A Good Position to Inherit

 

June 3, 2020

Samantha (Sam) French has been on the job as Director of the Blaine County Museum for a little over a year, and she recently shared details of her preparation for the position, a progress report on her role and vision, and a few of her goals for the museum.

French grew up in Havre, and after graduating from Havre High School, she attended Carroll College, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History.

While in Helena as an undergraduate, French held a couple of internships with the Montana Historical Society. In 2014, while working with the Montana State Historic Preservation Office, or SHPO (pronounced "SHiP-O"), she conducted an inquiry of historical properties and researched Helena-based businesses owned by African-Americans in the early 1930s.

The following year, while performing an internship with the Montana Historical Society Museum, French received her introduction to museum collections by cataloging miscellaneous farm and medical equipment.

After earning her degree in 2016, French took four months off and visited relatives in the Seattle, Washington, area. When she returned to Montana, she accepted her first internship not linked to coursework. Employed with the Butte Archives for six months, she digitized photos for online use. Her appreciation and respect for Butte's history grew as a result of her service with the Butte Archives.

"Butte embraces its seedy history," French said. She explained how Butte's bawdy, socially darker sides are remembered in the former Dumas Brothel, now a museum. "It was the last brothel operating from Butte's once large and infamous red-light district when it closed in 1982 after 92 years of continuous operation," she added.

This affinity for preserving its past relationship with brothels and bootleggers, miners and fires, vigilantes and violence made Butte a bit of a historian's paradise for French.

According to French, the Butte Archives has one of the largest collections of photographs by C. Owens Smithers. Smithers was a collector of images of Butte and Montana, amassing an impressive collection spanning a period from the 1860s to the 1970s. These images document the development of early mining towns in the West, including the rise of Butte from a mining camp to a multi-ethnic melting pot of cultures. Smithers documented nearly every mining activity, fire, crime, major visitor, and everyday life in Butte from 1921 to 1972.

This massive body of work, which provides "an extraordinary look at Butte," sparked French's interest in photo archives.

"Just as Butte has the Smithers Collection, here in Chinook we have the A.M. Allison Collection," French said. "The A.M. Allison Collection features 3,000 negatives of portraits, places, and events relating to Blaine County, ranging from the 1920s to the 1960s."

After Butte sparked her interest, French decided to pursue more education to fan the flame. She chose a program at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom (UK) because the degree offers curatorial units in collaboration with external museum partners. She earned her Master of Arts Degree in History of Art in September of 2018.

As a graduate student, French not only researched and catalogued museum collections but learned to mount exhibitions. She also contributed volunteer hours at the University of Bristol's Theatre Collection Archives, which has the second largest collection of theatre-related archival materials in the UK, second only to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London.

The V&A is the world's largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects.

"Among other small projects, I helped organize the drawings of stage and costume designer Graham Barlow," French stated.

This emphasis on curating collections and exhibits helped to groom French for her current position as Director of the Blaine County Museum (BCM)-a position she applied for shortly after returning to Havre from the UK.

French's interest in history makes this career a satisfying one. "I am pulled towards history, not only to discover why things are the way they are but to uncover the stories of the past," French explained.

As she reminisced about by-gone times, French described the pleasure she always experienced in listening to her grandmother's stories and recalled fond moments of looking at old photographs in family albums. "These moments gave me my start in believing that history is a fascinating topic."

To share this fascination with others, French has developed a Facebook Page for the BCM, as well as an Instagram Aaccount. Most recently she has been posting about the A.M. Allison Collection, in an effort to bring more attention to the museum's visual resources.

"There is such a depth in Allison's portraits. They communicate so much about the individual portrayed. They also capture the diversity of Blaine County during the 1920s through the 1940s. Chinook was quite diverse for a period when Mexican migrant workers were in the sugarbeet fields and those with Japanese ancestry were in the relocation camps located here," French said.

French credited former BCM Director Jude Sheppard and her staff for their skilled work in preserving and creating exhibits of Allison's work. "Jude made this a good position to inherit," French claims.

