Restoration, Preservation, and Post-Modernism...Oh My!

                This week’s readings, whose titles I will abbreviate to “Personalism and Professionalism” and “Preserving the Postmodern,” provided an interesting contrast on the development of public history as a professional trade. The first reading by focusing on the move from traditionalist, ‘personalist’ cultural movements by women possessed with the ideals of republican motherhood struck me as a little off balance. Although I can see how traditionalist movements guided by cultural bias and personal agendas to recapture a bygone era are misuses of historical artifacts which exist as cultural capital to all the American public. I got the sense that there was little mention of the ways in which professionalization helped women’s traditionalist movements to catch up with modern history scholarship.

                “Personalism to Professionalism” characterized the shift in the trade of public history from all a women led movement to a field of male professionals, and also states that other women’s historical societies (such as the APA) had to step in line with the restoration policies of Appleton’s SPNA. Yet, many of these organizations (such as the DAR) still exist and get funding. So is this simply a throwback to cultural agendas motivating historical preservation through some lost personalism? Or, did these organizations professionalize and get with the program of historical accuracy. If this is not the case that seems fine, but part of this story is missing. I felt like this article was simply a nice, neat whig-history of the triumph of male, rational, historical sense over female, emotive historical narratives, am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?

                “Preserving the Post-Modern” was an interesting take on the debate between preservation and restoration. Obviously restoration might fall prey to idea of editing history to fit a current cultural bias or historical narrative to create a sense of “personalism.” However, I feel that a social constructivist, relative approach to the immaterial and impossible to pin down past isn’t terrible useful for public history. I agree that a certain post-modern sensibility of the ways in which modern society constructs its past into a narrative in dialogue with the present keeps public historians academically honest. But while we’re being honest why don’t we just make the mission of the history museum manifest throughout.

Whether its exact restoration (if possible) or merely preserving the rich and detailed historical narrative of a site, chose a method and stick to your guns. Accusing others engaged in restoration as constructing the past doesn’t completely invalidate the historical research and findings used to create a restoration. Nor does preserving the historical site in its totality of historical change lack merit also, the academic historian’s work is to illuminate the value of their project towards historical understanding without making value judgments about different forms or presentations of historical artifacts as valid or not.

The Enola Gay's Last Mission: Teach Museum Professionals to Stand Up for Themselves...Assignment #4

                Dubin’s article “Battle Royal: the Final Mission of the Enola Gay” shows a very interesting relationship between the government, the public, and the museum (in this case the Smithsonian.) This article argues that the display of the plane responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima has had a divisive effect upon its view public. On the one hand, this plane has legendary status in the minds of remaining members of “the greatest generation” who have been steeped in Victory culture. However, since the radicalization of history and education in the 60’s and 70’s American’s have taken up this annoying post-modern tendency to actually consider another culture’s point of view and worry about whether our cultural dialogue is PC. Granted it is clear from this article that modern American culture is more interested in the rhetoric of cultural diversity than it is in actual historical accuracy and pluralistic historical interpretations. This is made clear in the article when Dubin refers to the way Americans accept at face value the critical media assessment of the Enola Gay exhibit without noticing the imbalance of media comments arguing that the Japanese were fighting to stave off westernization versus the utter lack of mention of the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Essentially the media by focusing only on the spectacle of the debate between WWII Veteran Senators, a smattering of disappointed WWII vets, and angry, left-wing academic critics was attempting to prey on these post-modern, “nobodies culture is the right culture” sentiments. This post-modern trend strikes a stark contrast with the Victory generation’s $100,000 PR campaign to properly display the Enola Gay and make the Smithsonian there “shrine in Washington.”

                Yet, the curators of the Smithsonian find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Considering that American tax payer dollars go into the displays at the Smithsonian, these curators to some extent have to answer to WWII vets and their senators in their presentations.  Yet, I was a bit shocked when Dubin commented that curators had a hard time knowing when to take a stand and when to “let it go” with regards to public and political upheaval. When on tour in the Smithsonian we met with a woman (whose name I cannot currently recall) who was the head of the committee responsible for making any amendments or terminations of displays at the Smithsonian. Basically her position was that as professions who take pride in academic honesty and public response they absolutely won’t budge on an issue unless it becomes a economic threat through lawsuit, or protest/vandalism. I support this take on museum presentations, especially in publically funded institutions like the Smithsonian, if not on in the interest of allowing these displays to do their jobs which is to create public dialogue. After all, if a display is so incendiary it causes the museum to lose money to performing it’s task of educating the public, then there seem to be better ways to achieve this without causing a ruckus. Yet, as academic professionals, museum coordinators must stand up for their academic honesty and reasoning for choosing a specific interpretation. Otherwise there is no hope of achieving a presentation with a pluralistic and fair interpretive lens because the government and this country’s myriad of economically vested special interests groups will be at the wheel.

