Review - The Presense of the Past

This week’s readings included a funny, (albeit sad for the historian,) reply to a letter sent from a university professor to a ‘house’ museum curator somewhere in the south and that we shall only know as the Baron Von Munchausen House. We also looked at Rosenzweig and Thelan’s The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life.

The book by Rosenzweig and Thelan looks at the many ways in which history comes alive for the average American. Their study was the result of several years of discussion, meetings with other historians and students, question preparation and revision, pre-testing and the final telephone survey conducted in 1994. It was five years after their original idea that the survey was granted funding and carried out by some enthusiastic graduate students.

Their careful planning and pre-testing allowed them to settle upon the phrase ‘the past’ as opposed to history or tradition or some other word referring to the past. They noticed the respondents gave much more detailed responses when referring to the past because it could refer to their own experience rather than a classroom or lecture hall. Of the several hundred respondents, the two authors began to notice some broad similarities but it was particularly interesting when they reviewed white American experiences against Black and Native American experience. “Talk of intimate pasts animated most of the conversations we had with Americans [but the] Americans we interviewed also talked about connecting with pasts outside their intimate worlds. They wanted to personalize the public past.” [p. 115]

The authors found that overwhelmingly, white Americans tended to view the past through the lens of personal and family connections and events but that both Black and Native Americans attached a wider social significance to the past. Whereas the former might have talked about family history, genealogy, collections of significance etc. the latter connected their lives to events such as antebellum slavery, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jrs. speech etc. Both, however, talked about keeping their family history alive for the next generation. A New Jersey psychologist said “we are the carriers of history in my family. We come from now relatively small families, and we carry history along. Someone has to be the carrier of history in every family.” [ p. 16]

It’s a really great book - while some of the findings seemed fairly obvious, one of the reasons the authors wrote the book was to point some of those obvious findings back at classroom historians. By showing that Americans think about history in personal ways they were trying to get instructors, curators and other historians to remember that when teaching it.

Back to that letter to the Baron Von Munchausen House museum. The professor who wrote it had visited the museum and felt compelled to point out some fairly glaring mistakes presented by the docents. He was also quick to praise the museum for its general collection and assured the curator that he wasn’t trying to be offensive, merely hoping to make them aware of some myths they were unaware of. The reply was not so pleasant and actually added to the sense that history for this museum was not so much about presenting facts but more about hiding them. The curator was particularly disgruntled when talking about slavery and said she didn’t want to upset the many students who came through the museum. Also to not be so danged cynical and to essentially, leave them to their own business. Amusing stuff but it is time for people to own their past and make sure it tells the truth.

Speaking of Archives...Pub pictures saved from London skip displayed online

An "irreplaceable" archive of photographs of some of the country's most striking public houses that was nearly lost to posterity forever has been made available to the public.

Reaction paper: Archives – what they are and what they do.

What exactly is an archive and how is it different from a library? What does an archivist do that a records manager doesn’t? Do you have to be a historian to be an archivist? And perhaps most importantly, what does an archive, archive? These and other questions arose in this week’s readings and while many of the answers were as I expected, some were quite illuminating.

The Society of American Archivists provides a set of core values and a code of ethics for the archival profession and it is here that many of those answers can be found. Although some of these values and ethics pertain to many other jobs there are some that relate to archivists alone and I’ll discuss some of those in a moment. The first question of how does an archive differ from a library is quite interesting. Both can be public, private, governmental, historical, medical or religious for example, but an archive often contains only a narrow selection of documents and they are typically primary materials. Libraries might also have a narrow selection but for the most part those materials are not primary sources but books, journals (electronic or print,) and other tangible items that remain in the collection until they are either discarded, (weeded,) or replaced. An archive, after selecting which materials it will keep, continues to preserve and retain them because there are typically no other copies available. A public records archive, for example, has original birth, marriage and death certificates, court records, city, county, and state records and many other records that cannot be found elsewhere.

So what does an archivist do that a librarian or records manager doesn’t? Quite a lot actually. “Archivists exercise professional judgment in appraising, acquiring, and processing materials to ensure the preservation, authenticity, diversity, and lasting cultural and historical value of their collections.” A university archive might have the diaries and papers of a particular person or family but must adhere to the family’s wishes regarding what can be shared and with whom. In cases where the family has not given any direction, it might be a personal judgement call. Archivists also describe and catalog the collection in quite a different way than a library cataloger might. More important than subjects and MARC records are contents and description. Much of an archivist’s time is spent describing what is in a particular collection and creating a ‘finding aid’ to assist researchers. Other duties may include advocacy and outreach, conservation, and ongoing training.