Finishing the work begun on the Allison Collection is one of French's goals. In line with that goal, French wants to shine a spotlight on the photo archives and to make people aware of them, celebrating not only the fame of Allison and his subjects but the prints of Charles E. Morris.

"Morris should be as well-known as Charlie Russell. Both used art to show what life was like on Montana's open range and both have strong connections to the American West and to Art History. Just as Russell painted and sculpted, Morris used a camera, first in Big Sandy and later in Chinook. A pioneering photographer, Morris had a studio and office on Chinook's main street from 1900-1910. Many of his photographs were printed on postcards, which were widely circulated. We have a collection of 300 of these post cards. Many feature images taken of Blaine County specifically," French shared.

She also has plans to bring more high school and college students to the museum.

"I want them to see the museum as a source of knowledge and as a gift. When I was young, I didn't see the beauty of the area's history. In fact, I harbored a type of resentment for this area when I was younger, but North Central Montana actually epitomizes the old west. My perspective has changed and my outlook has been enlarged by the fascinating stories that took place here-stories like the battle and siege of the Bear Paw, one of the most tragic retreats in this nation's history."

French hopes to develop tours of focus that share opportunities with youth so that they can see what's here. This sharing, she believes, will inspire the next generation to take better care of history.

"A good portion of the Highway 2 corridor is not taken care of as it could be-with dilapidated buildings and decaying history. Some communities are not thriving. If we can inspire people to invest in making improvements to historically important properties, everyone benefits."

Talking further on the topic, French sees a huge potential for tourism if we tap into our historical roots. "Projects start with appreciation," she said. "If we show appreciation and exhibit fascination, people begin to connect to history more."

As our interview was winding down on May 29, French spoke about the afternoon's scheduled trip out to the Bear Paw Battlefield (BPB). Gail Fisher, a former Chinook resident who works with Central Montana Tourism, secured a grant through the Montana Tourism Office to create a promotional video of the BCM and the BPB.

Calling the BPB a "tremendous historical asset," French plans to ensure that the site is remembered for its significance. The promotional video will help in that regard.

To further commemorate the history of the Bear Paw Battlefield and to serve as a reminder of history, French is organizing a cultural event for Chinook. The event will be held at the Blaine County Library on the first weekend in October.

French applied for and received a grant with Humanities Montana to provide a stipend for LeRoy Seth, a Nez Perce elder who is from Lewiston, Idaho, and whose great-grandfather fought in the battle. Seth will be joined by Terry Ball from Cascade, Montana, and the two will present on the significance of the BPB and the Nez Perce Indians' surrender to the United States Army on October 5, 1877, after a 1,300 mile retreat.

Ball, a retired salesman for Pendleton, commissioned the design of a custom wool blanket that would honor Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. Consulting with Seth and another Nez Perce elder, Silas Whitman, Ball wanted the Pendleton blanket to be symbolically meaningful in its telling of the 1877 journey of a band of Nez Perce people as they tried to make their way to freedom in Canada.

The design for the Pendleton wool blanket features symbols and colors representing the Nez Perce, as well as tribal leaders, landscapes, and battle sites from the War of 1877.

This local representation excited French, who exclaimed: "The Bears Paw Mountains and the battlefield located 16 miles south of Chinook are featured on this blanket, and we have one right here!"

French, whose directorship involves dealing with finances and the book store, creating new exhibits, writing grant applications, acting as a guardian of the Blaine County collection, and taking care of the archives, shared additional goals for the facility.

"I need to speak with the Board about these ideas, but I'd like to start a Friends of the Museum volunteer group, develop a historic walking tour of Chinook-maybe guided by an app-and for the long term, see about providing a safer storage environment for our collection. It wouldn't have to be climate controlled, but the basement of this building is plagued with problems. To keep our collection intact, we need to discuss preservation. After all, these resources are not replaceable. They are part of the fabric of the story of the American West, and as such, they are extremely valuable and a huge asset to this area."

 
 

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