By Anna R Myers
Accessibility should be a cornerstone of which places build to, wanting everyone to be able to access their spaces equally and equitably should be a simple goal to strive for, even if it is not always easy to achieve. Yet this is not always how the world is built. Museums are a key piece of education in this country, with museums people can continue to learn and grow outside of school and academia, even if museums are fueled by academia themselves. So, would it not make sense for museums to be accessible places for all people? The World Chess Hall of Fame, TWCHOF, is a museum that is stuck in between two worlds, one where it strives for accessibility and succeeds in some key area, but also one where it has many areas where it could still grow and become a more accessible and inclusive place for all people. This essay will cover the accessibility of TWCHOF but it also serves a greater function of looking at how all museums can be made more accessible as TWCHOF is merely a framework of a basic museum in this regard.
I feel it is important to understand a brief history of the museum and how it operates before diving into the depth of analysis of its place in an accessible/inaccessible world. The museum as we know it today was opened September 8th 2011, across the street from the Saint Louis Chess Club in the Central West End of Saint Louis.[1] Before this however, it was originally housed in the United States Chess Federation headquarters in New Windsor, New York in 1988, originally opened in 1986, and was named the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame. In 1992 the US Chess Trust purchased the museum and moved it to Washington D.C.[2] Here the museum grew to include multiple chess sets, boards, and trophies before once again moving. In 2001 the museum moved to Miami, Florida where it was renamed the World Chess Hall of Fame and Sidney Samole Museum.[3] This location of the museum expanded to collecting books, memorabilia, advertisements, photographs furniture, journals, and medals on top of trophies, chess sets, and boards, however this museum closed in 2009.[4] This was the longest time period the museum was officially closed before moving to where it is currently located in St. Louis Missouri in 2011.
The museums shows are hosted in a rotating fashion, meaning they do not have a stagnant show that is always being shown, it changes up every few months what is shown in the gallery. Though their displays change every few months the museum does have a permanent collection which also rotates what is displayed this includes the world’s largest chess piece which resides outside the building and has a 24 hour camera watching it that people can view at any point.[5] The current exhibit being hosted, in honor of the 10 year anniversary of the museum, is one that collects all of the past ten years exhibits together to show them off called “Mind Art Experience”. Each floor of the museum is dedicated to a different theme of work involving chess. The types of work that is shown ranges from artistic, historical, educational, and much more. Throughout its time the gallery hosts musical performances and speaker events as well, all centered around chess of course. In the past the museum once had St. Louis artists come and paint all the walls different chess themes and that was practically the whole show. In another event chess players were invited to play with burning candles of different heights. Though this all could not be recreated for this most current show video footage and photographers were displayed in the gallery to show what had taken place in the past. To be age inclusive the museum even hosts an event called Toddler Tuesday for children 0–3 to help with motor skills, language skills, and socialization skills.[6]
To start off with the good things accessibility wise, the museum does have a ramp to enter into the building, and it does not appear to be overly steep, there is also an elevator to get from floor to floor, buttons to open all the doors, and, at the time of my visits, there were still mask requirements and temperature checks for all guests as well.[7] However, the elevator is in an awkward location to get to, it requires guests to navigate through the first exhibit to get to it and hidden behind doors, all of which requires an employee to be with you to access. This hidden access and need to demand help to access the elevator shows a type of inaccessibility of the museum. To be truly accessible the elevators would not need staff members to access, and they would not be hidden behind closed doors. As well, having to navigate through the exhibit to access the elevator shows another type of access barrier, this is because of the floor layout, again, I am not a wheelchair user, nor a mobility aid user, but the space needs to be one that can easily be moved through with a mobility aid, and I cannot say whether it is or not, but I can say that some of the exhibits are rather close together. This is only the edges of which is or is not accessible at the museum and is specifically only focused on the mobility aspect so far.
When thinking of the museum in a more intersectional sense I see all sorts of other problems that arise not only at TWCHOF, but at many museums in general. For one, there is no braille on any of the exhibit descriptions, and the print is rather small and at a variety of heights. Of course, the lack of braille could be negated with some type of audio device but if those are offered it is not done in an obvious manner, nor would it help someone who might be deaf and blind. As for the size of the print, this is a problem for people who might have vision issues but cannot read braille, if there was braille to be provided in the first place. Then the print descriptions of the pieces being at a variety of different heights goes back to mobility issues but in a different way, people might have trouble bending over to read, or might be too short to read something above them. None of this is even beginning to touch on mental or neurodivergent disabilities which could be more socially impacted by the state of the museum. For instance, someone with a tic disorder like Tourette’s or something similar like Autism might have trouble being quiet and having “quiet hands” in a museum, in a place that is so typically socially quiet this could be very isolating to be the one loud presence in the building. “Participants in many of the focus groups cited the embarrassment of being “yelled at” by museum security staff, generally because they were getting too close to artworks. A number of participants noted feeling unwelcome and wishing that front-of-house staff would ask if they need help and let them know if audio guides, large-print or Braille materials are available. Also cited as making museum visits difficult were poorly marked stairs, dim lighting in galleries, and the size and placement of labels.”[8] This quote is from a focus group of blind museum goers, and non-museum goers, who have experienced discrimination at museums for getting too close to artwork before. It is a perfect simple example of how museums can be powerful places of discrimination for disabled folks.
When thinking about how to make museums a more accessible place it is good to have a basic framework. Some museums have a framework set in place to work with an attempt to make their museum accessible and have this broadcast as a type of accessibility mission statement.[9] This is another thing that TWCHOF is lacking, despite having basic amenities in its museum for physical access purposes it does not boast about accessibility, nor does it have a mission statement about how it is an accessible place or is working on becoming more accessible. While their website is easy to navigate it is distinctly lacking in anything to do with how the museum accommodates disabled individuals, or where to get accommodations while at the museum. While this might seem off topic, it is decidedly not so, the museum also has people standing in each room watching you, the guests, as you go about the museum. Now this is for a twofold measure, this is to protect what is on display in the museum at any given time, but it is also to allow guests to ask questions about what is on display. However, it creates an air of hostility to each room, being watched as you go through silently and alone, it also, based on this next quote, could cause some unfortunate circumstances. “A San Fracnisco art lover told about educating a museum guard. “I was looking at something apparently too close up — I didn’t know about the eighteen-inch rule at that time — I wasn’t touching the art,” she said, when an older guard approached her and “barked at me ‘You’re too close! Get back.’ I turned to her, I was using my white cane at the time, and I said, ‘I’m legally blind. I’m standing close so I can see.’ And she said, ‘Well, you can’t,’ and I said, ‘Okay, I will not get close to the art, but I want you to know that I can’t really see it, but one thing I’d like you to realize, you can’t talk to me in that tone of voice, that’s not okay.’”[10] Though this did not happen at TWCHOF, the people who are watching you walk about are not obviously advertised as being trained on how to work with people with a variety of disabilities. This incident very well could occur at the museum, or any museum in fact, just by the simple metric of an untrained person not wanting someone to get too close to an exhibit. In other scenarios for people with differing disabilities, people could be forced to hide their stims or tics to not be judged in public, or for fear of getting removed for being perceived as a danger to the exhibit.[11] While it is not inherently bad for there to be a person in each exhibit space watching the whole time, they need to be adequately trained on how to help people with a variety of disabilities in order to see those people accommodated and not discriminated against.
There are many ways in which these things can be improved upon, in all museums but also specifically focused on TWCHOF. A good start would be to have a plan of action, or an accessibility mission statement like I mentioned above. “Salmen (1998) states that the most effective way to communicate a museum’s dedication to accessibility is to include an accessibility policy statement or declaration within the overall mission statement of the museum.”[12] This type of statement would include things such as the museums use of ramps, elevators, braille, large print materials, how well the staff is trained, as well as the general mission statement of the museum and what it is trying to achieve.[13] Considering TWCHOF already follows the basics of the ADA by being physically accessible adding a mission statement to their website would not be that difficult. What would be difficult would be improving upon their accessibility by adding large print materials, audio tours, braille, and training to all their staff as well.
Other things that could be improved upon is how much the museum actually works with the disabled community on these improvements and this would be done by some of the following steps. Having a designated Accessibility Coordinator at the museum, this is someone that would work directly with making sure the museum is accessible for those with disabilities.[14] For TWCHOF this person would likely work on making sure all exhibits are physically accessible, hosting sensory friendly days, and even trying to include more work by disabled people when possible. Similar to this, having a accessibility advisory council that the coordinator works with, this would be a group of people that give advise on how best to make the museum and its events accessible for people with a variety of disabilities.[15] Now of course, this comes with a special caveat, it would be best if the accessibility coordinator was a disabled person, and it would be a must that the accessibility advisory council was made up of all disabled individuals. This is because of the idea of “Nothing About Us Without Us”, this idea is simple in that it is straightforward, it just means that when working on things about disabled people, you must include disabled people in the process, for how else are you supposed to truly understand their needs?[16] So in order to follow this idea, the advisory council would need to be made entirely up of disabled people, not of caretakers, or organizations, but of disabled people. Now the coordinator could work with other museums as well on how they have done things to make their museums more accessible, but specifically for this advisory council it would follow the ideas of nothing about us without us.
Just like staff at jobs have other types of sensitivity training, like how to not discriminate based on race, gender, and sexuality, including training on how to not discriminate against disabled people would be a simple addition! On top of that adding something along the lines of how to accommodate those disabled individuals as well would be even better.[17] For TWCHOF this would mean training all the staff on how to accommodate people of a variety of disabilities and how best to work with disabled individuals, so that the disabled person does not end up having to do the job of educating their staff for them. The next step seems simple but would require a lot of effort if changes needed to take place, reviewing the existing facilities and programs to make sure they are accessible.[18] For TWCHOF this could mean reviewing floor plans, making the elevator publicly accessible, providing sensory friendly versions of events, providing sign language interpreters to special shows, and many more possible changes. Finally the museum needs to provide an ongoing way of planning for accessibility, promoting it, and allowing for people to make grievances if something is not up to snuff.[19] The allowing for grievances is especially important because museums are not going to be perfect at all times, nothing is going to be, so it allows for the museum to have room to grow while learning from the public about what it needs to do better on.
All of this applies to TWCHOF because it is an example of a basic museum, it has rotating exhibits, shows, and events for a variety of different ages and people and all of the information provided applies to this museum as well as other museums you might come across. Accessibility is something that all museums should strive for, it is something that all places should strive for. Not simply because it is the law, but because it is the right thing to do. If TWCHOF could build up its accessibility it could become an example for other museums in the St. Louis area of how to be an accessible museum. All TWCHOF needs to do is follow Salmen’s nine steps to accessibility for a museum and listen to the disabled community. It is always okay to mess up, because that means there is room to grow and make changes. Overall, TWCHOF currently only follows the letter of the law when it comes to accessibility, but it could and should strive to do so much more.
Work Cited Page
Brophy, Sarah, and Janice Hladki. “Cripping the Museum.” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, 2014, pp. 315–333., https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2014.25.
“History.” World Chess Hall of Fame, 11 Apr. 2022, https://worldchesshof.org/about/history.
Levent, Nina, and Joan Muyskens Pursley. “Sustainable Museum Access: A Two-Way Street: Disability Studies Quarterly.” Disability Studies Quarterly, https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3742/3274.
McMillen, Rebecca. “The Inclusive Art Museum: Determining Disability Access.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, vol. 4, no. 1, 2012, pp. 101–116., https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/cgp/v04i01/44359.
Obermark, Lauren, and Madaline Walter. “Mad Women on Display: Practices of Public Rhetoric at the Glore Psychiatric Museum.”
Sandell, Richard, et al. “In the Shadow of the Freakshow: The Impact of Freakshow Tradition on the Display and Understanding of Disability History in Museums.” Disability Studies Quarterly, https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/614/791.
Tobias, Addison. “Museum Access and Disabilities: A Critical Examination of Web-Based Museum Resources for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.” 8 Jan. 2020.
[1] Along with the website I got this information from a booklet the museum handed out titled “World Chess Hall of Fame”. The booklet cites the website as it’s source of information so that is what I shall do as well. “History.” World Chess Hall of Fame, 11 Apr. 2022, https://worldchesshof.org/about/history.
[2] “History.” World Chess Hall of Fame, 11 Apr. 2022, https://worldchesshof.org/about/history.
[3] “History.” World Chess Hall of Fame, 11 Apr. 2022, https://worldchesshof.org/about/history.
[4] IBID
[5] IBID
[6] “History.” World Chess Hall of Fame, 11 Apr. 2022, https://worldchesshof.org/about/history.
[7] For the steepness of the ramp, I of course do not use a wheelchair so I am not the best judge of this. This would be better judged by someone who regularly uses a wheelchair.
[8] Levent, Nina, and Joan Muyskens Pursley. “Sustainable Museum Access: A Two-Way Street: Disability Studies Quarterly.” Disability Studies Quarterly, https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3742/3274.
[9] McMillen, Rebecca. “The Inclusive Art Museum: Determining Disability Access.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, vol. 4, no. 1, 2012, pp. 101–116., https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/cgp/v04i01/44359.
[10] Levent, Nina, and Joan Muyskens Pursley. “Sustainable Museum Access: A Two-Way Street: Disability Studies Quarterly.” Disability Studies Quarterly, https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3742/3274.
[11] Stims are somewhat involuntary vocal or physical actions that people with a wide variety of disabilities do in order to self sooth, such a rocking back and forth, shaking hands, humming, or other noises or movements. Tics on the other hand are nearly entirely involuntary and are most typically associated with the disorder Tourette’s. Similar to stims, tics are a wide variety of physical or vocal actions.
[12] McMillen, Rebecca. “The Inclusive Art Museum: Determining Disability Access.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, vol. 4, no. 1, 2012, pp. 101–116., https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/cgp/v04i01/44359.
[13] IBID
[14] McMillen, Rebecca. “The Inclusive Art Museum: Determining Disability Access.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, vol. 4, no. 1, 2012, pp. 101–116., https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/cgp/v04i01/44359.
[15] IBID
[16] Obermark, Lauren, and Madaline Walter. “Mad Women on Display: Practices of Public Rhetoric at the Glore Psychiatric Museum.”
[17] McMillen, Rebecca. “The Inclusive Art Museum: Determining Disability Access.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, vol. 4, no. 1, 2012, pp. 101–116., https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/cgp/v04i01/44359.
[18] IBID
[19] McMillen, Rebecca. “The Inclusive Art Museum: Determining Disability Access.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, vol. 4, no. 1, 2012, pp. 101–116., https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/cgp/v04i01/44359.
