformality.org,
2012) outlines 36 separate models of participation. And, when you look at cur-
rent museum practice, there are at least ten inter-related strands, introduced in
Box 0.1. Each of these is complex in its own right. For example, in strand one,
there is a world of difference between the right to participate and equality of
opportunity to participate. This book explores 2–10, and it is underpinned by
the Universal Declaration.

Box 0.1 Aspects of participation related to museums

1 Participative rights: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 27 –
‘the right to participate freely in the cultural life of the community’
2 Participative environment and exhibits in displays: open-ended involvement
3 Participative learning: learning through social interaction and active
engagement
4 Contributing content: from user-generated content to co-creation
5 Participatory cultures and practice: creative collaboration, sharing exper-
tise, supporting each other
6 Researching and documenting collections: e.g. tagging, community
collecting
7 Community engagement: working with local communities as equal partners
8 Digital Social Innovation: bringing together museums, digitality and the
social challenges facing modern society
9 Participation through volunteering: developing volunteering opportu-
nities that meet the needs of individuals, communities, and partner
organisations
10 Participative governance: direct user involvement in defining the ethos
and future direction of the museum.

To further complicate matters, most of the time this book uses the adjectival
form ‘participative’ rather than ‘participatory’ to ref lect this broad range of defi-
nitions rather than focus largely on community engagement. ‘Participatory’ is
 Introduction 3

used when the emphasis is on community engagement, or when referencing, for

example, ‘participatory cultures’ (see Chapter 2).

Acknowledging the problem

The first step along the road to change is to recognise that a problem exists
and must be addressed. The constant problem for museums, as institutions of
continuity and longevity, is that people and societies change. Museums are, fun-
damentally, followers. While communicating a sense of permanence, they have
actually had to renew themselves constantly as society has evolved, continuing to
marry their goals both with those of their political masters and funders, and with
the changing expectations of the audiences and communities they have sought to
serve. Yet, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, many of today’s museum
professionals had failed to face up to the extent to which the modern world and,
therefore, their audiences were changing. They were comfortable with the status
quo and in dealing with the past but seemed to find present uncertainties and
future unknowns much more difficult to come to terms with. For others, there
was a deep loss of confidence as their ideas of what museums should be and do
were challenged by the different attitudes and expectations of new generations
and communities. Most had still to fully grasp the impact of the digital revo-
lution or of the rapid increase in population diversity across Western society.
Fundamentally, museums were old-fashioned institutions struggling to come to
terms with a new, rapidly transforming, world.
But the more than 100 days of enforced lockdown, the global nature of the
pandemic, the mad rush to digital – and then the huge surge in support for the
Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd at police
hands in Minneapolis – must surely have convinced most working in the sector
that, pandemic or no pandemic, museums need fundamental change if they are
to remain relevant to a society that is now developing at web speed, socially/
culturally and digitally. As Scott Cooper says in his chapter, the world will con-
tinue to move on whether or not museums move with it. However, responding
effectively requires a new mind-set, visionary leadership, a transformation of
the core museum experience, and a related restructuring of the museum as an
organisation. It will not happen without whole-hearted commitment by every-
one involved, but there is no alternative, and no hiding place, if museums are to
have a future.
This book calls on the sector to face up to its challenges, first by acknowledg-
ing them and then by turning them into opportunities. It argues that historic
museum roles remain unchanged. The challenges, as always, lie in museum rela-
tionships with and relevance to their publics – and their funders. In response,
the book proposes a path that seeks to retain existing audiences but also actively
engages a much wider segment of society than most museums currently attract.
The ambition should be for steady but radical evolution, NOT sudden ‘big bang’
change. What will transform museums will be a combination of clear vision,
4 Introduction

long-term commitment and ‘the painstaking trial-and-error work of discov-

ery, adaptation and improvement that slowly turns an idea into a fact’ (Colvile,
2020: 11). We do not need a constant search for the new. We are a collaborative
profession. We can draw hugely from each other’s work and ideas, adapting and
refining them to the specific requirements of our individual institutions. But, to
make this happen, we need a senior management confident enough in itself to
both give its staff freedom to think, experiment, make mistakes and learn from
them, and involve our users and communities in the process.
There is no single answer but, rather, as Scott Cooper puts it, ‘many pos-
sible solutions to a complex ecology of challenges’. The ways forward will be
as diverse as the museums sector itself and as the demands of society at large.
As such, the book could not be single-voiced. Alongside my text, 24 fellow
contributors, from both within and outside the sector, have generously shared
their ideas and experiences across a thought-provoking 15 chapters. My chapters
focus primarily on the experience of museums in the UK and USA – ref lecting
my own understanding, the sheer scale of publications on museums in those
two countries, and, crucially, the impact of substantial cuts in public funding in
them. Some balance is provided by my fellow contributors, who bring on board
aspects of the museum experience in Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Neth-
erlands, Sweden, and Taiwan. There is no attempt to provide comprehensive
coverage – rather, the ambition is to provide a vibrant f lavour of the remarkable
activity taking place in and around museums today. There is, of course, a sting
in the tail – if museums do not rise to the challenges, as both Anders Sundnes
Løvlie and his colleagues and Rebecca O’Neill demonstrate in their chapters,
people can and will do things for themselves.
The remainder of this introduction looks at key challenges, considers alterna-
tive futures, and then asks, gently, where do we go from here. The book itself is
in four sections, each with a chapter or chapters by me, followed by those of the
other contributors.

