What do museums mean to you?

"I consider ghost stories the clickbait of history," says Laura Fies, Executive Director of the USS Hornet Museum. While supernatural tales are a fun thrill for visitors, they also serve as a powerful accessory to historical education.

If you learned about ancient Egypt in school, you likely heard a lot about pharaohs, tombs, and elaborate death rituals. A new exhibition at the de Young Museum juxtaposes this familiar royal history with the lives and afterlives of ordinary citizens. Here, you'll find golden jewelry and shining sarcophagi, but also everyday objects you have likely never seen before: a baby's rattle, a stone headrest, and a jar for cured meat. "We are learning so much more about how people lived who were not royalty," says Renée Dreyfus, the curator in charge of ancient art at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Renée oversaw the American debut of "Treasures of the Pharaohs," which expands our understanding of ancient Egyptian culture, fueled by archaeologist Zahi Hawass's recent excavation of the Golden City near Luxor. Today on Call 'Em Like Museum, we talk about how ordinary people lived, worked, and prepared for an afterlife in ancient Egypt; Renée's collaborative work with global institutions like the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Luxor Museum; and what she has learned during her remarkable 50 years working at FAMSF. Plus: Why the most interesting object in the whole exhibition might just be a wooden chair.

Good museums are centers of art, culture, and education. But the richest and most famous museums are clustered in North America and Europe, and that matters more than you might realize. Sociologist and Wellesley College professor Peggy Levitt describes herself as a decenterer for just that reason. In her books "Artifacts and Allegiances" and "Move Over Mona Lisa," she has explored how art has been shaped by colonialism, globalization and inequality. In "Move Over Mona Lisa," Peggy asks what it might take to decenter this world. Historically, she explains, many well-intentioned museums have diversified their collection by invited artists from the Global South to relocate to Paris, London, or New York. But the center has not moved. "There are people that are looking for a harder reform," Peggy says. "So they are happy to take less critical acclaim, less financial acclaim, if they can create their own institutions, their own networks of circulation, their own nodes of activity that don't rely on North America or Europe for permission or facilitation." Today on Call 'Em Like Museum, we talk about how museums can represent the whole world more fairly; whether artists in the Global South should entirely opt out of the existing systems; and the importance of "having a spine" when your museum comes under scrutiny from donors & politicians. Full transcript of this episode Subscribe to the newsletter This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod Chapters

The Haas-Lilienthal House is one of San Francisco’s most beautiful architectural landmarks, a gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian that stands out amid a modern landscape of grocery stores and car dealerships. Built in the 1880s in the Pacific Heights neighborhood, this beautifully preserved home offers a unique glimpse into the city's 19th-century history. While many historic house museums are dedicated to diplomats or the incredibly wealthy, original inhabitants William and Bertha Haas were upper-middle-class merchants moving up in the world. As San Francisco Heritage CEO Woody LaBounty explains, their home's location was chosen carefully to be near the true locus of power just one block over on Van Ness Avenue, which was then a showplace boulevard of massive, elaborate estates. Today on Call ‘Em Like Museum, Woody talks about why the Haas-Lilienthal House is now the headquarters of SF Heritage and how the organization uses it to tell the city’s story. We also discuss what makes this house museum different from so many others, why it’s so important to preserve historic architecture, and why his favorite room in the house is the bathroom. Visit the Haas-Lilienthal House: https://www.haas-lilienthalhouse.org/ The Halloween Experience, House of Weird: https://www.haas-lilienthalhouse.org/halloween

When you visit a museum, do you see it as just a collection of artifacts from the past? The California Historical Radio Society (CHRS) is hoping you don't. Although their museum in Alameda, California has a great collection of preserved & restored vintage radios, their work is really about the present, the future, and building a vibrant community of audio enthusiasts. For Executive Director Rachel Lee, the real goal of the CHRS is to create a dynamic space where different generations can connect and engage. This welcoming environment often turns casual visitors into dedicated volunteers. As Lee notes, the most rewarding part of her work is watching visitors' eyes light up when they discover a historical space that feels incredibly "alive." Today on Call 'Em Like Museum, Rachel talks about how different generations of visitors respond to the history of radio; why it’s so important to preserve the medium’s roots; and why radio matters a lot more for life in 2026 than you probably realize. Plus: The story of the huge “music box” machines that replaced live xylophone players at NBC.