The Typewriter Story (and Their Unexpected Fans)

Please enjoy the following transcript from a past episode of Exhibitsmith the Podcast. The Typewriter Story debuted on February 29, 2024. Find Exhibitsmith on your favorite podcast platform and at Podbean.

If you’re familiar with museum artifact collections, you may have heard that in many or most museums, a large percentage of the museum’s artifacts are not on display. In fact, depending on the institution, over 90% of a museum’s collection may be behind locked doors, hopefully not getting dusty, but often out of sight, resting quietly on a shelf. There are good reasons for this, and there are other reasons for this as well. I will be sure to discuss this in a future episode. But today, I want to tell you about something I experienced that changed my perspective on museum behind the scenes tours forever.

Hi, my name is Lindsey Smith with Exhibitsmith. I’m rethinking the way we save our stuff. I help people interpret, preserve, and better understand the objects that make up our world. If you have a lot of stuff, it might feel overwhelming. But believe it or not, I truly believe that artifact and heirloom preservation can be both easy and fun. In fact, I’ve developed a series of introductory-level workshops on this topic and others just to prove my point. Learn more about them at exhibitsmith.com.

Back to my career-changing story. I've shared this story many times over the years as an example of how we can rethink the worth of the artifacts or our precious personal belongings that may be deep in storage. And hopefully, this will inspire us to get some of those artifacts or heirlooms out of the closet and shared with new audiences. This experience was also a great reminder to me of why you should never default to using the phase, “Kids today, dot dot dot.” Or “Kids today don’t like this.” “Kids today don’t like that.” “Kids today only stare at screens, blah blah blah.” Kids are kids, period. It’s how we engage with them that has changed. Oh, and one more thing. I’m not exactly sure how old these tweens or teens were, but I am old now (or at least I feel old sometimes) so honestly, anyone high school age or younger is a kid in my book. So please excuse me for using a variety of words to describe them. And, I suppose they’re all well into adulthood now anyway.

Oof. Time flies when you’re having fun.

ANYWAY.

Twenty years ago, I was working at a large museum, a tourist destination that attracts visitors from all over the world. The building was – and is – full of amazing exhibits, artifacts, and experiences. No two workdays were ever the same, nor were any two museum visits. Things changed there all the time. Well back then, a friend of mine was working with a group of so-called “at risk teens” or maybe they were tweens? and I found out that they were headed to the museum on a field trip. I told my friend to let me know if they had any spare time at the end of their fun, busy, day because I could try to squeeze in a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum’s extensive collection of artifacts. If that would be something they might be interested in.

I assumed that these kids would be busy for hours. The museum is huge and there was so much to see. That’s why I was completely shocked when only about 30 minutes after they arrived, my friend called to tell me they were done. “Did you see this exhibit?” I asked. “And this one? And this one?” Yep. They’d seen it all and were apparently very unimpressed (the kids were unimpressed, not my friend. After all tweens/teens can have unpredictable expectations when it comes to whether or nothing things are “cool” or “fun.”)

I arranged to meet the group by the entrance to the collections department, which, like at many museums, was a pretty nondescript kind of entrance. After all, you don't want to advertise where all the artifacts are kept. And besides, if you’re lucky enough to get a behind the scenes look at things, a humble entrance – in my opinion – makes the whole experience more exciting.

And as soon as they walked into the first room of the collections department, there was a collective gasp. My friend looked surprised, but I was used to people reacting to it so I smiled to myself and moved along.

And I think this happened for two reasons. Let me take a couple steps back here. First of all, and perhaps most importantly, when I introduced myself, I made it very clear that this was a part of the museum that is off limits to almost everyone. Ooh, aah. I wanted them to know that they were having a very special experience. I also wanted to let them know that I was excited to show them around. No boring tour guide here! The second thing that drew them in was when I first opened the door to the department – not even to storage – and they saw a world that was completely different from the museum they had just been in. This world was filled with unique, old things of all sizes and shapes. In reality, we had entered a room used to house large objects like historic cars – which also packs a punch when you first see them, right? Old cars have that effect. They saw a much-used workspace, complete with the grime from car maintenance and giant wooden storage crates. They saw where the museum workers ate their lunch and did “normal” things. They saw an area that they honestly weren’t supposed to see.

