worked with them eight years ago to
commemorate the 90th anniversary of
their magazine, and they wanted to do
something with us again.
"They will be traveling a paneled
display version of the exhibit, and
there's a very extensive Web site that
will be coming up on our museum
Web site, www.hfmgv.org ."
Endelman explains that the technolo-
gy exhibit is different from other exhibits
on which she has worked because plan-
ners did not start with materials already
owned by the museum. After concepts
had been decided, planners looked for
any resource to obtain the necessary arti-
facts to illustrate the ideas.
"We actually got things off an on-
line auction Web site," she says. "I've
seen references to other museums
doing the same thing, and I've talked
to colleagues who are getting artifacts
off the site. They're things that are hard
to find at an antique shop.
"We wanted to talk about medical
developments and the commercializa-
tion of penicillin, which was available
to the public after World War II, for
example, and we got a penicillin bot-
tle from 1945 off the Web site."
Jewish visitors will see a reference to
ethnic music when they take note of
the segment that features the Victrola.
There's Yiddish sheet music from the
Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts.
"The Victrola and availability of
records did two things for people,"
Endelman says. "They introduced pop-
ular culture and helped create a national
culture, but they also helped people stay
in touch with their homeland and their
own culture. Italian Americans bought
records of Caruso, and blacks bought
recordings of the blues. Jews listened to
various kinds of Jewish music."
The exhibit is aimed at family
audiences.
"We want to encourage intergen-
erational dialogue, sharing experi-
ences and maybe understanding why
parents or kids are the way they are,"
Endelman says.
"We hope people will gather personal
insight and see all the various factors that
shape us as individuals." ❑

"Your Place in Time: 20th
Century America" can be seen 9
a.m.-5 p.m. daily at Henry Ford
Museum, where admission is
$12.50 for adults, $11.50 for
seniors 62 and over, $7.50 for
children 5-12 and free to chil-
dren under 5. (313) 271-1620.

um Maven

Judy Endelman oversees collections, curatorial staff and conservation at
Henry Ford Museum 6' Greenfield Village.

T

he Baby Boomers segment of
"Your Place in Time: 20th
Century America" has the most per-
sonal meaning for Judith Endelman,
exhibit director and director of his-
tatiCal resources at Henry Ford
Museum & Greenfield Village.
"There's a lot in the exhibit that
reminds me of my past," says
Endelman, 52, who has been with
the museum for 13 years. "We have
a section where people can listen to
music as it sounded on an AM radio
station, a long-playing stereo set and
an eight-track tape player. Listening
to the Aivl. radio going from station
to station and listening to "Sgt.
Pepper" on the stereo certainly
reminds Inc of being a teenager.
"We also have a pretty long sec-
don of representations of television
programs from the '50s, '60s and
'70s, and that reflects most all of my
life, from Howdy Doody, which I
vaguely remember watching, to All in
the Family, so that's all very powerful.
"A classroom is set up for people to
understand the kinds of drills that
were done during the fear of the atom
bobbin the mid-'50s, and I certainly
have memories of that as well."
Endelman, who grew up in north-
ern California, lived in Berkeley and
the Bay Area during the turbulent
::„,, of student activism and appre-
0):#0 how the exhibit recalls the
.Tent of technology during
'fniies. She participated in
the anti -war marches that
ed that era and were broadcast
e world to see.
went to two different campuses
University of California and
degree in anthropology from
" Endelrnan recalls. 'That
in the '60s, when people went to
college because they wanted to
become enlightened. I really didn't
think of career possibilities.
"My husband, Todd, who teaches
modern Jewish history at the
University of Michigan, also is from
California, and after we graduated
from college and got married, we
lived in Israel for a year. While we
were in Israel, Todd said he wanted

started by the Jewish Federation of
Indianapolis and was published by
the Indiana University Press. I also
did a guide to studying religion in
Indiana and learned a lot about
Protestant denominations and
Catholicism_
"When Todd was approached by
the University of Michigan, we moved
to Ann Arbor because we thought
there would be more opportunities for
me, and we've been here ever since."
During her first year in
Michigan, Endelman had a fellow-
ship at the Bentley Historical
Library at the university. At the
suggestion of a friend, she applied
at the Henry Ford Museum and
worked her way up from positions
of responsibility for text and print
to oversight of collections, curatori-
al staff and conservation.
Other Henry Ford Museum
exhibits developed under her direc-
tion include "Americans on
Vacation" and the Heinz House.
Her area of expertise in 20th-centu-
ry American history is immigrant
and ethnic communities, the focus
of her master's thesis and projects
in Indiana.
"I didn't set out to work in muse-
ums, but when I think about what I
like to do and what I've always
enjoyed, it feels like it was my path —
even though it wasn't a deliberate
path," says Endelman. She is a mem-
Judy Endelman
ber of the American Association of
Museums, Society of American
Archivists
and the Midwest Archives
After earning a degree in
Conference.
American studies, Endelman moved
The Endelmans, active with Beth
to New York with her husband, who
Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, are
got a job at Yeshiva University. She
empty nesters. Son Michael, 23, is a
became an archivist at the Jewish
freelance writer in Boston. Daughter
Theological Seminary and also ran a
Flora is a freshman at Emory
freelance research business, which
University in Atlanta. Both children
included Jewish genealogical studies.
spent a year in Israel with Young
"Being Californians, we found it
Judaea.
a little hard to adapt to life without
"My kids went to the Hebrew
a car, and we moved to Indiana,
Day School [of Ann Arbor], and
where my husband was offered a
when they were students there, I was
job," Endelman recalls. "I ended
active there," Endelman says. "I'm a
up writing a history of the Jewish
big supporter of Jewish community
community of Indianapolis, which
activities." 1-1
was commissioned by the Indiana
— Suzanne Chessler
Historical Society. The project was

to get a doctorate in history, and I
decided to go to library school.
"We moved to Boston, and I went
to Simmons College while he was at
Harvard.
'After I graduated, I started look-
ing around for jobs and stumbled
upon the American Jewish Historical
Society. That job was very important
because it helped me understand that
I really wasn't interested in conven-
tional library work but was very inter-
ested in research and developing col-
lections that were subject focused."

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1999

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