Footnote #3
One of the museum’s goals was to make the
exhibit interesting and fun by including “interactives” and places where
visitors can touch, feel, and experience the past. As one staff member put it: “kids need things
to crawl under, to crawl through, and to crawl in.” A dilemma for the staff is how to let items
be touched, but not damaged. You will
notice in the exhibit that the interactives (like this fort and the wigwam) are
recreated objects, not originals.
Originals would break or get damaged so they cannot be used in the same
way. Also, neither the original fort nor a wigwam from the 1600s exists today,
so using reproductions is the only way to include these topics in the exhibit. The
staff considered other interactive areas, but there was not enough money or space
to include everything. For example, a World War II factory “assembly line” was
in the plan, but later it was not included.