Labor

Reinventing Museum Careers

By Martha Morris

Museum workers tend to have a high sense of ethics, strong workplace values, and genuine pride in their organizations, relative to many other professions. But in recent times, the field has experienced a variety of challenges with employee …
Taking Account

By Bill Tramposch

It’s natural that people tend to “take account” of their lives as they get older. They become interested in reviewing where they and their ancestors have been, and pay increased attention to matters of legacy, especially pertaining to …
Revisiting Volunteers and Museum Labor

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m working on an essay about museum volunteers and diversity, exploring how this issue intertwines with efforts to diversify our staff, boards, and audiences. What are the barriers to volunteering? Is the opportunity and ability to …
TrendsWatch 2019: Take Care: Building resilience and sustainable practice

By Elizabeth Merritt

This is one of the five trends from the 2019 TrendsWatch. Click here to read more about the full report. “Self-care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” —Eleanor Brownn Society owes a debt to everyone who does the hard …
Museums as a Pink Collar Profession

By Joan Baldwin

This week, my colleagues at GEMM (the Gender Equity in Museums Movement) published their second white paper, Museums as a Pink Collar Profession. GEMM’s paper poses some complex questions about our field. Among other things, it asks …
The Power of a Paid Internship: Creating pathways to careers in museums

By Makeba Clay

In 2015, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation issued a report on diversity in art museums that reinforced what is obvious to anyone working in or affiliated with the industry: non-Hispanic white men dominate leadership positions, and there is a …
Museopunks Episode 25: The Next Chapter

By Suse Anderson

As former Museopunk Jeffrey Inscho leaves the museum world, we take a moment reflect on the factors that influence a decision to leave or join the museum profession. We also examine what outside organizations can gain from hiring museum …
The Question of Gender: The “Unseen” Problem in Museum Workplaces

By Joan Baldwin

Joan Baldwin is Curator of Special Collections at The Hotchkiss School. Why is it important? Because for too long women–and more recently those openly identifying as women–have experienced both hostile and benevolent sexism in the museum …
Sometimes to find the future, you have to learn from our past…

By Sage Morgan Hubbard

ELLA’S SONG “We who believe in freedom cannot rest We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons That which touches …
Labor 3.0: new jobs, or a jobless future?

By Elizabeth Merritt

“The issue is jobs. You can’t get away from it: jobs. Having a buck or two in your pocket, and feeling like somebody.”—Studs Terkel In the last two centuries, labor pivoted from the farm and workshop to the factory and the office. Now, as …