Assignment #3: Slavery and Public History

       Once again we are faced with issues of determining what is the public or collective cultural memory and the issues with presenting history to this misinformed public. Largely, this book focuses on a sort of cultural fugue created by Americans who are either interested in remembering “the way we never were” or who are so paralyzed by remembering the horrors of the past that they feel it makes it difficult to focus on the fight at hand. However, I feel once again that this book reaffirmed several times that not only are the history teachers in American elementary and high-school education under qualified, but there simply isn’t any economic interest in pursuing history. This is a dilemma because of the great deal of cultural unity and understanding that can be created through proper public history education. This dilemma of improper education combines with cultural movements, such as DAR, Sons of Liberty, and the Sons of the Confederacy to allow dishonest visions of American past to disseminate and further create cultural division and stratification in favor of economic interests.

       The responsibility it seems falls on the American people to fund public history institutions simply for the sake of public education. The authors of this book also reconfirmed what has been stated in previous readings that public history professionals, ie museum staff, have a great deal of authority in shaping public conceptions of the past. However, this book clearly displayed the core of the issue with displaying slavery in specific historical contexts; those not interested in remembering the past as it was will not pay hard earned money to learn these historical truths.

        In James Horton’s chapter entitled “Slavery in American History” he describes the public outcry of a dramatization of a slave auction in Colonial Williamsburg. The protesters were objecting to the sensationalizing of such a hurtful past. However, I agree with Horton’s and his other co-author’s conclusion that education is the only way to create truly collective consciousness that can heal society’s rifts. As long as this education isn’t being filtered or interpreted to only reach a target demographic, then truthful historical presentations should stimulate real and meaningful social dialogues.

       I agree with some of the conclusions of Marie Tyler-McGraw in her chapter “Southern Comfort Levels” that regardless of whether history is economically profitable, using a favorable historical interpretation to attract a key demographic cheapens the experience and can reignite current social woes of segregation and social division (As it did in Richmond.) However, a public history presentation that negotiates the various perspectives of the viewers engaged in dialogue with these exhibits can do a great deal to stimulate understanding and promote collective consciousness. After all, “If you don’t tell it like it was, it can’t be as it ought to be.” Forgetting our history will only dooms us to not understand why we are still socially divided presently, and cause us to be unable to unify and complete the work of cultural healing that is still needs to be performed.

Defining Memory: Assignment #2

    I simply loved this book. By focusing on local museums rather than larger public institutions, the authors’ in their critical assessments provide a much clearer insight into how museums function as cultural institutions.  In depicting these local museums as piece-mail cultural institutes, the authors critically assess what it is that constitutes a museum in the first place. Is the local museum mission to education, entertain, culturally indoctrinate, or simply commemoration? The diverse depiction of museums in this book shows that all of these goals are present to varying degrees in each institution, but also a factor of nostalgia for a certain construction or rendition of the past in order to reaffirm cultural identity is what keeps visitors returning.

    One conclusion which seemed to be reached by many of the authors of this book was that this nostalgia is driven by modern issues of national or cultural identity. These modern issues motivate the need to reminisce about the past in a certain light. The example of “Colonial Williamsburg” in which Rockefeller retold his origin story as that of an altruistic, philanthropist in order to mask the image of new money Capitalist tycoon who was crushing the antebellum old wealth of the area is quite poignant. His contributions were shown as building up the community through monumental sacrifices when in fact his wealth had been accumulated on the exploitation of local workers. To some extent in order to attract visitors and reinforce a nationalist pride in the self-made millionaire/philanthropist these generous or even padded interpretations of history are presented for mass consumption. “Don’t forget to stop by the gift shop kids, cause capitalists like Rockefeller are why America became so rich and great!”

    A final intriguing point from this book was the attention to museum authority. The matter of fact, hands on, and aesthetic presentation of objects in a museum space lend it a form of credibility that really matters, especially when it comes to indoctrinating society’s youth in specific cultural values. This book is laden with examples of ethical dilemmas as well as problems with the historical facticity of museum displays. However, one thing remains constant, that somehow this museum must sustain some form of economic viability through cultural interest, and the best way to do this is to recast history in dialogue with modern social problems. Museums are fundamentally modernist institutions!=-) I wish I would have read this book a long time ago, and I was fascinated by the ways in which elements of social constructivism and critical theory were used to assess the cultural function and dialogue of local museums.