The Gold Rush, which brought many new immigrant communities to the American West, made a permanent impact on American culture by prompting the development of many Western towns. However, the Chinese immigrant mining population in the Boise, Idaho area has had little museum representation despite the more than 300,000 Chinese people who emigrated to the US between the 1840s and 1880. To rectify this, the Idaho Museum of Mining and Geology (IMMG), in collaboration with members of the Payette National Forest, the Asian American Comparative Collection, Boise State University/US Army Corps of Engineers, and the University of Denver, developed an exhibit on the lives, histories, and contributions of Chinese immigrant miners who lived and worked in the Boise region. The exhibit opened at the IMMG in spring 2021. This thesis is a reflection on and analysis of that museum exhibition development process. It focuses on the collaborative work necessary to curate a humanities-focused exhibit in an industrial science museum. This thesis also explores the process of creating an exhibit during the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in March 2020 and has impacted almost every aspect of this research and project.
","abstract_html":"<p>The Gold Rush, which brought many new immigrant communities to the American West, made a permanent impact on American culture by prompting the development of many Western towns. However, the Chinese immigrant mining population in the Boise, Idaho area has had little museum representation despite the more than 300,000 Chinese people who emigrated to the US between the 1840s and 1880. To rectify this, the Idaho Museum of Mining and Geology (IMMG), in collaboration with members of the Payette National Forest, the Asian American Comparative Collection, Boise State University/US Army Corps of Engineers, and the University of Denver, developed an exhibit on the lives, histories, and contributions of Chinese immigrant miners who lived and worked in the Boise region. The exhibit opened at the IMMG in spring 2021. This thesis is a reflection on and analysis of that museum exhibition development process. It focuses on the collaborative work necessary to curate a humanities-focused exhibit in an industrial science museum. This thesis also explores the process of creating an exhibit during the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in March 2020 and has impacted almost every aspect of this research and project.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Bennett, Jordan Kathleen"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"M.A. in Anthropology","degree_level":"Masters Thesis","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Nicole Herzog","Christina Kreps"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-03-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2024-03-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:01:48Z","subjects":["Chinese immigrant miners","Collaboration","Industrial museum","Reflexive museology","Anthropology","Arts and Humanities","Chinese Studies","East Asian Languages and Societies","Migration Studies","Museum Studies","Social and Cultural Anthropology","Sociology"],"languages":["English (eng)"],"rights":["Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
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