SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AND STONE: EXHIBITING GEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MONUMENT REHABILITATION IN A NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

There are numerous geological aspects to the rehabilitation of historic monuments built with stone, but these are seldom interpreted for the general public. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History has developed a temporary (2011–2012) exhibit that focuses on geological aspects of the 2006–2010 rehabilitation of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, a complex Victorian structure located in downtown Cleveland whose interior is lined with large marble tablets containing names of soldiers and sailors from the County who served in the U.S. Civil War. The exhibit contains objects and interactive elements as well as printed panels of text explaining multiple aspects of the rehabilitation. Headings (e.g., Reviving a Cleveland Icon, Symphony in Stone) are used to entice viewers. A major focal point is a video screen which allows the visitor to choose from a “before” video taken in December, 2006, showing some marble panels as they were being removed and an “after” panorama (virtual tour) of the interior of the monument after its mostly marble interior had been cleaned and re-colored. Panorama annotations include a note on the location of the name of Col. Charles Whittlesey, a noted Cuyahoga County geologist and archaeologist who planned defenses of Cincinnati and led troops in the battle of Shiloh. A swiveling-panel interactive allows visitors to choose one of two different white marbles based on enlarged images of their thin sections. The exhibit includes a number of “traditional” specimens, including samples of marble from Carrara and Vermont, as well as other stones (Berea Sandstone, Medina Sandstone, Quincy Granite, and a dark limestone) used in construction of the monument. “Non-traditional” specimens include a facsimile of an 1894 newspaper article that explained how the large marble tablets were etched and colored, a 7.5 by 3.3 dm piece of latex rubber resulting from latex-cleaning of the interior marble, a marble strip with color tests used in determining coloration of the marble, and one of the measuring devices made in our lab and used to measure and characterize warping of large marble tablets inside the monument. This exhibit was designed to be both didactic and entertaining, with an underlying emphasis on usefulness of museum-based collections and geoscientists in rehabilitation of historic monuments.