As part of an exhibit on the history of the South, a noose hung from the ceiling with a spotlight that cast a large shadow on the wall.


For Herbert Hoover Library-Museum curator Maureen Harding, it was artistic. For Director Timothy Walch, it was a bit too graphic for younger visitors.

But while Walch has the last word, Harding had the last laugh. The next morning, Walch found the noose hanging over his desk.

“We have to laugh at ourself,” Walch smiled, “and trust our staff. And we encourage our staff to push the limits.”

For years, that meant the limits of space, money and creativity. And, this past Monday, the limit was time. Harding, after 33 years with the Library-Museum, retired, spending the last 22 years as curator, with projects seen by more than 1 million visitors.

She started working there for what was supposed to be a one-year stint beginning Oct. 3, 1977, at first devoting her time to the photography darkroom. Eleven years later, she worked her way up to curator, and stayed there until her retirement this past week.

“It’s been quite a ride,” she said. “It’s been a dream job.”

Finishing on March 1, 2010, she logged in 33 years and five months working on exhibits in different capacities.

Walch said Harding moved up from the official title of “clerk/typist” to “curator” in 1988, a year after Richard Norton Smith came in as director. Her first exhibit as curator was “39 Men” (referring to all the presidents up to that time), which won an award.

“She hit a home run her first time at bat,” Walch said.

Her exhibit caused a “paradigm shift” in what curators had been doing for decades, he said, and not only in West Branch.

Instead of doing a small exhibit that, say, fits inside a display case or hangs on the wall, Hardng made numerous phone calls to all the presidential libraries and/or museums to find the weird and unusual for a unique and large exhibit — items like Calvin Coolidge’s electric horse and John Adams’ baby rattle.

Her exhibits would fill rooms, with floor-to-ceiling props from pogadas to circus tents, turning any available space into something more like a theater stage than an exhibit hall.

Walch said her imagination, coupled with the help of Facility Manager Rolly Owen’s handyman skills, decked out the museum’s temporary exhibit space to the degree that it caught the eye of major contributor William Quarton, who donated extensively to the Library-Museum and gave the lead gift that built a newer, larger temporary exhibit hall that now bears his name.

Today, curators must have a history or museum studies degree to fill the post. Harding had a photography degree. Walch said she grew into the job. Harding said she read a lot of books and attended a lot of seminars. On a limited budget, she mixed the necessity of borrowing with the creativity of photography within the limits of the, for a presidential museum, low ceilings.

“I’m an Iowan,” she said. “You do with what you have.”

In her exhibits, Harding has to encapsulate lots of information into small amounts of space, Walch said, which once led an archivist to complain to Walch when she chopped paragraphs of information down to a few sentences for display captions. But that was necessary, Harding said, because visitors only have so much time.

“I put entertainment first,” she said. “If you are entertained, you’ll learn whether you like it or not.”

To do that, though, she immerses herself into the history of each subject to find the human interest stories that capture attention.

Walch said the amount of research she does is equivalent to “at least a senior thesis,” if not a masters degree. And she crams into six to eight months what many curators do in 18 to 24 months; Harding joked about her husband, Jay, getting used to her being gone a lot.

One of the trickier parts of the job, she said, was keeping her opinion out of the story.

When producing an exhibit called “American Mysteries, Riddles & Controversies,” she produced three captions for the John F. Kennedy assassination, one for the history-supported “one-shooter” story, one for the “shooter on the grassy knoll” theory and one for the “mob conspiracy” theory. Her twin sister, Cindy Weaton, said she could not tell which one was Harding’s opinion, which Harding considered a success.

In an exhibit that included the story of Truman dropping the atomic bomb, one visitor was “distressed and upset” that the caption made it sound like it was the right thing to do. A week later, another visior was equally upset, saying the same caption implies that dropping the bomb was the wrong thing to do. Harding said those two complaints told her she succeeded in remaining objective.

Walch said the best compliment Harding receives is when he hears a visitor wave someone else over with “You gotta see this!”

For one of her last assignments, though, Harding has been part of a larger, more-lasting project: Planning the renovation of the Herbert Hoover Library-Museum. That project is still in the works.

“I’m fascinated by history,” Harding said. “And I’m drawn to exhibits with a little meat ... and a little controversy.”



FYI

Exhibits by Herbert Hoover Library-Museum curator Maureen Harding:

1988: 39 Men

1989: Over There

1990: Mrs. President

1991: Dining in the White House

1992: America’s House

1993: The Roaring Twenties

1994: The Civil War

1995: Home Front: America in the 1940s

1996: Beyond the Big River: Life on the Frontier

1997: The Fifties: America Hot & Cold

1998: No Big Deal: The Art of the Miniature

1999: America at the Turning of the Centuries

2000: American Women

2001: The Eagle and the Dragon: US Relations with China

2002: Revolutionary America 1763-1789

2003: Old Man River: History Along the Mississippi

2004: Cottages & Castle: Homes of the Presidents

2005: Under the Big Top: The Circus in America

2006: The Sixties: The Times Are-a Changin’

2007: American Mysteries, Riddles & Controversies

2008: Children in the White House: Caroline Kennedy Dolls

2009: Iowa A-Z

2010: Patterns of the Past: A History of American Quilting