Podcast Review: We the Museum

I recently listened to the short podcast We the Museum: A Podcast about Museum Workers hosted by Hannah Hethmon. Previously, Hethmon hosted the podcast, Museums in Strange Places, while her newest show is Huminites Equal for the Federation of State Humanities Councils. I will add these podcasts to my ever-growing listening list. Meanwhile, the fifteen episodes of We the Museum discussed current topics including museum unionization, social media stardom, and exhibits curated by historically excluded communities.

My top three favorite episodes were “TikTok Success at the Sacramento History Museum (with Jared Jones)”, “Unfinished Revolutions: Museums & America’s 250^th (with Madeleine Rosenberg)”, and “The Ethics of Mummies in Museums (with Angela Steinne). Each episode featured unique materials and was presented in a relaxed, conversational style, as if the listener were sitting with museum professionals in a gallery or design studio.

The Sacramento History Museum rose to fame during the COVID-19 pandemic when the museum was mostly closed to the public but curators and volunteers were still at work. Digital Content Coordinator Jared Jones decided to create a TikTok account showcasing the work of volunteer Howard (surname withheld) who specializes in creating newspapers on a historic printing press. At the time of recording in December 2022, the account had 2.4 million followers. As of writing this blog in October 2025, the account has 2.9 million followers. Jared described the balance between crafting educational material to further the mission of the museum with generating regular content to align with the opaque TikTok algorithm. For me, the funniest part of the episode was Howard’s initial reluctance to participate. After investigating TikTok for the first time, he thought the platform only involved dancing teenage girls.

“Unfinished Revolutions” aligned with my love of colonial American history and the country’s upcoming semiquincentennial, now branded as America250. Guest speaker Madeleine Rosenberg has the lengthy and important title of William G. Pomeroy Foundation Semiquincetennial Manager at the American Association for State and Local History. Madeleine assists in planning celebrations that will be enjoyed by everyday people, rather than huge political events with celebrity guests. She noted that many of today’s leading public historians became interested in the field when they were children during the bicentennial in 1976. During this celebration, Madeleine seeks to tell a fuller story about the revolution. My favorite history connection made in this episode came not during the audio but on the dedicated webpage, which features a photograph of the George Washington tent at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, PA that I saw but a few months ago.

“The Ethics of Mummies” examines the guidelines behind having human remains on display at museums. Dr. Angela Stienne is passionate about this concern and has created the website Mummy Stories to bring awareness to the issue, along with publishing her first book, Mummified: The Stories behind Egyptian Mummies in Museums through Manchester University Press in 2022 with an updated version coming out earlier this year in June 2025. Angela briefly touched on legal implications surrounding the display of human remains in museums around the world, especially in Great Britain and Egypt, while Hannah drew a parallel to the display of Native American remains in American museums. Both ethnic groups believed what happened to the physical body after death affected the person’s afterlife, which makes their display even more problematic.

The engaging and well-edited podcast has a companion website that boasts a dark mode inspired design with pops of neon colors, one of my favorite digital aesthetics. The website is easy to navigate with large buttons and clear icons. This makes sense given that the sponsor was Landslide Creative, an award-winning website design company from Nashville, TN. I especially appreciated that the transcript is available in a PDF format, allowing the viewer to download and reformat the text for easier reading if desired. I highly recommend listening to this podcast if you are in the museum industry or interested in understanding the motivation behind the work of many modern museum professionals.

Abby Epplett’s Rating System

Experience: 8/10

Accessibility: 9/10