The Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Cody Firearms Museum brings firearms experts and museum professionals to Cody, Wyoming, May 21–23 for its second Arsenals of History symposium, this year focusing on Ethic of Firearms in Museums.
The three-day Arsenals of History symposium opens May 21 in the Center’s Coe Auditorium with sessions that are free and open to the public.
The May 22–23 workshops are designed specifically for the museum community and requires advanced registration, which is open now through Cody Firearms Museum Assistant Curator Danny Michael.
“Museums with firearms collections face unique challenges and interpretive questions,” says Ashley Hlebinsky, the Robert W. Woodruff Curator of the Cody Firearms Museum. “this symposium brings together authorities in the field to begin creating practical guidelines for museums with firearms.”
In 2017, Hlebinsky received the prestigious Grits Gresham Shooting Sports Communicator Award, presented annually at the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT Show) in Las Vegas. She, along with Michael, are the symposium organizers, and both serve as presenters along with several additional experts from museums across the country and Britain that maintain firearm collections.
Programs for the general public on May 21 include presenters from Autry Museum of the American West, Metropolitan Museum of Art, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, NRA Museum, Wesleyan University, Colonial Williamsburg, Dutch National Military Museum, U.S. Marshals Museum, and London’s Royal Armouries Museum. Representatives are tackling such diverse topics as Teaching Firearms in Universities, Reconversion and Restoration of Flintlocks, How a Museum Gets a Gun, and Collecting Objects with Dubious Pasts. Thanks in part to support from the Gretchen Swanson Family Foundation, the public day is cost free.
Workshops for firearms experts and museum professionals on May 22–23 include topics ranging from the role of collectors and the current firearms debate to legal questions, fakes and forgeries, and web access. Additional speakers hail from Springfield Armory and the National Shooting Sport Foundation. Cost for the museum professionals workshops is $50, and re-registration is required by contacting Danny Michael at [email protected] or 307-578-4099.
For more information on the symposium, including the complete program schedule for each day, visit centerofthewest.org/event/firearms-symposium.
Since 1917, the award-winning Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, has devoted itself to sharing the story of the authentic American West. The Center is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. For additional information, visit centerofthewest.org or the Center’s Facebook page.
