The Bigger the Museum…

The Museum is perhaps the most popular forum of Public History. The methods employed by museums vary from one man operations, to diner exhibits, to outdoor parks like Colonial Williamsburg. A theme park does not qualify as a museum in itself, but the rub here is that Williamsburg is not a theme park. It is a public museum that presents an entire enclosed community as its exhibit. Everything is meticulously preserved or reproduced for eye candy and sale which brings me to my point. The bigger the museum, the more it needs and must feed the public to survive.

Institutions are entitled to exist. Regardless of methods employed, they require funding. Many of my haunts such as the Library Company, or the Historical Society of Pennsylvania depend largely on fundraising and engagement with the public for its substantial operating costs. But many have the opportunity to and must cross the divide between nonprofit and business interests. Ironically many of the museums that present the types of exhibits that the public most readily engage with, i.e. intimate community based histories, or present the histories that broad segments of the public would engage in for a near universal appeal such as Williamsburg, depend on door, or in some cases, gate to succeed and build up an operating surplus.

Hoarding operating expenses and making profit, although both are fruits, are apples and oranges in comparison. If an organization or even a private individual has a unique, inventive or “profitable” method of engaging the public’s thirst for relevant history, that organization has a responsibility to nurture flow and protect itself from potential loses, such as those that might lead to deaccessioning.

The Deaccessioning Crisis

The problem of deaccessioning is entirely one of ethics. I will not try to introduce the moral issue of trust into my examination. Ethics and morals are two entirely different concepts. If indeed the public trust is violated by deaccessioning, then the public should take a more active role preserving its history.

Many of the proposed "remedies" including contracts, tort reform, antitrust, and revised ethics all emphasize institutions and neutral actors to compel preservation. Few have emphasized public options. Revised standards are only part of the solution. However, there are several guidelines in place and each institution is free to adhere to either. In addition, each institution has inherent independence to govern its own matters, including having freedom to interpret and to change ethical allegiance to suit self interest. For example, deaccessioning to access more expensive or more relevant items is a nearly universal accepted practice. However it is not difficult to infer this implies that since museums must maintain their collections, deaccessioning for capital improvements to those ends is also acceptable. As in office history, there does not appear to be any way to restrict freedom of choice.

Legal antitrust minutia is intriguing, but courts cannot and must not take the lead. There must be a plaintiff, which inexorably leads us back to the need for the public to act in their own interests. Pre-donation agreements are also a promising avenue, but they depend on public understanding complex agreements. They are also limited as they would only serve to protect new collection items. Existing items would still be vulnerable.

There is no easy solution to the problem. However, a more diligent, informed public is a good place to start. A well funded action committee or two couldn’t hurt.

My Thoughts on The American Revolution Center

Printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 2009

Unaltered Beauty Tells Story Best

by Timothy Johnson

The relocation of the American Revolution Center project from Valley Forge to Center City should be applauded for historical as well as environmental reasons. Both the proposed museum and Valley Forge will be better served by the move.

The center is an ambitious effort to create a museum devoted entirely to the War of Independence. The United States' first war has not been given its due in popular culture. Most Americans are familiar with Gettysburg and Normandy, but they blink at the mention of Guilford Courthouse or Monmouth. So efforts like the center's are sorely needed.

But when the project was first announced, public reaction was mixed. At the heart of the controversy was the chosen location on 78 acres of undeveloped land within the park at Valley Forge. Naturally, conservationists rebelled in the tradition of Lexington and Concord.

As a resident of nearby Upper Providence Township, I understand the value of open space. But the most compelling arguments for the relocation are historical as well as environmental. In the case of Valley Forge, the historical cannot be separated from the environmental.

In the bitter winter of 1777-78, George Washington's Continental Army had not yet recovered from a series of defeats resulting in the loss of Philadelphia, the new nation's capital. Washington needed to stay close to the British force comfortably housed in the city, so he headed to Valley Forge to set up winter camp.

Today, visitors can see why this was an excellent choice. The park sits on a hill overlooking the Schuylkill valley, with excellent high ground for defense and lookouts. Head there in winter to experience its chilling beauty, as well as the elements America's first army braved as it struggled for survival and drilled relentlessly. The natural surroundings of Valley Forge tell the story best unaided.

A museum at Valley Forge could not do the site or the war justice. Philadelphia is a far better choice, giving the Revolution what it needs to cross the divide of public consciousness: context.

