Better to help our existing museums

Several months ago, aggrieved patrons and supporters of the Georgia State Archives were successful in overturning an ill-conceived effort by the secretary of state to virtually close the archives over “budgetary concerns.” Recently, Gov. Nathan Deal and a handful of legislators have been mulling over resurrecting the notion of a state history museum in the mausoleum known as the old “World of Coca-Cola” building near the perennially resuscitating Underground Atlanta.

The AJC reported Aug. 6 that the state may enjoy a $600 million budget surplus, and that $17 million might be used to renovate the old tourist site.

I served on a museum feasibility committee in 2008-09 just as the Great Recession was taking hold and, wisely, the idea was shelved. We are now in better times, and the world has changed. State leaders must understand the enormous changes that have occurred in the humanities and the arts, in history and museums in general. For their consideration, perhaps the 19th century idea of a state history museum is redundant, obsolete and costly.

Yes, we hear that Georgia is one of a few states without a state history museum. So what? We have durable historical organizations throughout the state that reach beyond the city of Atlanta where a state museum, if it follows the patterns of other recently opened state museums, will become a “local” Atlanta museum and never reach the entire state as its proponents claim.

Instead of sinking capital into an expensive renovated facility requiring ongoing operational support, the state should take that $17 million and distribute it to first-rate regional museums and organizations — Georgia has approximately 280 recognized museums — already in existence.

This would give many a level of fiscal sustainability — institutions such as the Georgia Historical Society, founded by the General Assembly in 1839 and the oldest continuously operated historical society in the South; Georgia State Archives; Atlanta History Center, founded in 1926; Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, founded in 1973; and Georgia Humanities Council, founded in 1971. All have suffered through the recent economic downturn. State support would provide stability, giving visitors and residents throughout the state a “buy-in” to their history.

And what about all those historical objects and curiosities in the state capital? Farm them out as gifts or long-term loans to the established organizations mentioned above. Keep a few and open not a grandiose state historical museum, but take a cue from Congress and build a visitors center on the state house grounds with a few of the most historically significant objects.