Hi Robbie,

One possible source here in our state would be Ohio Wesleyan University,
which is the alma mater of Branch Rickey, the baseball executive who
helped break major league baseball's color line in 1947 by signing
Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers.  This month, Ohio Wesleyan is
presenting a number of programs about Rickey and Robinson, including an
exhibition.  Here's the link for more information:
http://rickeyrobinson.owu.edu/

Wishing you all the best with Hometown Teams--a great topic for a MoMS
exhibit.

Jack Shortlidge
OHC

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum on Main Street [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Davis, Robbie
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 4:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MoMS' New Exhibition -- We Need Your Help


Everyone,

As you know from Carol's announcement, we're excited that our
newly-selected "Hometown Teams" exhibition is beginning development. Of
course, that also means we've got a lot of work ahead of us. We'd love
to have your help and input as we begin identifying images for the
exhibition.

Our many journeys for MoMS have taught us many things. Perhaps most
importantly, we know that communities, small museums and small
historical societies all over the country have vast collections --
objects, images, you name it. And, we believe that "Hometown Teams" will
really benefit from identifying images from every corner of the country
to illustrate the impact that sports has on building nation and
community.

Here's our plea. We know that you all know your state's cultural
organizations extremely well. Your own travels in your states have
likely revealed great local collections of sports images. Could you
please let us know of communities and museums in your state that you
know have important images reflecting sports history in your state or in
their community? It could be photos from a 1925 basketball championship
game, or a photo of crowds at a high school football game, or the first
African American baseball player in a rural community. We would like to
begin researching and obtaining images for the exhibition immediately.
Leads from you will help us tremendously. We look to many great archives
and repositories to develop MoMS exhibitions. We'll research them again
for this project, but we feel strongly this time that photos documenting
local sports tend to remain close to home. We know that including these
images will make this project incredibly rich and provide a solid
foundation for superb local exhibitions and programs.

Please feel free to contact me ([log in to unmask]), Tiffany Ruhl
([log in to unmask]), and Alex Charleston ([log in to unmask]) with any
suggestions. We're also planning to send a note next week to past and
future venues in our database to request their help and will mention our
search on our blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Thanks in advance for helping us with this project.

All the best,
Robbie

Robbie Davis
Project Director, Museum on Main Street
Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
P.O. Box 37012 MRC 941
Washington, DC 20013-7012
202-633-5335
[log in to unmask]