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Keeping pets is a fundamental part of American life and has been for centuries.
“Pets aren’t a modern trend or fashion, and there’s a lot more to them than simply getting a dog or cat and changing the Kitty Litter,” said Nathan Stalvey, curator of temporary exhibitions and graphic design at McKissick Museum.
“There is really more about the bond between animals and their human owners that can be hard to explain.”
The depth of that bond—one that can make pets seem like a member of the family—will become evident for visitors to “Pets in America: The Story of Our Lives with Animals at Home,” a new exhibit at McKissick Museum for which Stalvey served as project manager.
The exhibit, which will be on display from Dec. 3 through April 22, 2006, was inspired by the work of Katherine C. Grier while she was an associate professor of history at USC. The University of North Carolina Press published her book, Pets in America, this fall.
After its Columbia premiere at McKissick, the exhibit will go on tour to Indianapolis, Ind., Grand Rapid, Mich., Lexington, Mass., and possibly Chicago and the Winterthur Museum near Wilmington, Del., where Grier is now a professor of material culture studies.
Work on the exhibit, which includes 2,000 square feet of floor space and some 250 items, began in August 2002. In addition to Grier’s research, it also drew on the efforts of Jason Shaiman, McKissick’s chief curator, and the rest of the McKissick staff and its graduate assistants.
McKissick and the University provided funding with additional support from the Humane Society. About a dozen other organizations also contributed to the exhibit in kind by loaning objects, providing speakers or, in the case of the National Association of Humane Environmental Education, printing a special edition of its children’s newsletter, Kind News, which features an article on the exhibit.
The history of pet keeping in the United States has been a social, cultural, and economic phenomenon, Stalvey said. The exhibit provides a view of the activity from the standpoint of material cultural since the 18th century.
Sections of the exhibit include titles such as “A Natural History of Pets,” “At Home With Animals,” and “The Pet As Patient.”
Different themes emerge in the exhibit, said Stalvey, including the nature of a pet, other people’s interpretations of pets and what they mean to them, and at the end of the exhibit, another look at the concept of pets after visitors have had a chance to reflect on the subject.
In addition to the McKissick exhibit, “Pets in America” also features a Web site (petsinamerica.org) that can be viewed either in lieu of or as a complement to the museum’s exhibition. McKissick also is arranging for University classes to visit the exhibit and providing speakers who will talk about how it relates to different curriculum areas.
Because Grier’s book and the exhibit share the same name, it’s easy for people to assume the two go hand-in-hand, but actually they’re different in several ways, Stalvey said. “The book is completely separate and is more of a scholarly approach to the subject.”
He hopes visitors to the exhibit will come away from it with a deeper appreciation for pets, whether or not they own one.
“This will appeal to everyone,” he said. “The target audience is as wide and general as possible.”
11/05
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The exhibit includes vintage photos of people and their pets. 