Center City's Independence National Historical Park is a treasure trove of resources on both pre- and post-revolutionary America. With the Revolution embedded between these eras, the existing sites and museums would provide the American Revolution Center with the necessary supporting context, not to mention foot traffic guaranteeing its success.

Consider how Independence Hall and the National Constitution Center complement each other. One site tells the story of the constitutional debates; the other highlights the genius of the founding document that resulted from them. Or consider Center City's mix of British Georgian architecture and the similar but contrasting American Federal style.

These symbiotic relationships are common in Independence National Historical Park, combining to tell a fascinating story. With the addition of the American Revolution Center, the epic has a new chapter, ushering in a new age of discovery for a new generation of students.

Those focusing on tax revenues and open space miss the significance of this opportunity. For proponents of commercial development and disappointed representatives of Montgomery County, I offer a bit of advice: The best way to preserve history is to preserve the way it was.

Timothy Johnson is a graduate student in the University of Pennsylvania's History Department. He can be contacted at atimothy@sas.upenn.edu.

Book Review: Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, 1967

           Proponents of American exceptionalism cast their rather dubious beliefs upon the erroneous notion that American roots and identity can only be traced back to North American history, most specifically to the period of the American Revolution. Clearly, they would surmise, there is something unique about the American experience that explains our relatively rapid rise to worldly prominence.

Any such mistaken thinkers should quickly locate a copy of Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Bailyn wastes little time establishing that the mores and traditions that reinforce an identity unique to Americans (sentiments not shared by the international community) were in fact shaped and forged over a hundred years ago - in England. It is fitting that Bailyn should make such a conclusion, and based on creditable evidence. Bailyn, one of Harvard's best and an authority on early America and the American revolution, was one of the leaders that later helped redefine early American history by pushing the early twentieth century idea of Atlantic History, conceptualized by WW1 era intellectuals, into modernity.[1]

Using an advanced method, Bailyn manages to compare pre English Civil War literature with the literature that predated the American Revolution by about a generation. His startling conclusion is that both intellectual traditions are too similar in tone, argument, and in such manifest design[2] to be a coincidence or merely effective propaganda. Pre revolution pamphlet authors were well into the revolutionary and nation building stages at least twenty years before the so called intolerable acts and the first of the continental congresses.

To be sure, enlightenment thought played a role, as did classical influences, especially those works that debate Rome's own constitutional crisis in ancient times. But Bailyn thoroughly rejects the New School's Beard and his limited conceptualization of the revolution as a social economic contest between actors encouraged by the enlightenment alone.[3] Indeed, Bailyn's cleaver use of a specific selection of revolutionary literature, pamphlets published between 1750 through 1776, reveal an American mind not previously discovered, with applications ranging from religious concerns to those concerning the American interpretation of the English constitution and common law.

The strengths of this work are its broad Atlantic connections, a Bailyn hallmark. He masterfully uses sources that had previously been unavailable due to the so called Atlantic schism that had long divided scholars and limited history to mostly regional perspectives. Bailyn is also successful in taking a closer look at material that in the past had been disregarded as propaganda. However, although Bailyn spends an entire chapter attempting to bring pamphlets to the vanguard of this period’s historical consciousness, he fails to persuade. It is true that pamphlets were designed to have more content than a broadside. And they afforded more independent content than a newspaper. However, these sources were no more of less effective in spreading the notions of liberty resident during the time.

Regardless of the selection criteria, the sources do speak for themselves. Bernard Bailyn has broken an age old mold that many had previously mistaken as the source of, and still continues to shape American national character today.

---

[1] Bailyn, Bernard, Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005)

[2] This is a reference to Thomas R. Hietala’s Manifest Design; central to his thesis is the idea of American nation building and westward imperial expansion long before the revolution much less the 19^th century.

[3] General information on Beard discerned from reference material. Bailyn references Beard’s philosophy in his introduction.

Some Reflections on the State of Public History

The overarching thesis of Reflections on the History Wars, Ken Yellis’ response to the Enola Gay controversy, is that too often Museums and the Public cannot agree on the role of Museums in public history. This disconnect is enhanced by a general failure of curators and designers to properly convey their intensions prior to implementing an exhibit aimed at telling or retelling a story about the past. Let us consider then the effect history itself has on culture over time. While we are trying to explain the past, the past has already changed us.