Facing up to the challenges

Museums are facing a perfect storm of challenges, including justifiable accu-
sations of elitism; an inability to meet the expectations of new generations
of their core audience; remaining peripheral to most people’s lives; failure to
change content to bring people back; growing competition; a failure to ref lect
the diversity of contemporary society; and substantial cuts in public revenue
funding – all calling into question their ability to remain relevant in a rapidly
changing world.

Elitism
By focusing largely on white, well-educated baby-boomer professionals as their
core audience – whether local or tourist – museums have continued to be domi-
nated by a social elite:
 Introduction 5

[In the UK] . . . high socio-economic background, university-level edu-

cational attainment and a professional occupation are still the most reliable
predictors of high levels of engagement and participation in a wide range
of cultural activities. . . . The higher social groups accounted for 87% of all
museum visits, the lower social groups for only 13%.
Warwick Commission (2015: 33 and 34)

In the UK, the two most highly culturally engaged groups account for only
15% of the general population and tend to be of higher socio-economic status
( Warwick Commission, 2015: 33). The USA equivalent is 16%, as regular users
of cultural organisations (Dilenschneider, 2019a).

Failure to match the expectations of new generations

of their core audience
The baby boomer generation is ageing. Their inf luence on museums is in slow
decline. As society changes, the existing museum offer (open when most people
are at work or school; largely static, passive displays; few events; lack of oppor-
tunities to contribute or to personalise collections; little contact with staff; etc.)
is increasingly at odds with the expectations of the next generations of pro-
fessional class audiences. The Millennials (born 1981–1996) and Generation Z
(born since 1997) were the future once, now they are the present. They are not
enthused by the traditionally didactic museum display approach: ‘for a constitu-
ency accustomed to accessing knowledge in seconds through their phones the
passive, didactic approach of most museum displays holds little appeal’ (Saha,
2019). And neither generation is using museums as loyally as their predecessors:

We do not have any proof yet that the new generation of millennials is
really going to fulfil the same role [as the baby-boomers] and be as engaged
in our institution. We have a hard enough time getting them to come in
the first place, so how do we know they will sustain us in the future.
Fantoni (2016: no page number)

The risk is of ‘negative substitution’, where more of the core audiences are leav-
ing museums than new ones are arriving. It is ‘taking place because the market is
growing more diverse, while perceptions of cultural organizations as being places
for a certain kind of person have remained largely static’ (Dilenschneider, 2017). In
2019, she noted that 67% of cultural organisations in the USA reported flat or
falling attendance since 2009, despite a 7% growth in population over that period
(Dilenschneider, 2019b)

Peripheral to most people’s lives

And, as Box 0.2 demonstrates for the UK, museums remain peripheral to most
people’s lives, with nearly 80% hardly if ever using museums and lack of interest
the main reason for not visiting (Aust and Vine, 2007).
6 Introduction

Box 0.2 Museums remain peripheral to people’s lives

UK: 49.5% had not attended in last year
28.9% attend once or twice a year
16.6% attend 3–4 times a year
4.1% attend monthly
0.5% attend weekly

Source: after DDCMS, 2019: 18

Failure to change content to bring audiences back

And, having bought into the production values pushed by commercial design
companies, many museums find themselves with expensive displays that linger
on long after their sell-by date because they are too costly to replace – reinforcing
a widespread belief amongst the public that museum content never changes.
This supports the one-off visit, where even regular museum goers feel they have
‘done’ a specific museum and have no reason to return.

Growing competition
What is more, in this already difficult environment, audiences are increasingly
fragmented, with competition for their scarce leisure time fiercer than ever. If they
do not get what they want from museums, there are plenty of other choices, and
many of our competitors are better at serving their audiences than museums are.

Failure to match the diversity of contemporary society

Meanwhile, populations across Western society are becoming more diverse,
but most museum audiences are not. Unless the sector does something about it
urgently – and at scale – museum audiences will be increasingly less diverse than
the population at large, the sector will serve an ‘ever-shrinking fragment of
society’ (AAM, 2010: 5), and their relevance to society as a whole will be more
frequently questioned.
And continuing relevance is the most important challenge of all. Potential
audiences and local communities will not engage with the museum unless they
feel it is relevant to their lives. But relevance, like society at large, is in a state of
constant evolution – meaning each new generation of museum staff must define
their own understanding of what the term means – and all depends on whose
concept of relevance. To the museum profession, it tends to be institution driven,
defined by the mission the museum sets for itself. But, to the museum audience,
relevance will be based on the goals of the user rather than those of the museum.
 Introduction 7

To remain relevant, people must continue to value the collections museums hold
and the experience of museum visiting, and communities must value their rela-
tionships with museums because it matters to them and, as a result, they feel
valued in turn. Only then will people be motivated to engage, to take part, to
immerse themselves – no longer visitors but part of the museum community.
But, as Kathryn Thomson points out in her chapter, we currently have a widen-
ing ‘relevance gap’ between how museums perceive their position and how the
public views them.

