Between Fences Smithsonian Exhibit

Thank you! to everyone who visited Between Fences at DAHS!

Fences are all around us; they protect our property, children, and pets, they are decorations, they keep the wildlife out, and keep the livestock in.

Whether made of split rails, decorative white pickets, or tall chain link, a fence conveys information about the people who built it, how they view and use their property, and about how we view our communities and country as well. Between Fences explores the implications of fences in Colonial America, around gated communities, and at our country's borders with Canada and Mexico.

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Between Fences, Saturday Evening Post depiction of suburban neighborhood.

Good Fences
Make Good Neighbors

Spite Fence

Definition: An unsightly fence erected for no other purpose
than to irritate a neighbor.

Lanesboro, MN

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

~ Robert Frost, "Mending Wall"

Between Fences is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Federation of State Humanities Councils. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Hearst Foundation.