Tall tales keep growing at the MSU Museum.
Stories that only were known through oral tradition are transformed into a visual medium in the new exhibit, “Storytelling Through the Mail: Tall Tale Postcards.”
The cards and exhibit items show fictional situations, such as a dead man tied to the hood of a car as a deer drives through town, a rabbit bearing antlers and a fish that grew ivory white fur to shield itself from frigid lake waters. The postcards and other specimens depicting age-old tales date back almost 100 years.
“It’s kind of unique because this is generally a spoken form of storytelling,” said Lora Helou, spokeswoman at the museum.
The exhibit opened last week and will continue showing until September in the Heritage Gallery at the museum. The gallery typically showcases historical specimens from the Great Lakes area.
“It’s based on research our curators have done,” Helou said. “These are history and they reflect on us and our heritage.”
There are more than 80 tall-tale postcards dating back to the early 1900s, as well as other specimens showing old folklore.
“It’s a lot of fun, because you know we’re poking fun at ourselves,” Helou said.
Most of the cards are photographs or drawings by artists from around the nation, with special photography that was advanced for the time period. One photographer is William Martin, whose photographs of giant rabbits and oversized fruit circulated from 1908 to 1910. Another artist, Richard Miller, is best known for his “Tables Turned” postcards published in 1955, showing deer hunting the hunters.
“A lot of the earlier examples are done through photographic trickery,” said Michele Beltran, traveling exhibits coordinator for the museum.
Other forms of telling tall tales, such as taxidermy pieces, magazine covers, political cartoons and an old mail wagon, are scattered around the gallery to help bring more depth to the stories. The antlered-rabbit, or jackalope, a taxidermist’s joke, accompanies the cards, Helou said.
“I thought the jackalope was real at first, until my friend told me they just glued the antlers on,” pre-vet junior Patricia Mead said. “I like it. My first impression was that it’s very American, and I like that right now.”
The exhibit wasn’t always geared toward nationally known tall tales. When it was started, it was primarily Michigan-based. Beltran said the exhibit has changed enormously since it began in 1996 as part of the Traveling Exhibitions Service.
“It’s been drastically upgraded,” she said. “We probably doubled the size of it, and it’s much more in-depth.”
Tall-tale postcards from California, Kansas and other states have been donated to the museum for this exhibit. Beltran has hopes of bringing the exhibit to other areas.
“I’m looking forward to getting venues outside of Michigan,” Beltran said.
Beltran said visitors have reacted well to the exhibit, laughing and raising their eyebrows at some of the interesting images shown.
“I love to watch kids in our galleries in our museum,” Beltran said. “When you hear them laughing, you know you did something right.”