Funding
To make matters worse, museums are seeing severe reductions in public spend-
ing sitting alongside the increasing demands being placed on the sector. This has
been felt most strongly in the UK and USA, where publicly funded museums have
faced substantial and ongoing public sector revenue cuts, leading to a focus on
survival and a search for alternative sources of income generation rather than on
social impact or planning for the future. In the UK, museums have faced govern-
ment pressure to follow the American model of limited public revenue support
sitting alongside income from fund-raising, endowments, donations, sponsorship,
and commercial activity, with directors forced to become increasingly entre-
preneurial. When Tony Butler became Executive Director of Derby Museums
Trust in 2014, a medium-sized museums service in the East Midlands of England,
some 97% of their income came from two sources, Derby City Council and the
non-governmental Arts Council England. By 2018, revenue funding from the
city council had fallen by 40%, with cuts continuing, while earned income had
increased by then to 27% of revenue (Butler and Fogarty, 2020: 197).
But this is not a ref lection of a switch from public service to capitalism, red
in tooth and claw. Rather it is much more a case of: ‘you can’t be relevant to
your community if you are not financially sustainable’ (Winesmith, quoted in
Butler and Fogarty, 2020: 197). Museums continue to see themselves as there
to serve society, a view shared by the public at large. What is more, the funding
that is provided comes with growing demands. In the UK, both local authorities
and non-governmental funding bodies such as Arts Council England and the
National Lottery Heritage Fund use their grant-giving powers to push museums
to become more outward-focused and to develop agendas for audience diversifi-
cation and social impact – but see Chapter 3 for what this has meant in practice.
In the USA, the top 2–3% of arts institutions continue to receive half of the avail-
able philanthropic giving (Winesmith, quoted in Cohen and Nelson, 2020: 185).
But, crucially, this giving has moved away from a focus on the art collection to an
expectation of social impact and the role the institutions play in their local com-
munities. In this, Cohen references the Social Return on Investment (SORI) –
relating to values not ref lected in financial statements, for example in community
or environmental impacts, in Cohen’s case, ‘if I give you X number of resources
or dollars, I will see certain kinds of shifts’ (Cohen and Nelson, 2020: 185–186).
8 Introduction

Reductions in public funding alongside a growing emphasis on the social role of

museums does not relate solely to the UK and USA. There was international recog-
nition by the late 1970s, amongst public funding bodies, that ‘If museums were to fail
to respond to social change and to reflect it, they would indeed cease to justify public
support’ (Hudson, 1977). From Europe to Australia, governments are increasingly
expecting museums to make ‘a positive difference’ through social impact (Kelly,
2006; Scott, 2015). In 2016, a report to the European parliament noted:

Focusing on the audience has brought a fundamental change to the philos-

ophy and methodology of museums. It has created openness to the needs
of society.
Eccles (2016: 2.12, p. 6)

At the same time:

Over the last few years, the entire cultural sector, including libraries and
museums, has been seriously affected by economic austerity in Europe.
Many institutions have faced reductions in public funding.
Eccles (2016: 3.42, p. 10)

Thus, despite cuts in revenue funding, there is a growing expectation amongst

public sector funders, and sponsors, that museums must actively respond to social
change. In Hamburg, for example, the city authorities and sponsor NORD-
METALL Stiftung are collaborating on the Relevant Museum Project, with a shared
ambition to diversify audiences to the city’s museums and strengthen their rel-
evance as inspiring and engaging spaces for their communities. What had origi-
nally started in 2019 with a conference on audience focused strategies, with best
practice cases from the UK, at which I was fortunate to be asked to speak, has
been transformed into a co-creative programme encouraging cross-institutional
and cross-departmental formats. Accelerated by COVID-19 challenges, the
Hamburg-based foundation has put the urge for change within the museum
sector at the core of its arts funding strategy by establishing and supporting
networks, while constantly adapting in an agile approach (Katja Gondert pers.
comm – see: www.nordmetall-stiftung.de/projekte/das-relevante-museum/).
The chapter in this book by Merel van der Vaart et al shows an expectation of
broader audiences in return for public funding in the Netherlands. Examples can
be found across Europe (see, for example, Bodo et al., 2009).
Overall, if you are losing relevance to your core audience, leaving it at risk of slipping
away, and there is fierce competition for those you still have; if you are failing to find a sus-
tainable alternative audience; if you have not engaged at scale with the increasingly diverse
communities that surround you; and if your main funders are questioning your value to
society – you have problems that need to be addressed urgently.
There is little choice but to recognise that museums must change radically in
response to contemporary society’s demands or they will lose their audiences and
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 “Reckless age!” scoffed Tavia. “When does a boy or a man ever
cease to be reckless?”
“Right-oh!” agreed Nat, looking back along the towline of the sled.
“See how he forever puts himself within the danger zone of pretty
girls. Gee! but Ned and I are a reckless team! What say, Neddie?”
“I say do your share of the pulling,” returned his brother. “Those
girls are no feather-weights, and this is up hill.”
“Oh, to be so insulted!” murmured Tavia. “To accuse us of bearing
extra flesh about with us when we all follow Lovely Lucy Larriper’s
directions, given in the Evening Bazoo. Not a pound of the
superfluous do we carry.”
“Dorothy’s getting chunky,” announced Nat, wickedly.
“You’re another!” cried Tavia, standing up for her chum. “Her lovely
curves are to be praised—oh!”
At that moment the young men ran the runners on one side of the
sled over an ice-covered stump, and the girls all joined in Tavia’s
scream. If there had not been handholds they would all three have
been ignominiously dumped off.
“Pardon, ladies! Watch your step!” Ned said. “And don’t get us
confused with your ‘beauty-talks’ business. Besides, it isn’t really
modest. I always blush myself when I inadvertently turn over to the
woman’s page of the evening paper. It is a delicate place for mere
man to tread.”
“Hooray!” ejaculated his brother, making a false step himself just
then. “Wish I had creepers on. This is a mighty delicate place for a
fellow to tread, too, my boy.”
In fact, they soon had to order the girls off the sled. The way was
becoming too steep and the side of the hill was just as slick as the
highway had been.
With much laughter and not a few terrified “squawks,” to quote
Tavia, the girls scrambled up the slope after the boys and the sled.
Suddenly piercing screams came from above them.
 “Those rascals!” ejaculated Ned.
“Oh! they are sliding on this side,” cried Dorothy. “Stop them, Ned!
Please, Nat!”
“What do you expect us to do?” demanded the latter. “Run out and
catch ’em with our bare hands?”
They had come to a break in the path now and could see out over
the sloping pasture in which the boys had been sliding for an hour.
Their sled had worked a plain path down the hill; but at the foot of it
was an abrupt drop over the side of a gully. Dorothy Dale—and her
cousins, too—knew that gully very well. There was a cave in it, and
in and about that cave they had once had some very exciting
adventures.
Joe and Roger had selected the smoothest part of the pasture to
coast in, it was true; but the party of young folk just arrived could see
that it was a very dangerous place as well. At the foot of the slide
was a little bank overhanging the gully. The smaller boys had been
stopping their sled right on the brink, and with a jolt, for the watchers
could see Joe’s heelprints in the ground where the ice had been
broken away.
They could hear the boys screaming out a school song at the top
of the hill. Ned and Nat roared a command to Joe and Roger to halt
in their mad career; but the two smaller boys were making so much
noise that it was evident their cousins’ shout was not heard by them.
They came down, Joe sitting ahead on the sled with his brother
hanging on behind, the feet of the boy sitting in front thrust out to halt
the sled. But if the sled should jump over the barrier, the two reckless
boys would fall twenty feet to the bottom of the gully.
“Stop them, do!” groaned Jennie Hapgood, who was a timid girl.
It was Dorothy who looked again at the little mound on the edge of
gully’s bank. The frost had got into the earth there, for it had been
freezing weather for several days before the ice storm of the
previous night. Now the sun was shining full on the spot, and she
could see where the boys’ feet, colliding with that lump of earth on
the verge of the declivity, had knocked off the ice and bared the
earth completely. There was, too, a long crack along the edge of the
slight precipice.
“Oh, boys!” she called to Ned and Nat, who were struggling up the
hill once more, “stop them, do! You must! That bank is crumbling
away. If they come smashing down upon it again they may go over
the brink, sled and all!”
 CHAPTER XVI
THE FLY IN THE AMBER

