the annual middle school wax museum

One enduring tradition at my school was simply known as the yearly “Wax Museum.”

It never seemed odd or out-of-place to me, likely owing to my growing up with it. Other weird, localized phenomena like the annual Rube Goldberg machine contests also just seemed… normal to me. I didn’t quite grasp that other schools had other curriculums and traditions, at least not until I got online and asked around. “Wax museum? What are you talking about?”

Either way, the yearly Wax Museum was a huge deal at my middle school, one of the biggest academic events of the year. Despite the fact we were graded on the Wax Museum, it was a fun break from the usual monotony. The Wax Museum always took place in that large gymnasium with a stage where we also ate lunch, a staple of many rural schools. If I remember right, there were even snacks during the event, so what’s not to like?

Strictly speaking, the Wax Museum was part of the seventh grade world history class’s “Living History” curriculum. The entire middle school was involved, though. We all attended it, and knew we’d have our chance. Some people even chattered years beforehand about what they wanted for their very own wax museum persona…

Oh, did I say persona? Ahh, yup. That, you see, was precisely the point of the Wax Museum. Each student would choose (or receive a gentle assignment of) an historical figure. We then spent a month or so preparing by researching the person, and finally, building a costume and cosplaying at the Wax Museum itself in the gymnasium. As part of this, we were expected to give a short interactive presentation in-character.

At this point, I’m positive you’re either nodding along in complete understanding about a creative homework assignment, or you’ve begun imagining the plentiful things that could go wrong here.

As you’d expect, teachers often nixed some personae entirely - we didn’t have any failed German painters wandering the gymnasium, thankfully, Nor did we get any Joe Stalin or even a Tricky Dick Nixon. A lot of personae weren’t available simply because we, as seventh graders at a rural school, couldn’t find out enough about them. The internet had yet to congeal into the source of weird trivia about famous and historical folks that we know it to be today.

This was in the 1990s. Because so many of the figures features prominently in our textbooks with copious biographical information were men, girls playing a male character were encouraged. Otherwise, they’d run out of presidents or something. I don’t know. This was in the 1990s. I’m certain that if there were Wax Museums today (and there probably aren’t), someone would raise a pointless little ruckus about “drag in schools” over such a thing.

Figures from the classical era and antiquity were overrepresented in the Wax Museum. I don’t know why. Everyone wanted to be Socrates. I have no idea why. He was even more in-demand than Caesars. As to those, I think we had a Julius, of course, but also an Augustus. Hmm, maybe because bedsheets are easy to fashion into togas?

Amongst ladies, things were, of course, trickier, in terms of costume. Halloween had been a month or so earlier, so we could repurpose some costumes if necessary. Bedsheets also worked if we scrounged up a lady from antiquity ourselves. There was also the option of choosing a woman from the past fifty years and donning someone’s hand-me-downs, which is what I did.

As Rachel Carson, I wore a tie-dyed t-shirt that I wrote “Save the eagles!” on in puff paint. I assumed rather naïvely (in retrospect) that Carson would’ve worn something very hippie-ish, given that she was an environmental activist from the 1960s. It was difficult to research what she actually looked like in the 1990s beyond a few grainy older photos. I, like most of the class, used my imagination copiously when designing the costume.

I enjoyed giving a few presentations, strangely. This might be because my chosen persona was so obscure. I holed up in a corner of the gymnasium alongside Julius Rosenberg (who narrowly was allowed to participate). Few other students approached to hear me talk about the silencing of the birds, their eggs, and the dangers of pesticides like DDT. My favorite teachers did, though, probably because it was their job. This helped me relax about the whole thing.

This was a source of controversy amongst our parents, apparently, but I only found out years, years later. It wasn’t something they discussed with us. Parents generally disliked projects with a craft component on principle, but something as elaborate as the Wax Museum cost a lot, really. That’s a problem for some families, and arguably, the dissidents had a point.

Why did they have us do this? I guess it was a fun and interactive way to engage us in learning about history. It worked, too, after a fashion. Boys fought over which Caesar was better and who got to be the better Caesar. Many of us dug deep for the perfect personae, despite it being the 1990s. Research options were limited to our local library and what paltry internet access was available. True, the internet existed at the time - but believe me, it was nothing like the information tsunami people might expect.

I still hope I didn’t do too poorly by Rachel Carson. Much respect to her. Absolute fucking legend.