Human Desire

Over the past week, Nancy, the musuem's Educator and Ray, our Distance Learning Developer have been hard at work defining a list of personalities that were active in what is now western New York during our study period, 1650 - 1850. They will have 15 or that we will begin researching their activities in detail to see how personal desires motovated them.

While they are digging into the musuem's archives and library to find people, I have been studying the concept of Human Desire. The exhibition will combine people and desires to develop conclusions on how human desires, such as greed forged the western New York we know today.

The concept of greed, acquiring more of some material posession that one could ever use or need, is something we all can relate to. Greed is always what the other person has. "You are greedy" Seldon will the healthy personality refer to them selves as being greedy. Greedy is not so much a desire but label given to those who have an unrelented pursuit of economic gain beyond what their society considers healthy.

Is greed good or bad? Only society can answer that question because societial norms regulate behavior. Maybe a little greed is good in some societies. In others, such as the Native American there was no ownership of land or property and being described as a greedy had a low threshold.

If we accept the premis that human nature in its essential qualities the same among all men then what specifically prompts some to pursue then what is it in people that motivate them to seek material posessions in excess of sociatial norms?

This leads to the age old sociological question, "Is man basically evil and his actions contrilled by his society's norms or is man basically good and it is society that corrupts and governs devient actions?

These are issues that we will use in defining our personalities who affected the early development of our region.

In addition to greed we will be looking at other behaviors, self preservation, control over others, fear of failure, and the like.

The exhibition will not only be a study into our region's past but a study of the sociology and norms of the times that regulated behaviors. What was considered greedy in 1650 may not be what is considered greedy in 1850. So we may be aiming at a moving target.

An interesting project, for sure

The Ontario County Historical Society is charged with preserving and promoting the history of western New York State. The charge was refined in our Strategic Plan that was adopted in 2007 and updated in 2009.

We operate a 10,000ft2 museum in Canandaigua, NY, that was chartered by the NYS Education Department in 1902. I am sure you can see why we were thrilled to be the recipient of a Museums for America Grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the fall of 2010 to develop an exhibition on the early history of what is now western New York. The exhibit will be examining how human desires affected the early development of western NY and shaped the region, as we know it today. The Exhibit will examine the period 1650 - 1850. It will largely focus on personalities active in the region during the period.

The exhibit is scheduled to open in the fall of 2012 but there is much work to be done.

We have been looking at the subject for about 18 months and have used NY Council on the Humanities grants and New York State Council on the Arts grants for museum advancement to fund the project. One of the aspects of the research I enjoy is the discussion with humanities scholars. From these discussions we have gained an understanding of the variety of issues of the time. The early discussions set us to work identifying the influential personalities that will be the subject of the exhibition.

There are several personalities that come to mind but the county's founder, Oliver Phelps is my personal favorite. As a Revolutionary War patriot he was a Procurement Officer in the Continental Army and boasted of having $1,000,000 dollars at one time. He and Nathanial Gorham, who participated in the Continental Congress purchased All of Western NY west of the 77th Meridian (Preemption Line) from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1789 and proceeded to sell the land.
That event took place in the middle of our timeframe. What happened before and after and who were the principal players? We will develop a list of 15 or so people and proceed to research their personal desires... such as Greed.

Stay tuned.