“Oh, Dorothy!” cried Tavia.

Jennie, with a shudder, buried her face in her hands.
Joe and Roger Dale were fairly flying down the hill, and would
endeavor to stop by collision with the same lump of frozen earth that
had previously been their bulwark.
“See! Ned! Nat!” cried Dorothy again. “We must stop them!”
But how stop the boys already rushing down hill on their coaster?
It seemed an impossible feat.
The White brothers dropped the towline of the big sled and
scrambled along the slippery slope toward the edge of the gully.
With a whoop of delight the two smaller boys, on their red coaster,
whisked past the girls.
“Stop them!” shrieked the three in chorus.
Ned reached the edge of the gully bank first. His weight upon the
cracking earth sent the slight barrier crashing over the brink. Just as
they had supposed there was not a possible chance of Joe’s
stopping the sled when it came down to this perilous spot.
Tavia groaned and wrung her hands. Jennie burst out crying.
Dorothy knew she could not help, yet she staggered after Ned and
Nat, unable to remain inactive like the other girls.
Ned recovered himself from the slippery edge of the bank; but by a
hair’s breadth only was he saved from being thrown to the bottom of
the gully. He crossed the slide in a bound and whirled swiftly,
gesturing to his brother to stay back. Nat understood and stopped
abruptly.
“You grab Roger—I’ll take Joe!” panted Ned.
 Just then the smaller boys on the sled rushed down upon them.
Fortunately, the steeper part of the hill ended some rods back from
the gully’s edge. But the momentum the coaster had gained brought
it and its burden of surprised and yelling boys at a very swift pace,
indeed, down to the point where Ned and Nat stood bracing
themselves upon the icy ground.
“Oh, boys!” shrieked Tavia, without understanding what Ned and
Nat hoped to accomplish. “Do something!”
And the very next instant they did!
The coaster came shooting down to the verge of the gully bank.
Joe Dale saw that the bank had given way and he could not stop the
sled. Nor did he dare try to swerve it to one side.
Ned and Nat, staring at the imperilled coasters, saw the look of
fear come into Joe’s face. Ned shouted:
“Let go all holds! We’ll grab you! Quick!”
Joe was a quick-minded boy after all. He was holding the steering
lines. Roger was clinging to his shoulders. If Joe dropped the lines,
both boys would be free of the sled.
That is what he did. Ned swooped and grabbed Joe. Nat seized
upon the shrieking and surprised Roger. The sled darted out from
beneath the two boys and shot over the verge of the bank, landing
below in the gully with a crash among the icy branches of a tree.
“Wha—what did you do that for?” Roger demanded of Nat, as the
latter set him firmly on his feet.
“Just for instance, kid,” growled Nat. “We ought to have let you
both go.”
“And I guess we would if it hadn’t been for Dorothy,” added Ned,
rising from where he had fallen with Joe on top of him.
“Cracky!” gasped Joe. “We’d have gone straight over that bank
that time, wouldn’t we? Gee, Roger! we’d have broken our necks!”
Even Roger was impressed by this stated fact. “Oh, Dorothy!” he
cried, “isn’t it lucky you happened along, so’s to tell Ned and Nat
what to do? I wouldn’t care to have a broken neck.”
“You are very right, kid,” growled Nat. “It’s Dorothy ‘as does it’—
always. She is the observant little lady who puts us wise to every
danger. ‘Who ran to catch me when I fell?’ My cousin!”
“Hold your horses, son,” advised his brother, with seriousness. “It
was Dorothy who smelled out the danger all right.”
“I do delight in the metaphors you boys use,” broke in Dorothy. “I
might be a beagle-hound, according to Ned. ‘Smelled out,’ indeed!”
“Aren’t you horrid?” sighed Jennie, for they were all toiling up the
hill again.
Ned put the cup of his hand under Jennie’s elbow and helped her
over a particularly glary spot. “Boys are very good folk,” he said,
smiling down into her pretty face, “if you take them just right. But
they are explosive, of course.”
Nat, likewise helping to drag the big sled, was walking beside
Tavia. Dorothy looked from one couple to the other, smiled, and then
found that her eyes were misty.
“Why!” she gasped under her breath, “I believe I am getting to be a
sour old maid. I am jealous!”
She turned her attention to the smaller boys and they all went gaily
up the hill. Nobody was going to discover that Dorothy Dale felt blue
—not if she could possibly help it!
Over on the other side of the hill where the smooth road lay the
party had a wonderfully invigorating coasting time. They all piled
