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.