And what’s more exciting than that!

I walked them back to the first official collections storage room, which, admittedly, was also the nicest. We stepped into a brightly lit, large, long room filled with compact, rolling shelving. Some artifacts were already in a display of sorts, resting on shelves behind plexiglass, because we led behind the scenes tours for members and various VIPs, often enough that it was worth it to keep some curated pieces readily available – and so we could easily share some staff favorites - without having to create too much additional work each time we had a tour, right? The rest of the room, though, was hidden behind rows and rows of compact shelving, only made accessible when a member of the collections department turned a giant crank and all the shelving rolled over to make a hidden aisle appear wherever they wanted. Cool stuff, right? Especially if you’re a kid on your first behind-the-scenes tour. The magic worked and these tweens were immediately sucked into the excitement of it all.

With each object I mentioned, the kids got more and more excited. They began asking question after question – I honestly couldn’t keep up! Then, one of the girls paused and said, “do you have those things that they used to use before computers?” and I looked at her and said, “do you mean typewriters?” Yeah. Okay. This was twenty years ago, sure, but even back then, typewriters had been out of fashion for their entire life. (I mean, today’s teens probably think of typewriters as ancient history. My kids would probably look at me like I was from caveman times. But honestly, they already do.)

I digress.

Anyhow, 20 years ago, typewriters were still an intriguing novelty, and perhaps coincidentally, the museum did happen to have a surprisingly comprehensive collection of early typewriters. Bam! So, that really worked out. But that collection wasn’t kept in the shiny behind the scenes tour room of storage, it was literally in the back of the back. I led them through the catacombs of storage (okay, so storage  wasn’t really that creepy or anything, but if you’re not familiar with the space, it does feel kind of like you’re going into the depths of somewhere) and I could tell that they were there for it. They quickly realized that this wasn’t even part of a normal behind-the-scenes tour.  

They were VIP VIPs. Awesome.

And then, there we were, standing in front a wall - the very back wall of one of the back storage rooms, where the shelving was old and the lights weren’t as bright. And in front of us, neatly resting on shelves stacked three or four tall, was the typewriter collection. I don’t remember, maybe 18 or 20 models, ranging from the earliest days of typewriters to the most recent (but still old school, even back then) word processors. Hey, if my former coworkers are listening to this, let me know how many typewriters the museum has – or, at least, had – in the collection back then. Thank you! <laugh>

Anyway, and there it was that all the kids, not just the girl who had posed the question, but all the kids got really excited.

They started absolutely inundating me with questions. And I’m not a typewriter expert! They were engaged, walking from machine to machine, looking at how the keys were arranged. Some of the typewriters were really old - pre QWERTY, even. You know, QWERTY, the standard keyboard layout of Q W E R T Y on the top row. These were from before that was even invented. The kids definitely noticed that and were excitedly comparing and contrasting all the models by size, shape, layout, you name it. They were just getting physically and audibly excited sharing the space with all of these old things.

All in a dark-ish, dusty-ish corner in the forgotten part of the museum. It couldn’t’ve been less glamorous.

But kids don’t need glamorous.

They just need to find something that’s new and exciting to them, that makes them think and, in this case, feel a little special.

At one point, my friend who was their chaperone, turned to me and said, that this was the first time she’d ever seen one particular girl smile. These were at-risk kids who had backstories that were probably not great. But in that moment, they were having a blast. A completely random, couldn’t have planned it if we tried, blast.

When the tour was over, I sent them on their way. I don't know if they then walked around the museum some more with a new outlook, I don't know how the rest of their day went. I don't know how the rest of their life played out.

But I know how that day affected me. That tour was one of the most transformative moments in my museum career, and I love sharing it.

I hope this motivates you to think of ways to share the objects in your life with those who you many not assume would be interested, whether you’re working with a museum collection, or your prized possessions and heirlooms at home. Don’t assume that someone won’t be interested in something that’s important to you simply because they’re not interested in X, Y, or Z, or that they’re of the wrong generation or background. It’s all how you set the scene and tell the tale.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode. I invite you to subscribe to my podcast and once again, you can see everything Exhibitsmith is up to Exhibitsmith.com, including grabbing yourself some free, downloadable resources. Thanks for listening - I’m already looking forward to the next episode.