upon the double-ripper—Joe and Roger, too—and after the first two
or three slides, the runners became freed of rust and the heavy sled
fairly flew.
“Oh! this is great—great!” cried Tavia. “It’s just like flying. I always
did want to fly up into the blue empyrean——”
They were then resting at the top of the hill. Nat turned over on his
back upon the sled, struggled with all four limbs, and uttered a soul-
searching: “Woof! woof! Ow-row-row! Woof!”
 “Get up, silly!” ordered Tavia. “Whenever I have any flight of fancy
you always make it fall flat.”
“And if you tried a literal flight into the empyrean—ugh!—you’d fall
flat without any help,” declared Nat. “But we don’t want you to fly
away from us, Tavia. We couldn’t get along without you.”
“‘Thank you, kindly, sir, she said,’” responded his gay little friend.
However, Tavia and Nat could be serious on occasion. This very
day as the party tramped home to luncheon, dragging the sleds,
having recovered the one from the gully, they walked apart, and
Dorothy noted they were preoccupied. But then, so were Ned and
Jennie. Dorothy’s eyes danced now. She had recovered her poise.
“It’s great fun,” she whispered to her aunt, when they were back in
the house. “Watching people who are pairing off, I mean. I know
‘which is which’ all right now. And I guess you do, too, Aunt Winnie?”
Mrs. White nodded and smiled. There was nothing to fear
regarding this intimacy between her big sons and Dorothy’s pretty
friends. Indeed, she could wish for no better thing to happen than
that Ned and Nat should become interested in Tavia and Jennie.
“But you, my dear?” she asked Dorothy, slyly. “Hadn’t we better be
finding somebody for you to walk and talk with?”
“I must play chaperon,” declared Dorothy, gaily. “No, no! I am
going to be an old maid, I tell you, Auntie dear.” And to herself she
added: “But never a sour, disagreeable, jealous one! Never that!”
Not that in secret Dorothy did not have many heavy thoughts when
she remembered Garry Knapp or anything connected with him.
“We must send those poor girls some Christmas remembrances,”
Dorothy said to Tavia, and Tavia understood whom she meant
without having it explained to her.
“Of course we will,” she cried. “You would not let me give Forty-
seven and her sister as much money as I wanted to for finding my
bag.”
 “No. I don’t think it does any good to put a premium on honesty,”
Dorothy said gravely.
“Huh! that’s just what Garry Knapp said,” said Tavia, reflectively.
“But now,” Dorothy hastened to add, “we can send them both at
Christmas time something really worth while.”
“Something warm to wear,” said Tavia, more than ordinarily
thoughtful. “They have to go through the cold streets to work in all
weathers.”
It seemed odd, but Dorothy noticed that her chum remained rather
serious all that day. In the evening Nat came in with the mail bag and
dumped its contents on the hall table. This was just before dinner
and usually the cry of “Mail!” up the stairway brought most of the
family into the big entrance hall.
Down tripped Tavia with the other girls; Ned lounged in from the
library; Joe and Roger appeared, although they seldom had any
letters, only funny postal cards from their old-time chums at Dalton
and from local school friends.
Mrs. White took her mail off to her own room. She walked without
her crutch now, but favored the lame ankle. Joe seized upon his
father’s mail and ran to find him.
Nat sorted the letters out swiftly. Everybody had a few. Suddenly
he hesitated as he picked up a rather coarse envelope on which
Tavia’s name was scrawled. In the upper left-hand corner was
written: “L. Petterby.”
“Great Peter!” he gasped, shooting a questioning glance at Tavia.
“Does that cowpuncher write to you still?”
Perhaps there was something like an accusation in Nat’s tone. At
least, it was not just the tone to take with such a high-spirited person
as Tavia. Her head came up and her eyes flashed. She reached for
the letter.
“Isn’t that nice!” she cried. “Another from dear old Lance. He’s
such a desperately determined chap.”
 At first the other young folk had not noted Nat’s tone or Tavia’s
look. But the young man’s next query all understood:
“Still at it, are you, Tavia? Can’t possibly keep from stringing ’em
along? It’s meat and drink to you, isn’t it?”
“Why, of course,” drawled Tavia, two red spots in her cheeks.
She walked away, slitting Lance Petterby’s envelope as she went.
Nat’s brow was clouded, and all through dinner he said very little.
Tavia seemed livelier and more social than ever, but Dorothy
apprehended “the fly in the amber.”
 CHAPTER XVII
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND TAVIA?”

