Curating the West

Each Month We Ask Leading Museum Curators About What’s Going On In Their World.

Oliver Winchester’s Jennings 2nd Model Sporting rifle, serial number 28.

Danny Michael, Associate Curator
Cody Firearms Museum, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY
(307) 587-4771, www.centerofthewest.org

What event (gallery show, museum exhibit, etc.) in the next few months are you looking forward to, and why?
Working in the museum world, I have a long list of museums I want to see but haven’t yet. It’s sort of like living next to a major national park: you don’t go as much as you think you should. But next year is the 150th anniversary of the founding of Yellowstone National Park, and I’m looking forward to all the things regional museums (including the Center) will do to commemorate such a significant event. I’m also eagerly awaiting the opening of elk season, but that’s not very museum related.

What are you reading?
I’m reading Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms by Nicholas Johnson. The study of historical minority-used firearms significantly expanded over the last few years and another good work on the topic is Thundersticks by David Silverman. My wife is also patiently letting me work my way through her copies of the Harry Potter series I failed to read in my youth as well as a pair of theological works.

Interesting exhibit, gallery opening or work of art you’ve seen recently.
The Center just opened an exhibit this summer on the primary sources in our archives and how they inform our knowledge about artifacts. We wanted to share how rewarding it is to study primary sources side-by-side related artifacts. The exhibit contains Oliver Winchester’s personal Jennings Rifle and a copy of the letter he wrote about adding it to his collection in 1871.

What are you researching at the moment?
In conjunction with our new exhibit, I’m researching proto-lever action rifle and those firearms that came long before Winchesters became a recognizable Western icon. A long list of inventors, bankruptcies and patent debacles make for a drama-filled, rocky-background story. I hope to write more on that in the future since it is an obscure part of firearms history, despite how influential lever actions were in both historical and popular culture.

What is your dream exhibit to curate? Or see someone else curate?
I’m fascinated by how many historic firearms continue to show up in the classic Western Star Wars, so I’d love to do an exhibit about that and pop culture guns more broadly. So, keep an eye out for that at the CFM in coming years. I’ve also always wanted to do an exhibit that could incorporate food history in some way, i.e. If we are going to do an exhibit about the firearms of the mountain man, can we taste some venison, hard tack and questionable frontier coffee? —