Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Road Trips Through History

Dwight Young’s anthology, Road Trips through History: A Collection of Essays from Preservation Magazine, was an extremely enjoyable read and opened my eyes to many aspects of preservation I had not considered. As a collection of essays written over a decade, Road Trips Through History is hard to pigeonhole into a category, the essays are too wide ranging. However, as mentioned, this quality reveals the breadth and scope of the preservation movement and the amount of effort that is required to keep the physical remnants of the past alive. Young examines life with a tinge of nostalgia and a keen wit, reflecting on how much our environment means to and influences us in all areas of our lives, from porchin’ to gazing up at the night’s stars.
While reading Young’s compilation I was continually surprised with the range of efforts preservationists are concerned with. Prior to reading this book, when I thought of preservationists, the first thing to pop into my mind was historic downtown. I most frequently associate the movement with keeping old buildings from the city or towns founding and once that building is in their hands, preserving it and not changing anything about the structure. That is why I particularly enjoyed the essay about the bright blue home, where Young stated, “Change and historic district are not antithetical concepts.” Change is good and “everything is temporary” (Young, 21). Preservation is not about keeping everything the same. Rather it is about celebrating differences and enjoying the unique. Anything someone took the time to preserve and keep safe is important because of the ideas that are conveyed. This thing is worth remembering and a physical representation is left behind for us to enjoy, contemplate, and even struggle with. Even if it is just two huge pile of waste rock, if something’s disappearance would “rob of something important” it is worthy of preservation.
These essays are a very enjoyable read. Many move you, to sadness, to indignation, to humor. But they all share a message, anything that is meaningful to your community, your family, or yourself is worthy of preservation. Young concedes we have to make room for progress, but that does not mean razing anything that gets in our way. The past has meaning, without physical representation it is difficult to remember that meaning.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Steven C. Dubin’s Displays of Power: Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation examines the “culture wars” of the 90’s played out in museums across the country. As the title suggests, Dubin sees the debates as power struggles. Politicians use symbolic battlegrounds and victories in museums to obscure societal ills they are not addressing. Political or cultural groups seem to initiate conflict when their relative power is in question and need to reiterate superiority surfaces. As the focus of the field of historical research broadens so does the vision of the institutions history is most often reflected in: museums. This expanded horizon has allowed new and exciting exhibits that question past ideas and events instead of solely presenting them. This had led to increasing outrage from many groups traditionally idolized in the museum world, unfortunately dialogue has not been viewed as an option.
On the other hand, knowledge of what has caused controversy in the past can help museum directors and curators of the future. This information can help avoidance of controversy. But controversy, as Dubin says, can be a moneymaker. Most of the museums discussed in Displays of Power experienced massive, even record-breaking, crowds during their showings. Throughout the Enola Gay hullabaloo the Air Force Association was determined the presentation be commemorative not introspective. Involvement or advanced preparation would not have been successful, any sort of exhibit along the original lines was unacceptable. So if avoiding controversy is not necessarily the lesson, some important lessons include playing your cards close to your chest, not sharing your exhibit script with large amounts of people, and a willingness to stand your ground. The outrage is almost always from special interest groups claiming to represent a larger majority or politicians “protecting” their constituents. As has been shown again and again those centers willing to hold fast have benefited from large turnout and surprisingly positive reviews of the exhibits themselves, as opposed to reviews of the idea of the exhibit.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Linenthal, end

Edward T. Linenthal details the origins, evolutions, and meanings of America’s Holocaust Museum in his work Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum. In the second half of the book Linenthal focuses on the permanent exhibit, but one of his main goals is the idea of the limitations of the Holocaust memory integrated into the institute. The book elaborates on the difficulties faced throughout the construction of the exhibit, the dichotomy of revelation and concealment, commemoration and revenge. Linenthal portrays the true magnitude of the undertaking, having to attempt to display the inhumanity of the Holocaust, pick who was and who was not involved in the incident, and, truly difficult, lay out the blueprint for American public memory of the most ghastly event of the 20th century.
The council members had to walk the fine line between education and commemoration and the revulsion of the American public. This was especially important due to the sensitive location on the hallowed grounds of memory, the Washington Mall. As a repository for American memory of the Holocaust it was vital that people desire to come and try to understand the event, leaving with questions not qualms. These are a sampling of the boundaries of memory accepted or forced on the museum by survivors, historians, and politicians throughout the construction of this exhibit.
Despite these emotions Linenthal was impressively impartial. He was certainly sympathetic but not entirely acquiescent, questioning details such as the failure of the U.S. to bomb the death camps. The Holocaust Museum felt the lives that may have been saved outweighed the deaths involved in the bombing. Linenthal objects, it was not feasible, there was little to no intelligence, a small likelihood of success, and little chance of actually preventing death. If the Nazis were determined to murder people they would find a way other than the gas chambers. As a professor of religious studies, Linenthal does an impressive job of separating the sacred and the secular. An event of this depth tends to engender spiritual language and attitudes, but Linenthal manages to remain somewhat neutral.
As a whole, Preserving Memory is a powerful work about the limits of the memory of the Holocaust and how it is to be commemorated in America. Linenthal walks a difficult tightrope between impartiality and the gut-wrenching emotionality of the event. Not jut about the physical displays in the Holocaust Museum, the second half of the work is about the construction of how the Holocaust will be remembered by the American people and uses of that memory. Not just about the definition of the Holocaust, but who and what objects are empowered to define this terrible event.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Preserving Memory