Let the Enola Gay controversy serve as a testimony. According to Edward T. Linenthal, early disagreements on the content of an exhibit centered on the subjective perspectives of war veterans, and staff that reported to a curator who viewed the horrors of the war as a European child. It took an entirely new post war generation of decision makers to act. Whether we like it or not, we are all owned by the past and are just as captivated by it as it is aware of its own prosperity. If history lives, then it finds agency and sustenance through people. Sects of historians and the public cannot agree on what makes good history. This explains why schools are declining their humanities offerings. However, this lack of interest is not reflected in the deep feelings of the public according to The Presence of the Past.

In the politically charged atmosphere of Public history, history can and must be influenced by the stakeholder audience. It's not called public history because it only satisfies a few; public history strives to at least partially satisfy the many. Where so called traditional historians call themselves elite because they are free from the subjective mob, public historians are elite precisely because we are not.

Book Moments: Fundraising the Dead by Sheila Connolly (post two)

Fundraising presents us with a disclosure issue as well. Nell, finds herself entangled within a web of political intrigue regarding whom to trust and when. Slowly she allows herself to let in other members of the staff on the details of missing items but all the while she struggles about when to inform outsiders. As the one primarily responsible for fundraising, she finds herself struggling with the dynamics of informing the FBI and the local police and the implications of allowing potential donors find out  that the society may be unable to properly catalog its collections. After all, if Nell is unable to raise appropriate funds, she could be terminated rightly for failure to achieve the goals of her position. Because of the easy access to which board members can access the collection and staff, regardless of procedure, Nell is "married" to  a disclosure problem simply because a board member first approached her instead of the appropriate department when they discovered some missing items.

The large number of items plus a small number of staff makes losing items inevitable. The members of the Society seem to too easily accept a few disappearing items. I can't say if a real society of this type would be so accepting of this, but I don't know how any library can rightly say they know where all of their collection items are at any given time until they in fact turn up missing. In addition, the ease at which the public can access the items and inadequate staff preventing some items from walking off calls into question the validity of many of the items. Controls against tampering must be enabled in this type of setting. Above all in the interest of integrity, missing items should be disclosed to any party with a financial investment (the board and donors) if not to members of the public if for no other reason than to manage any doubt as to items' credibility if and when they are recovered.

Book Moments: Fundraising the Dead by Sheila Connolly (post one)

It is quite unusual to claim that a fictional work is of value to historians. Sure, we may read a historical fiction or two but only as a quick dessert following a well prepared full course academic meal. However, Fundraising the Dead is a fun little read that exposes the uninitiated to the world of public history. Using a fictional stand in for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Fundraising follows our heroine, a stressed out development director, on a detective sojourn into the stacks to uncover the mystery of disappearing collection items. BTW, someone cracked open the Registrar's skull making her task slightly more difficult.

On the cover, it is clear that this is a fictional whodunit. Underneath, it provides a wealth of clues as to how Public History operates. Nell, our fundraiser is obsessed with raising money necessary to operate the fictional Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society. Her latest effort is a fundraising gala with several high profile invitees whom, by her estimate, are likely donors and contributors to her organization's mission. The subtext here is clear; that organizations who claim to own the precious history of interest to the public are in fact heavily influenced by the wealthy. The board members have much easier access to the materials and can influence key decision makers. In the story, one of the legacy female board members has easy access to staff and treats the resources as though they were her own private property rather than a publicly accessible property.

Funding, according to the novel, is what drives public history. Any one gift is quickly consumed by the daily operating costs of such an operation. Although lightly staffed, any organization still must deliver professional level salaries. Old historical buildings require constant maintenance and care. Skilled educated people could easily decide to depart for greener pastures requiring an upheaval of operations. When the registrar disappeared, there was an interruption in cataloging and his absence hampered an ongoing investigation into some missing items (hint motive).

What types of people devote their lives to public history? According to the author, those who love the collections, the stories, the resources, and even the settings themselves. Public History allows the historians to be surrounded by history without interruption everyday. The writer can research 24/7 without regard to library hours providing one can find the items they require. Of course, this can lead to misplaced or improperly handled materials, a key factor that drives the story.

Although Public History settinsg have access to technology, a necessary vice when claiming to own litterally thousands of pieces for history, such technology requires money and skill to implement and use properly. Even with a passionate registrar, materials still turns up missing. Procedures can easily be bypassed requiring more time and effort (money) to put better controls into place.

More to come as I finish up the story, but dead bodies asside, it seems so far that Public History is not for the faint of heart.