“You got this old timer running round in circles, Miss Tavia, when
you ask about a feller named Garford Knapp anywhere in this
latitude, and working for a feller named Bob. There’s more ‘Bobs’
running ranches out here than there is bobwhites down there East
where you live. Too bad you can’t remember this here Bob’s last
name, or his brand.
“Now, come to think, there was a feller named ‘Dimples’ Knapp
used to be found in Desert City, but not in Hardin. And you ought to
see Hardin—it’s growing some!”

This was a part of what was in Lance Petterby’s letter. Had Nat
White been allowed to read it he would have learned something else
—something that not only would have surprised him and his brother
and cousin, but would have served to burn away at once the debris
of trouble that seemed suddenly heaped between Tavia and himself.
It was true that Tavia had kept up her correspondence with the
good-natured and good-looking cowboy in whom, while she was
West, she had become interested, and that against the advice of
Dorothy Dale. She did this for a reason deeper than mere mischief.
Lance Petterby had confided in her more than in any of the other
Easterners of the party that had come to the big Hardin ranch. Lance
was in love with a school teacher of the district while the party from
the East was at Hardin; and now he had been some months married
to the woman of his choice.
When Tavia read bits of his letters, even to Dorothy, she skipped
all mention of Lance’s romance and his marriage. This she did, it is
true, because of a mischievous desire to plague her chum and Ned
and Nat. Of late, since affairs had become truly serious between Nat
and herself, she would have at any time explained the joke to Nat
had she thought of it, or had he asked her about Lance.
The very evening previous to the arrival of this letter from the
cowpuncher to which Nat had so unwisely objected, Nat and Tavia
had gone for a walk together in the crisp December moonlight and
had talked very seriously.
Nat, although as full of fun as Tavia herself, could be grave; and
he made his intention and his desires very plain to the girl. Tavia
would not show him all that was in her heart. That was not her way.
She was always inclined to hide her deeper feelings beneath a light
manner and light words. But she was brave and she was honest.
When he pinned her right down to the question, yes or no, Tavia
looked courageously into Nat’s eyes and said:
“Yes, Nat. I do. But somebody besides you must ask me before I
will agree to—to ‘make you happy’ as you call it.”
“For the good land’s sake!” gasped Nat. “Who’s business is it but
ours? If you love me as I love you——”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Tavia, with laughter breaking forth. “‘No
knife can cut our love in two.’ But, dear——”
“Oh, Tavia!”
“Wait, honey,” she whispered, with her face close pressed against
his shoulder. “No! don’t kiss me now. You’ve kissed me before—in
fun. The next time you kiss me it must be in solemn earnest.”
“By heaven, girl!” exclaimed Nat, hoarsely. “Do you think I am
fooling now?”
“No, boy,” she whispered, looking up at him again suddenly. “But
somebody else must ask me before I have a right to promise what
you want.”
“Who?” demanded Nat, in alarm.
 “You know that I am a poor girl. Not only that, but I do not come
from the same stock that you do. There is no blue blood in my
veins,” and she uttered a little laugh that might have sounded bitter
had there not been the tremor of tears in it.
“What nonsense, Tavia!” the young man cried, shaking her gently
by the shoulders.
“Oh no, Nat! Wait! I am a poor girl and I come of very, very
common stock. I don’t mean I am ashamed of my poverty, or of the
fact that my father and mother both sprang from the laboring class.
“But you might be expected when you marry to take for a wife a
girl from a family whose forebears were something. Mine were not.
Why, one of my grandfathers was an immigrant and dug ditches
——”
“Pshaw! I had a relative who dug a ditch, too. In Revolutionary
times——”
“That is it exactly,” Tavia hastened to say. “I know about him. He
helped dig the breastworks on Breeds Hill and was wounded in the
Battle of Bunker Hill. I know all about that. Your people were Pilgrim
and Dutch stock.”
“Immigrants, too,” said Nat, muttering. “And maybe some of them
left their country across the seas for their country’s good.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the shrewd Tavia. “Being an immigrant in
America in sixteen hundred is one thing. Being an immigrant in the
latter end of the nineteenth century is an entirely different pair of
boots.”
“Oh, Tavia!”
“No. Your mother has been as kind to me—and for years and
years—as though I were her niece, too, instead of just one of
Dorothy’s friends. She may have other plans for her sons, Nat.”
“Nonsense!”
“I will not answer you,” the girl cried, a little wildly now, and began
to sob. “Oh, Nat! Nat! I have thought of this so much. Your mother
must ask me, or I can never tell you what I want to tell you!”
Nat respected her desire and did not kiss her although she clung,
sobbing, to him for some moments. But after she had wiped away
her tears and had begun to joke again in her usual way, they went
back to the house.
And Nat White knew he was walking on air! He could not feel the
path beneath his feet.
He was obliged to go to town early the next morning, and when he
returned, as we have seen, just before dinner, he brought the mail
bag up from the North Birchland post-office.
He could not understand Tavia’s attitude regarding Lance
Petterby’s letter, and he was both hurt and jealous. Actually he was
jealous!
“Do you understand Tavia?” he asked his cousin Dorothy, right
after dinner.
“My dear boy,” Dorothy Dale said, “I never claimed to be a seer.
Who understands Tavia—fully?”
“But you know her better than anybody else.”
“Better than Tavia knows herself, perhaps,” admitted Dorothy.
“Well, see here! I’ve asked her to marry me——”
“Oh, Nat! my dear boy! I am so glad!” Dorothy cried, and she
kissed her cousin warmly.
“Don’t be so hasty with your congratulations,” growled Nat, still red
and fuming. “She didn’t tell me ‘yes.’ I don’t know now that I want her
to. I want to know what she means, getting letters from that fellow
out West.”
“Oh, Nat!” sighed Dorothy, looking at him levelly. “Are you sure you
love her?”
He said nothing more, and Dorothy did not add a word. But Tavia
waited in vain that evening for Mrs. White to come to her and ask the
question which she had told Nat his mother must ask for him.
 CHAPTER XVIII
CROSS PURPOSES

