0.3 Chapter one: crisis in the headlines  (Page 3/3)

The firestorm of public criticism spread rapidly. The New York Times published an article headed "Museum's Downfall: Raiding Endowment to Pay for Growth," which described the circumstances that led to the erosion of the Society's en­dowment and criticized the role played by the Society's board, especially in the area of fundraising.

The mounting public controversy debilitated the Society. Less than one month after the announced layoffs, the Society's director resigned and his chief deputy was dismissed. In a step that would be repeated during the 1993 crisis, a blue-ribbon advisory committee composed of influential business people and arts administrators was convened to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the Soci­ety's mission, operations, and future prospects.

The causes

Of course, the simplest and presumptive explanation for the Society's failures— and the one generally accepted by most observers who know little more than what they read in the newspapers—is that the Society had been poorly managed and improperly governed. Someone must be responsible. However, the rush to fix blame can have highly undesirable consequences. Most important, it can deflect attention from the root causes of difficulty and lead one to believe that problems will be solved by replacing a chief executive and restructuring membership on a board of trustees.

The fact that the Society suffered two very similar crises in such a short period of time should make one wonder whether the Society's problems were more deeply seated—more structural—than the newspaper article criticisms suggested. After all, the Society was effectively reborn in 1988. Not only did the Society hire a new director, but ten new members were added to the board of trustees. Between 1988 and 1993, experienced leadership with a track record of success executed a plan devised by a blue-ribbon committee under the microscope of intense pub­lic scrutiny. Nonetheless, the result was, once again, financial crisis, harsh criti­cism, and the threat that die Society's collections would be dispersed. There must be more to the story.

How far back?

Any attempt to uncover the root causes of the Society's problems clearly re­quires an investigation of its history. But how far back need one go? Very far, actually. Many of the Society's present problems have ancient antecedents.

Consider the criticism that the Society has acted as an elitist private club. In January 1917, one of the Society's members stood up at a meeting and declared the Society "dead and moribund." She said: "I have been attending the meetings of the New-York Historical Society for nearly three years, and have not heard one new or advanced scientific thought, although many distinguished scholars have visited the city."

While the superb collections of two sister societies are nobly housed in the great museums of Art and Natural History, where all the world may enjoy them, darkness and neglect have been the portion of the great aggregation of books, pictures, antiquities and memorials of great men and of stirring events that for nearly a century has been in process of collection by the New-York Historical Society. Apart from a very limited number of persons interested in antiquarian lore, the existence of this great collection has been unrecognized, and when the time comes that it can be worthily displayed, the people of New York will mar­vel how it has happened that treasures so worthy of civic pride have so long remained hidden from popular view. By some strange freak of progress this great museum remained, as it were, stranded by the upward current of the city's growth and has for many years lain forgotten and neglected in what was once the centre of wealth and culture.

Just as these criticisms of the Society's activities have historical precedents, so do doubts about the Society's viability as an institution. In 1825, the Society faced a debt that threatened its very existence. The issues the Society faced then were remarkably similar to those it would face 168 years later:

The committee confesses its entire inability to devise any means to liquidate a debt of this magnitude. Every possible economy was used to save further ex­pense. The position of Sub-librarian was abolished and the library closed;... it had been suggested that [several libraries in the city]combine to form one great public library but nothing came of this proposal. ... It was proposed that the So­ciety sell its library to pay its debts. This, of course, raised a storm of protest both in and out of the Society and it was suggested that the Society might not have the legal right to sell gifts. .. . The Society's situation was indeed desperate.

The Society's problems are not new. Even under the best of circumstances they would not be easy to solve. Two hundred years of institutional inertia is not reversed quickly. But the depth of the historical roots of these difficulties also has implications for the scope of this study. Because fundamental questions about the viability of the Society have existed since its earliest days, this narrative must start at the beginning: 1804. That is indeed where Chapter Two begins.