Controversy: Pieces You Don't Normally See September 14, 2011

This exhibit features five objects from the collections of the Ohio Historical Society, including the electric chair from the old Ohio Penitentiary, a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, a sheepskin condom, a crib-bed cage that restrained patients at a state mental institution and a thumb mitt once used to prevent children from sucking their thumbs. The objects are neutral. However, living in a democracy we will have differing points of view about them. History is not just a part of the past, but it is alive and influences us every day.