The name might not say it all, but the Baltimore Museum of Industry is much more about people than machines. According to it’s mission statement, the museum “interprets the diverse and significant human stories behind labor and innovation in Baltimore,” with a goal of “inspiring visitors to think critically about the intersection of work and society.” Anita Kassof has led the museum as its executive director since 2015, and is now steering it through a process of growth and reflection: over the past two years, the Museum of Industry has completed a new strategic plan, and has engaged an Urban Land Institute Technical Assistance Panel to provide guidance on everything from exhibits to use of the Inner Harbor promenade that is part of the museum property on Key Highway.
After the collapse of the Key Bridge, journalists looked to the museum to help explain to the nation the significance of the Port of Baltimore and its workers to the city — an opportunity that Kassof embraced. Kassof spoke with Baltimore Fishbowl about the opportunities and challenges facing the Baltimore Museum of Industry in a post-pandemic environment. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Baltimore Fishbowl: How would you describe this moment right now in the museum’s lifespan — and where you want to go?
Anita Kassof: I think that we are at an inflection point. I think that coming out of the strategic plan and with the ULI TAP [Technical Advisory Panel] under our belts as well, we’re at a moment when we’re poised for growth around revisioning our campus and really sharpening our mission and the delivery of our services in a way that is very relevant and timely. You probably saw our mission statement and in the strategic plan, and I am absolutely convinced that we have the most relevant mission of any museum in town, or I’d say perhaps in the country, because we’re a museum about work, and everybody can relate to that. They work, they want to work, they don’t want to work. Their work has changed. The changing nature of work frightens them or intrigues them. So our subject matter is something that everyone can relate to in some way or another.
BFB: One of the interesting recommendations was regarding exhibits, and in particular temporary exhibits, bringing them in, making them more relevant and building a buzz around that. Have you been thinking about that and moving in that direction yet?
AK: Naturally, we have been thinking about that a lot. And even before the strategic plan, we were heading down that path of engaging more with contemporary topics. So our most recent exhibition is called ‘Collective Action,’ which is a look at the contemporary labor movement. And that grew out of a question that we felt that people were asking, based on a lot of the coverage that we’ve all seen in the news. People from Starbucks employees to university workers are organizing and forming unions at their workplaces at a rate that they hadn’t been in the recent past. So we set out simply to answer the question why? Why are people organizing now? But what the exhibition also does, and what the museum is really singularly positioned to do, is to both answer those questions, but then put them into historical context. So after we opened that exhibition, for example, we held a public program where we invited some of the younger employees who are organizing in places like Starbucks, together with Bethlehem Steel retirees who were members of the unions that people more traditionally associate with the labor movement. And we got them in conversation, and it was really interesting to see this kind of intergenerational dialog about issues that are important to both generations, to figure out where the similarities and differences were
A couple of years ago we opened a terrific exhibition called ‘Food for Thought,’ which honored the frontline food service workers in Baltimore City Public Schools who prepare and serve about 80,000 meals a day to Baltimore students, and who, importantly, kept working through the pandemic. So while the school teachers and many of the administrators and the students went shifted to remote learning, the food service workers had to keep coming to work. About 25% of kids in Baltimore City are food insecure, and these folks needed to keep coming to work to feed the children, so we created a really wonderful exhibition honoring them.
Part of the public conciousness
BFB: I think of industry in Baltimore, and a lot of it is waterfront facing, so that if you’re not interacting with the harbor or the water you don’t quite see it a lot. But then we get these tragic events, like a Domino Sugar fire or a Key Bridge collapse. How do these big-scale events affect industry in Baltimore and interest in the museum?
AK: Well, for starters, you made a good point, which is that the port is hidden in plain sight, and that sort of relates to what I’m about to say with regard to the tragedies. Take the Key Bridge tragedy. I think that’s very important for the museum and our role, but I think primarily not because of the tragedy per se, but in helping people make sense of what happened, and again, how that fits into the context of larger questions about work and industrial history.
Very soon after the bridge collapsed, we started getting inquiries from news outlets and from others asking for comment. I think that people naturally saw us as a resource. And then we very quickly announced a collecting initiative. We announced that we would be receiving materials from people who had connections to the Key Bridge, whether it’s photographs or something else. We’re actually going to get a piece of steel from the Key Bridge and create a memorial artwork. And we very quickly got some seed funding to create an oral history project to record the experiences of people whose work and livelihoods have been impacted by the Key Bridge. So I think people see us as a natural resource and source of information when things like that happen. And where appropriate, we’re really gratified to be able to step in. I think that with the Key Bridge in particular, you alluded to something when you first asked the question about about the port really not being typically in the public consciousness, but the Key Bridge collapse changed that. The eyes of the world were on Baltimore for a period of time, acknowledging the importance of us as a connector when it comes to trade, import, export, kind of taking stock of how many jobs are impacted when the bridge collapsed. And I think that the museum has a role to play in making sure that those stories remain in the public consciousness. Because I have always maintained that as a museum about industry in Baltimore, we have opportunities to do more to tell the story of the port and the jobs that impact it. So I think that the Key Bridge disaster, in some sense, provides us that opportunity, while the world is looking at us.
