Britten Harmon and Dr. Paul Stavast, Anthropology Sociocultural
Since 1901, the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers have endeavored to keep the history and achievements of their pioneer ancestors alive. Part of their mission is to collect artifacts, histories, manuscripts and other important data relative to the Utah pioneers and their surrounding communities, and to preserve and display these in both their central Pioneer Memorial Museum in Salt Lake City and in over 100 satellite museums throughout Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and Utah. (ISDUP, 2012)
The original purpose of my research was to discover the types of educational outreach programs the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers (ISDUP) implements to their surrounding communities and to document the community perception of these memorial museums as well as the organization in general. However, as I became more familiar with each of the Daughter of Utah Pioneer (DUP) satellite museums in my study, I learned that most of the DUP museum boards over these museums did not currently have a member who conducted educational outreach in the surrounding elementary schools, as in the past. Therefore, I decided to slightly change the focus of my study to assessing their overall effectiveness as well as the perceptions and experiences of museums visitors and potential museums visitors.
In order to understand this organization of women and their museums, I conducted an ethnographic field study in their museums over the course of two months. I utilized observations, participatory observations, semi-structured interviews, pile-sorts, and free lists with directors and docents in 4 DUP museums within Utah County and at the Pioneer Memorial Museum in Salt Lake City to familiarize myself with their motivations and practices. I also observed and interviewed one time each at the Weber County DUP Museum in Ogden and the Grantsville DUP Museum in Grantsville, Utah. I looked for ways they recruit and keep members, sustain themselves on little to no income, and maintain their museums and collections. I also participated in guided tours from the directors, observed and interviewed museums visitors and potential museum visitors from each community, and documented the collections in each museum with photographs.
According to some museum professionals, these museums have many weaknesses rooted in their open storage policy which requires all artifacts to be displayed at all times. However, I found they have a number of strengths that offer important lessons/insights for museum management. These strengths include: a large pool of active volunteers, vast collections and histories, and strong community involvement – all of which lead to a unique model for financial sustainability.
According to the curator of the Pioneer Memorial Museum, this museum alone houses over 40,000 artifacts and has collected over 50,000 individual pioneer histories out of the supposed 75,000 pioneers who came to Utah between 1847-1869. According to the number of hours the Utah DUP museums are open to the public, volunteer time adds up to over 17,616 hours. This does not include time spent in the museum giving tours, supervising group activities, and working on projects during closed hours. In addition, each museum exists on virtually no budget, relying only on small donations, meager revenue from sales of copies of histories, photographs, and gift items, shared expenses with other entities, and small improvement grants from state and local government.
Through a strong sense of member identity, this organization is able to recruit and sustain members. This is done through the practice of monthly ceremonies called Lesson Meetings, kinship traditions, and strong religious beliefs. The Lesson Meetings serve as a social ritual for members to renew their identities as daughters of the Utah pioneers. They not only help to educate the members on their own personal history, the history of the pioneers and the institutions established during that time period, clothing worn, or practices employed, but it serves to bind and bond the members together.
Most members of the DUP I interviewed have pioneer heritage and grew up hearing their pioneer ancestors’ stories, were recruited by family members into the organization, and/or are a third or fourth generation member. In addition, according to the ISDUP president, most members have Utah pioneer heritage and are members of the LDS faith. Less than 10% of members are either not LDS or do not have Utah pioneer heritage. Members do not have to have Utah pioneer heritage in order to join. These members are called Associates. This strong sense of LDS faith ties these members, and in turn, the museum docents, to their local LDS culture and values to better connect with the community around them and patrons to the museum.
It is my hope that focusing on the strengths of the DUP will encourage them to develop their strengths even further, but also that this research can act as a framework for large museums to learn about their sustainability. According to the results of this study, by recruiting and retaining unpaid volunteers whose identity is imbricated with their work, along with sharing maintenance costs with other entities, the DUP is sustainable. I have proposed a session for the Western Museum Association Conference in 2014 that will include results from my research as well as insights from small museum professionals. The proposed session will offer ways in which large museums can learn from small museums, such as the DUP, about inexpensive sustainability.