Tavia was as loyal a girl as ever stepped in shoe-leather. That was

an oft-repeated expression of Major Dale’s. He loved “the flyaway”
for this very attribute.
Tavia was now attempting to bring joy and happiness for Dorothy
out of chaos. Therefore, she felt she dared take nobody into her
confidence regarding Lance Petterby’s letter.
She replied to Lance at once, explaining more fully about Garry
Knapp, the land he was about to sell, and the fact that Eastern
schemers were trying to obtain possession of Knapp’s ranch for
wheat land and at a price far below its real worth.
Satisfaction, Tavia might feel in this attempt to help Dorothy; but
everything else in the world was colored blue—very blue, indeed!
When one’s ear has become used to the clatter of a noisy little
windmill, for instance, and the wind suddenly ceases and it remains
calm, the cessation of the mill’s clatter is almost a shock to the
nerves.
This was about the way Tavia’s sudden shift of manner struck all
those observant ones at The Cedars. As the season of joy and
gladness and good-will approached, Tavia Travers sank lower and
lower into a Slough of Despond.
Had it not been for Dorothy Dale, the others must have audibly
remarked Tavia’s lack of sparkle. Though Dorothy did not imagine
that Tavia was engaged in any attempt to help her, and because of
that attempt had refused to explain Lance Petterby’s letter to Nat
White, yet she loyally began to act as a buffer between the others
and the contrary Tavia. More than once did Dorothy fly to Tavia’s
rescue when she seemed to be in difficulties.
 Tavia had a streak of secrecy in her character that sometimes
placed her in a bad light when judged by unknowing people. Dorothy,
however, felt sure that on this present occasion there was no real
fault to be found with her dear friend.
Nat refused to speak further about his feeling toward Tavia;
Dorothy knew better than to try to tempt Tavia herself to explain. The
outstanding difficulty was the letter from the Westerner. Feeling sure,
as she did, that Tavia liked Nat immensely and really cared nothing
for any other man, Dorothy refrained from hinting at the difficulty to
her chum. Let matters take their course. That was the better way,
Dorothy believed. She felt that Nat’s deeper affections had been
moved and that only the surface of his pride and jealousy were
nicked. On the other hand she knew Tavia to be a most loyal soul,
and she could not imagine that there was really any cause, other
than mischief, for Tavia to allow that letter to stand between Nat and
herself.
To smooth over the rough edges and hide any unpleasantness
from the observation of the older members of the family, Dorothy
became very active in the social life of The Cedars again. No longer
did she refuse to attend the cousins and Jennie and Tavia in any
venture. It was a quintette of apparently merry young people once
more; never a quartette. Nor were Nat and Tavia seen alone together
during those few short weeks preceding Christmas.
Secretly, Dorothy was very unhappy over the misunderstanding
between her chum and Nat. That it was merely a disagreement and
would not cause a permanent break between the two was her dear
hope. For she wished to see them both happy. Although at one time
she thought the steadier Ned, the older cousin, might be a better
mate for her flyaway friend, she had come to see it differently of late.
If anybody could understand and properly appreciate Tavia Travers it
was Nathaniel White. His mind, too, was quick, his imagination
colorful. Dorothy Dale, with growing understanding of character and
the mental equipment to judge her associates better than most girls,
or young women, of her age, believed in her heart that neither Tavia
nor Nat would ever get along with any other companion as well as
the two could get along together.
 The two “wildfires,” as Aunt Winnie sometimes called them, had
always had occasional bickerings. But a dispute is like a
thunderstorm—it usually clears the air.
Nor did Dorothy doubt for a moment that her cousin and her friend
were deeply in love now, the one with the other. That Tavia had
turned without explanation about Lance Petterby’s letter from Nat
and that the latter had told Dorothy he was not sure he wished Tavia
to answer the important question he had put to her, sprang only from
pique on Nat’s side, and, Dorothy was sure, from something much
the same in her chum’s heart.
Light-minded and frivolous as Tavia had always appeared, Dorothy
knew well that the undercurrent of her chum’s feelings was both
deep and strong. Where she gave affection Tavia herself would have
said she “loved hard!”
Dorothy had watched, during these past few weeks especially, the
intimacy grow between her chum and Nat White. They were bound
to each other, Dorothy believed, by many ties. Disagreements did
not count. All that was on the surface. Underneath, the tide of their
feelings intermingled and flowed together. She could not believe that
any little misunderstanding could permanently divide Tavia and Nat.
But they were at cross purposes—that was plain. Nat was irritated
and Tavia was proud. Dorothy knew that her chum was just the sort
of person to be hurt most by being doubted.
Nat should have understood that if Tavia had given him reason to
believe she cared for him, her nature was so loyal that in no
particular could she be unfaithful to the trust he placed in her. His
quick appearance of doubt when he saw the letter from the West had
hurt Tavia cruelly.
Yet, Dorothy Dale did not try to make peace between the two by
going to Nat and putting these facts before him in the strong light of
good sense. She was quite sure that if she did so Nat would come to
terms and beg Tavia’s pardon. That was Nat’s way. He never took a
middle course. He must be either at one extreme of the pendulum’s
swing or the other.
 And Dorothy was sure that it would not be well, either for Nat or for
Tavia, for the former to give in without question and shoulder the
entire responsibility for this lover’s quarrel. For to Dorothy Dale’s
mind there was a greater shade of fault upon her chum’s side of the
controversy than there was on Nat’s. Because of the very fact that all
her life Tavia had been flirting or making believe to flirt, there was
some reason for Nat’s show of spleen over the Petterby letter.
Dorothy did not know what had passed between Tavia and Nat the
evening before the arrival of the letter. She did not know what Tavia
had demanded of Nat before she would give him the answer he
craved.
Nat kept silence. Mrs. White did not come to Tavia and ask the
question which meant so much to the warm-hearted girl. Tavia
suffered in every fiber of her being, but would not betray her feelings.
And Dorothy waited her chance to say something to her chum that
might help to clear up the unfortunate state of affairs.
So all were at cross purposes, and gradually the good times at
The Cedars became something of a mockery.
 CHAPTER XIX
WEDDING BELLS IN PROSPECT

