Today's artifacts, photos and mementos likely will be tomorrow's historical object lessons, according to Glen M. Leonard, director of the Museum of Church History and Art.
"Museums recreate an understanding of the past using objects, documents, photographs and art, and this gives a dimension to our understanding beyond the written word," said Brother Leonard. "Such historical items can help individuals and families sense how their own ancestors lived, what they looked like and what environment they lived in."If we don't preserve a range of items, then our ability to understand the past is limited. Historians traditionally looked at political and geographical factors; today they're more interested in the total society, and that can be understood better through material culture."
In selecting items to preserve, one ought to be mindful of future generations, Brother Leonard remarked.
"Most people save things that are important to them. Therefore, personal and museum collections abound with family Bibles, treasured photographs and wedding dresses. People often fail to select items that reflect everyday life, such as the tools and clothing of the craftsman, and household utensils and furnishings.
"So it would be well to look at the total experience, and if you're saving for the future, select some typical items as well as special items. At the museum, we find we have opportunity to collect 100 wedding dresses for every one workman's set of clothing, or 10 dress coats for every work jacket."
Photographs that are preserved are often formal poses, family sittings and group shots, he noted.
"We need more photos of people doing what they ordinarily did, instead of occasions when they got dressed up in their Sunday best. Families need to point the camera at rooms they live in, and document the furnishings. We need to document
people doing things they did at work, home and Church to capture that kind of life's experience. Some of the most important photos to us today as historians are those that show activities under way."
Items of historical significance to the Church that can be viewed today include John Taylor's pocket watch that stopped a bullet from piercing his body at Carthage Jail and a proof sheet from the first printing of the Book of Mormon. But a number of seemingly commonplace items have been preserved that give dimension to Church history, Brother Leonard said. These include one of the pots that Heber C. Kimball produced when he was a potter and a water pitcher that was carried across the plains by Mormon pioneers.
More recently, beds and other items from maternity hospitals operated by the Relief Society in the early 20th Century have been preserved and are being used in the museum's new Relief Society sesquicentennial exhibit.
"Were it not for these objects, that chapter in the history of the Relief Society might get lost in time," Brother Leonard said.