For more than two decades the academic world has recognised that transport and technology is socially shaped. It is impossible to understand technological developments without looking at the motivations and agendas of the different social groups that created, used, discarded or adapted transport for their own purposes.
Despite this, museums still choose to distinguish between transport collections and social history collections, as if the two are mutually exclusive. We have created curatorial posts within these self-imposed, narrowly defined disciplines and asked staff to research, collect and curate exhibitions accordingly.
The legacy is that we often design displays that focus on the impact of a particular form of transport and fail to mention the people linked with the vehicles.
We do this simply because the personal objects of the people who used the transport were not deemed important or significant enough to acquire at the time. We dutifully collected the end product (the vehicle) but often ignored the uniform of the tram's clippie, the telegram boy's delivery bag or the mod's parka jacket - all of these are of equal importance to the tram, delivery bike or Vespa scooter.
For those of us working in transport or social history museums and attempting to redress the balance, the past fixation on technical data and the lack of available personal objects is a familiar and frustrating scenario.
During 2009 a new purpose-built Museum of Transport (at a new site on the River Clyde in Glasgow) will open. The new displays will reflect a philosophical change from a focus on transport, technology and technique to incorporate travel, social context and, most importantly, people.
In taking this decision it highlighted what we were already too well aware of - that to tell some stories we currently lack the objects and that certain groups, individuals and issues are either under-represented or do not feature at all.
We have addressed this to some extent by proactive collecting. It has allowed us to tackle subjects we regard as important for a transport museum to interpret, such as disability, personal identity and consumerism. But it is undeniably a more difficult task to do in retrospect.
Transport is about many things: identity, inequality, personal journeys, mobility, work and leisure. It cannot simply be seen in terms of economics or design, which has been the weakness of traditional transport displays. Far too many transport museums display and interpret technology as if this was the natural order of things, with no other possible outcomes or solutions.
The acceptance or rejection of a form of transport is ultimately dependent on whether or not it meets a society's needs. Traditional taxonomies of objects (so common in transport museums) fail to recognise this and present instead a linear and misleading notion of progress. To properly understand a form of transport it has to be seen within a social context, with all its vagaries, inconsistencies and controversies.
Kirsty Devine is the senior curator of the Riverside Museum Project. She is speaking at this year's International Association of Transport Museums conference, 11-15 June, National Railway Museum, York
Despite this, museums still choose to distinguish between transport collections and social history collections, as if the two are mutually exclusive. We have created curatorial posts within these self-imposed, narrowly defined disciplines and asked staff to research, collect and curate exhibitions accordingly.
The legacy is that we often design displays that focus on the impact of a particular form of transport and fail to mention the people linked with the vehicles.
We do this simply because the personal objects of the people who used the transport were not deemed important or significant enough to acquire at the time. We dutifully collected the end product (the vehicle) but often ignored the uniform of the tram's clippie, the telegram boy's delivery bag or the mod's parka jacket - all of these are of equal importance to the tram, delivery bike or Vespa scooter.
For those of us working in transport or social history museums and attempting to redress the balance, the past fixation on technical data and the lack of available personal objects is a familiar and frustrating scenario.
During 2009 a new purpose-built Museum of Transport (at a new site on the River Clyde in Glasgow) will open. The new displays will reflect a philosophical change from a focus on transport, technology and technique to incorporate travel, social context and, most importantly, people.
In taking this decision it highlighted what we were already too well aware of - that to tell some stories we currently lack the objects and that certain groups, individuals and issues are either under-represented or do not feature at all.
We have addressed this to some extent by proactive collecting. It has allowed us to tackle subjects we regard as important for a transport museum to interpret, such as disability, personal identity and consumerism. But it is undeniably a more difficult task to do in retrospect.
Transport is about many things: identity, inequality, personal journeys, mobility, work and leisure. It cannot simply be seen in terms of economics or design, which has been the weakness of traditional transport displays. Far too many transport museums display and interpret technology as if this was the natural order of things, with no other possible outcomes or solutions.
The acceptance or rejection of a form of transport is ultimately dependent on whether or not it meets a society's needs. Traditional taxonomies of objects (so common in transport museums) fail to recognise this and present instead a linear and misleading notion of progress. To properly understand a form of transport it has to be seen within a social context, with all its vagaries, inconsistencies and controversies.
Kirsty Devine is the senior curator of the Riverside Museum Project. She is speaking at this year's International Association of Transport Museums conference, 11-15 June, National Railway Museum, York