Four days before Christmas Dorothy Dale, her cousins, and Tavia
all boarded the train with Jennie Hapgood, bound for the latter’s
home in Pennsylvania. On Christmas Eve Jennie’s brother Jack was
to be married, and he had written jointly with the young lady who was
to be “Mrs. Jack” after that date, that the ceremony could not
possibly take place unless the North Birchland crowd of young folk
crossed the better part of two states, to be “in at the finish.”
“Goodness me,” drawled Tavia, when this letter had come from
Sunnyside Farm. “He talks as though wedded bliss were something
like a sentence to the penitentiary. How horrid!”
“It is. For a lot of us men,” Nat said, grinning. “No more stag
parties with the fellows for one thing. Cut out half the time one might
spend at the club. And then, there is the pocket peril.”
“The—the what?” demanded Jennie. “What under the sun is that?”
“A new one on me,” said Ned. “Out with it. ’Thaniel. What is the
‘pocket peril’?”
“Why, after a fellow is married they tell me that he never knows
when he puts his hand in his pocket whether he will find money there
or not. Maybe Friend Wife has beaten him to it.”
“For shame!” cried Dorothy. “You certainly deserve never to know
what Tavia calls ’wedded bliss.’”
“I have my doubts as to my ever doing so,” muttered Nat, his face
suddenly expressing gloom; and he marched away.
Jennie and Ned did not observe this. Indeed, it was becoming so
with them that they saw nobody but each other. Their infatuation was
so plain that sometimes it was really funny. Yet even Tavia, with her
sharp tongue, spared the happy couple any gibes. Sometimes when
she looked at them her eyes were bright with moisture. Dorothy saw
this, if nobody else did.
However, the trip to western Pennsylvania was very pleasant,
indeed. Dorothy posed as chaperon, and the boys voted that she
made an excellent one.
The party got off gaily; but after a while Ned and Jennie slipped
away to the observation platform, cold as the weather was, and Nat
plainly felt ill at ease with his cousin and Tavia. He grumbled
something about Ned having become “an old poke,” and sauntered
into another car, leaving Tavia alone with Dorothy Dale in their
compartment. Almost at once Dorothy said to her chum:
“Tavia, dear, are you going to let this thing go on, and become
worse and worse?”
“What’s that?” demanded Tavia, a little tartly.
“This misunderstanding between you and Nat? Aren’t you risking
your own happiness as well as his?”
“Dorothy——”
“Don’t be angry, dear,” her chum hastened to say. “Please don’t. I
hate to see both you and Nat in such a false position.”
“How false?” demanded Tavia.
“Because you are neither of you satisfied with yourselves. You are
both wrong, perhaps; but I think that under the circumstances you,
dear, should put forth the first effort for reconciliation.”
“With Nat?” gasped Tavia.
“Yes.”
“Not to save my life!” cried her friend. “Never!”
“Oh, Tavia!”
“You take his side because of that letter,” Tavia said accusingly.
“Well, if that’s the idea, here’s another letter from Lance!” and she
opened her bag and produced an envelope on which appeared the
cowboy’s scrawling handwriting. Dorothy knew it well.
 “Oh, Tavia!”
“Don’t ‘Oh, Tavia’ me!” exclaimed the other girl, her eyes bright
with anger. “Nobody has a right to choose my correspondents for
me.”
“You know that all the matter is with Nat, he is jealous,” Dorothy
said frankly.
“What right has he to be?” demanded Tavia in a hard voice, but
looking away quickly.
“Dear,” said Dorothy softly, laying her hand on Tavia’s arm, “he told
me he—he asked you to marry him.”
“He never!”
“But you knew that was what he meant,” Dorothy said shrewdly.
Tavia was silent, and her friend went on to say:
“You know he thinks the world of you, dear. If he didn’t he would
not have been angered. And I do think—considering everything—
that you ought not to continue to let that fellow out West write to you
——”
Tavia turned on her with hard, flashing eyes. She held out the
letter, saying in a voice quite different from her usual tone:
“I want you to read this letter—but only on condition that you say
nothing to Nat White about it, not a word! Do you understand,
Dorothy Dale?”
“No,” said Dorothy, wondering. “I do not understand.”
“You understand that I am binding you to secrecy, at least,” Tavia
continued in the same tone.
“Why—yes—that,” admitted her friend.
“Very well, then, read it,” said Tavia and turned to look out of the
window while Dorothy withdrew the closely written, penciled pages
from the envelope and unfolded them.
In a moment Dorothy cried aloud: