'Museum on the Move' - repurposed 1954 Airstream - Honors Louisiana Women

'Museum on the Move' - 
 repurposed '54 Airstream
 (The Advocate/Brad Bowie)

An article in Baton Rouge, LA, Advocate newspaper by Marsha Sills highlights a unique museum exhibit "that’s going places — literally."

A group of University of Louisiana at Lafayette graduate students "created the first exhibit — on influential Louisiana women — for the Museum on the Move, a 23-foot 1954 Airstream travel trailer stripped down and converted into a mobile museum."

As part of a new project of the university’s public history program, the students put together the inaugural moving exhibit, “Crossing the Line: Louisiana Women in a Century of Change.”

"The exhibit featuress 10 Louisiana women from the late 19th century to the present who created extraordinary change in the state," said UL-Lafayette associate professor of history John Troutman, who learned about the mobile museum concept at a conference.

The "Airstream cost about $10,000 and a local contractor, John Steinman, helped transform the space into a museum. All the retro comforts of the 1954 travel trailer were replaced with wood flooring and industrial framing to accommodate museum panels. The exhibit is based on research provided by students in a Louisiana Women course taught by history professor Mary Farmer-Kaiser."

Read the full article and see more photographs by clicking here.

Photo: Top: (Advocate staff photo by Brad Bowie) -- University of Louisiana at Lafayette graduate students Daniel Manual (front) and Eric Scott hang museum exhibit panels about Louisiana women inside of a repurposed Airstream. Once completed, the Museum on the Move will travel to various schools and festivals across Louisiana. (Bottom) Source: Museum on the Move.