BFB: Your location is phenomenal and is one of the truly great locations in the city of Baltimore. And the Urban Land Institute pointed out that maybe there’s even more to be done — being outward facing — and what the entrance should be like off of Key Highway. How much of that is feasible?
AK: The Urban Land Institute hit on something important, which is that, especially given everything that’s going on in the Inner Harbor, and the city’s refocus on revitalizing the Inner Harbor overall, I think our challenge and opportunity is to demonstrate to people that we are a key part of that chain. The museum has always been envisioned as the terminus of the promenade when it’s finally completed, and we have a significant property because it is itself the site of former industry; we’re in an oyster cannery. So I think that looking holistically at everything that’s going on in the Inner Harbor, we have tremendous opportunities there. That’s more of a long term thing, but you asked about the short term.
And in the short term, what we’re doing with both the Urban Land Institute plan and our strategic plan is to activate the campus more fully. So just in the last few months, we’ve engaged in some amazing partnerships. In April, we partnered with the Baltimore Old Time Music Festival, and we had well over 1,000 people on the campus for a weekend of music and celebration. We had a fantastic Juneteenth celebration here in partnership with tbe BLK ASS FLEA MKT. Again, well over 1,000 people inside and outside all afternoon for music and creative activities and a flea market. And then, most recently, our 4th of July celebration. People watch fireworks from our campus, the best spot in the city, and that was our biggest one to date. So people really appreciate the campus, and I think it just reinforces our role as a community amenity. We want the campus to be lively and hopping.
A beautiful location
BFB: I did see that the number of events you host each year is huge. It’s maybe 150 or more. Is there a enough of a nexus between people coming and wanting to use the space first and then coming back to experience all that the museum has to offer? Or is there an opportunity there?
AK: Both. I think it’s interesting when I’m when I’m out and about and talking about the museum, oftentimes what people will say is, ‘I know the museum. I love the museum. I’ve been to an event there.’ So it’s an opportunity, for sure, because we have so many corporate events, weddings, other kinds of events, they’re positive experiences for people, people come in, they’re in a beautiful space, they have a good time, and they begin to understand that the museum is an exciting place to be outside of their event. So they do come back. They’re familiar with us. And I think that one thing that people realize when you hear Museum of Industry, the first thought might be, we are a museum about machines, but really the more interesting story is, and that we tell is the people who built the machines, the people who use the machines, and sort of what that means for communities.
BFB: Have you thought about a renaming? Has that ever been on the table?
AK: It’s been bandied about over the years. A lot of things are on the table. It’s not out of the realm of possibility.
Baltimore’s history museum
BFB: Industry and work evolves so much. So how do you approach the challenge of connecting the past and the present and then the future of industry, particularly in the Baltimore region?
AK: The first thing is just to acknowledge the rapid change of work today, to provide the historic context, because I think people can better understand what’s going on today if they understand what its predecessors were and how things came about, rather than looking at things in a vacuum. The idea of looking to the future is a little trickier, but one of the things that we’re doing is to develop new kinds of public programs. Not necessarily exhibitions, but public programs that engage people that are doing really interesting things in the world of work today. Whether that’s networking events or panel discussions or films, we’ve got a very exciting lineup. And I think that a lot of those conversations that we’ve got planned for the coming year will address questions about how work is evolving and how it might continue to be reshaped in the future.
BFB: Have you reacted or responded to the part of the analysis about how your revenue structure might be inverse compared to other other institutions, with less revenue from membership and endowment to even on-site gift shop sales?
AK: There are definitely ways to change that, and we are atypical of many museums in that we rely heavily on our events rental income, and we are regularly strategizing, using data more intelligently to help us increase our philanthropic income and also increase visitation. Our challenge is to continue to demonstrate to people that we are an essential community asset that is worthy of support. But we’re not alone in these challenges. It is a tough time to be a museum. As we come out of the pandemic, by some estimates, visitation on average, is depressed by about 20% in museums across the country, and so it’s a steeper hill to climb than it was before the pandemic. We made it through the pandemic pretty strong. We used it as an opportunity to reinvent. We’re small enough that we could be very nimble and change the way we delivered services. We competed successfully for the various sources of federal relief funds. But I know from talking to colleagues in the museum community that we’re not alone in feeling the struggle now.
BFB: Do you see visitors to Baltimore who do a ‘museum tour’ — come from out of town and go to the Lewis Museum, the Visionary Arts Museum, the Walters? Do you become part of that?
AK: Absolutely. Over the years, Visit Baltimore has engaged in a lot of different initiatives to try and get people to extend their stays in Baltimore, to come for more than one attraction or event – maybe to come to a sporting event and then go to museums. And we absolutely have a lot of out-of-town visitors. And I maintain that if you want to get to know Baltimore City from a museum experience, we are the most appropriate place to come visit. Because in a lot of ways, we are Baltimore City’s history museum.
This place was my children’s favorite field trip. Great building!