Smithsonian exhibit comes to Rogers City

The Way We Worked, a traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibition coordinated by the Michigan Humanities Council, will be on display in Rogers City at the Presque Isle County Historical Museum’s new Henry and Margaret Hoffman Annex, 175 West Michigan Ave. beginning Saturday at noon and continue until Oct. 28.

The crates were going to begin arriving Wednesday and members of the media were going to be given a special preview Thursday. 

Adapted from an original exhibition developed by the National Archives, The Way We Worked draws from the Archives’ rich photographic collections to tell the story of work in American culture. Why, where and how we work? What value does work have to individuals and communities? What does our work tell others about us?

Rogers City is the only site in the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula that has been chosen to host the exhibit.

THE EXHIBITION uses graphics, audio components, photo flipbooks, film and numerous artifacts from history to share the story of our national work force. 

Spanning the years 1857-1987, the images in the exhibition cover the entire range of photographs on the topic in the National Archives holdings.  

Visitors will also have the opportunity to take an interactive approach through Stories on Main Street – a Web site and accompanying phone application that make it easy to record and share small town memories.

And on the heels of the exhibit’s opening, the museum received financial support from an unexpected location—Afgh

anistan.

Museum executive director and curator Mark Thompson received an e-mail Friday morning from David Glenn to the effect that he and his wife Michelle will match any donations to support the exhibit and related activities up to a total of $1,500 in the name of their downtown business, Chicory Café.

Glenn previously worked for Michigan State University’s Cooperative Extension Service in Presque Isle County. He is currently Chief of Party for the Afghanistan Agricultural Extension Project in Kabul, Afghanistan.  

Thompson said the offer from the Glenns came in the middle of a campaign to raise funds to advertise the exhibit and support several related museum programs.