So what about history? Does an archivist need to be a historian in order to be a caretaker of historic records? Not necessarily but it’s not a bad idea. Historians look at past events and facts and interpret them and connect them to a wider audience. An archivist, while trying to do the latter, makes sure never to interpret only to describe the collection and make it easy for the researcher to find what they need.

So I touched briefly on what an archive might contain and who it might serve but it’s worthwhile noting that archives can exist in many forms and serve many different communities. All try to preserve certain primary records for future consideration. This brings me to another important point – security of those preserved records. There will always be the possibility of damage whether from a flood or other disaster but another problem for archives is theft. Some archives contain extremely sensitive information, some contain records and documents of national security. One example is the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC. In 2003, Sandy Berger, (a national security advisor,) stole several documents that contained classified information. He literally walked out of the building with those documents in his suit and pants pockets (see House Report, Sandy Berger’s Theft of Classified Documents: Unanswered Questions) How was this possible? Bad security and oversight on the part of the archive and its staff. Although Berger was eventually caught and returned two of the documents, three had been destroyed forever. If you are the caretaker of one-of-a-kind documents and materials, security should be one of your biggest concerns.

A final word on the subject – in a world where many documents and materials are ‘born digital’, (created online or digitally such as emails, web-pages and other non-physical items,) how can we preserve these materials when many are so ephemeral in nature? The answer is, we’re still working on it. Aside from the short-lived nature of some of these items, some may also be incompatible with current technology and many of these items would either take too long to preserve or take too much space. This is a problem for both libraries and archives but especially for archivists who truly are the caretakers of often one-of-a-kind documents – as the archivist at the Eastern Regional Branch in Washington said recently, “Once you’ve lost it…it’s gone forever.”

Shifting attitudes in Public History – from Ford's village to Disney's empire

The collection of essays Wallace gives us in A Mickey Mouse History spans several years of writing and consulting in museums and archives. Now in 2016, some of those papers are over twenty years old. Despite some obvious technological leaps and missteps, the overall message of the book still resonates. One clear and overarching message is that museums are for all the people they serve, not just those that created them. And that oftentimes, those very people can help an institution discover more relevant cultural significance than the dusty artifacts of times past.

The book describes two of the first instances of cultural record keeping in the form of the house museum and the 'village' museum. The most notable example of the former is Mount Vernon and probably the most famous example of the latter is Colonial Williamsburg, (though there are many other famous and worthy examples nationwide.) Wallace describes how both institutions began and how they have changed over the last few decades. Mount Vernon, for example, was an attempt to capture a moment of history and to illuminate it for future generations. In preserving it and making it a beacon, it would help guide new immigrants on their path to becoming a true American with all the values associated with that status.

Of course, as time passed and evidence emerged, the people of America saw that even those shining lights could be dimmed. With so much in common, in fact, both Mount Vernon and Williamsburg were subject to criticism about their portrayal and romanticism of the past. Each museum was guilty of depicting happy, healthy “servants” instead of the more accurate depiction of indentured slaves. Both have undergone significant cultural revision but both are the better for it.

As the title of the book suggests, Wallace also talks about the corporate creation of history including two famous examples; Henry Ford's 'Greenfield Village' and Walt Disney's various parks. Ford began assembling his haphazard museum in the early 1920s and decided to open a village museum to, as he said, “...help America take a step, even if it is a little one, toward the saner and sweeter idea of life that prevailed in pre-war days.” Disney's vision also tried to sanitize and soften the ugly truth surrounding historical events and often sought to 'strip away the accretions of time.' Historians balked and rightly so – history should never be handed over to anyone or anything that seeks to obscure the messier parts.

In addition to museums transforming as our society has changed, Wallace talks about the value of this transformation happening in the other direction. Museums and their curators have a unique opportunity to change the way we think or at least encourage discussion and debate over historic objects and events. He mentions several instances of this transformation: the civil rights movement, the influx of immigrant populations, LGBT activism etc. All have not only helped reshape our understanding of past events but in many cases are directly shaping our present and working together with our cultural institutions allows those voices and stories to be heard.

Lonnie Bunch, in an article discussing museum controversy, also talks about courting and using controversy to make museums more vital and useful. One example given is an exhibition on the first encounters Europeans had with the native peoples of America. The exhibition and the people involved received complaints from many native Americans that it didn't capture the true past. Bunch insists controversy is a wonderful tool saying, “rather than champion limits on controversy and debate in exhibits, museums and curators must have the courage and vision needed to embrace [it].”

Wallace, Bunch and many other public historians continue to chip away at historical bluff and subterfuge, whether through direct consultation or written criticism and it is a service that should continue to be encouraged.