Coffee explains that museums were originally created by and for a small, elite group within a larger society. Museums were originally located in places where their surrounding communities would almost entirely be made up of people from this group. However, population migrations and demographic changes have meant museums are now visited by much more diverse groups of people. This change exposed a lot of issues with representation in museums.

I certainly wouldn’t say these issues have been completely solved in the time since the article was written but the progress that has already started in 2008 has continued. Coffee praises the National Museum of the American Indian, one of the Smithsonian Institution’s museums which had opened in 2004. American Indians are a group who have historically been misrepresented in museums in a number of ways. Exhibits about American Indians lacked voices from that community, depicted American Indian cultures as being strictly a part of history rather than something that still existed, and may have included racist or otherwise inaccurate information. The opening of the National Museum of the American Indian made huge steps to correct these issues. Coffee explains that while the museum was being developed, “NMAI enlisted advisors from two-dozen Native communities to help the museum develop its inaugural exhibitions” and on its launch, “more than 20,000 Native People converged on Washington to celebrate the museum. The Washington Post (22 September 2004) quoted one attendee declaring that the museum represented ‘the greatest thing to happen to Indian people in 500 years’.”

At the time this article was published, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, another Smithsonian Institution museum, was already in the process of being created but it wouldn’t actually open for another 8 years. Since this article was published, the museum has gone on to open and received a similar reception to the National Museum of the American Indian. Like the NMAI, the National Museum of African American History and Culture seeks to include and better represent a group of people that have historically been excluded from and/or misrepresented in museums.