In his book Preseving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum Edward Linenthal relates the difficult task of the construction of a Holocaust museum, which is also the construction of American memory of this tragic event. Linenthal traced the controversies and questions from inception in the 1970s to the opening of the museum in 1993. Museum planners had to deal with changing attitudes towards the Jewish people and Israel, especially difficult was the changing outlooks of each consecutive president, each with their own agenda or commitment to the evolving museum. The people involved faced a heady task, defining what the Holocaust was, who the Holocaust involved, and, again, how America would recall the Holocaust in future generations. Questions of inclusion and exclusion, who was to blame, and whether spiritual resistance was “true” resistance swirled throughput the pages of this book.
Linenthal’s book was especially intriguing because of its grand scope. He had access to minutes from most of the major meetings, in-depth interviews with all involved, actually worked as a consultant, and even accompanied Committee members on travels to European sites of Holocaust memory. There seemed to be very few closed doors to his research. A few things impressed me through the work. One was that, despite Linenthal’s close involvement with the project he did not seem to pick sides, he remained impressively impartial. He also resisted the temptation to treat his book as the Holy Grail of the museum, even though the subject was deeply religious, and he himself is a religious professor, Linenthal kept the sacred and the secular apart. He did not resort to the language of reverence and adulation.
Preserving Memory tells the story of telling the story of the Holocaust. We learn how and why, some of the motives behind the construction of the physical museum and, more importantly the construction of American memory of this ghastly event. By never forgetting the inhumanity mankind is capable of, hopefully we will always remember the heights the human spirit can soar to.

Monday, September 1, 2008

The readings for this week, A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry, The Presence of the Past, and ”What is Public History?,” centered on history or public history and what they meen to, both, the lay person and the professional. I feel that the summation is public history is history with the audience foremost in the mind and history to the average American is the past that connects to them, their life, and their family.
The Presence of the Past examines history for the average American, in what seems to be a battle between history and the past. In a almost direct rebuke to many conservatives who have bemoaned the lack of historic knowledge in the public, this book reveals that Americans, regardless of age, ethnicity, education, or religion, are deeply involved with and concerned about their past, if not the historic narrative that is force-fed in school. I think the major distinction involves the academics’ and the lay persons’ definition or idea of history. Throughout ones’ academic career history is most often depicted as the changes and activities of nation-states and their interactions with another. However this often means very little to an average person. Whites seem to feel the nation has failed or betrayed them while minorities often feel little to no connection to the nation and its story of “progress” and development. Instead the idea of the past is what connects and motivates Americans in their everyday lives. The actions and events our family has engaged in seem to be the most influential in discovering where we came from, why we are who we are, and where we are going. When one is forced to learn abstract dates and events, students feel stifled and bored, according to the survey. It is the dynamic, experienceable past that affects and influences people in their thoughts about the future and the present. Due to the personal stories and thoughts, this book was very persuasive. The combination of professional analysis, Rosenzweig and Thelen, and the deep thoughts and emotions of a wide range of the American public displayed the importance of history in all our lives, if not the official, nationalistic history that might have been expected.
In A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry Corbett and Miller focused on what public history involves, not an exact definition as is sought in ”What is Public History?” Quite simply, public history is “doing history with the public (Corbett and Miller, p 16)” The idea of a “shared inquiry” is a direct corollary to the findings of The Presence of the Past, without an involvement in the past or the study of their past, people find the results irrelevant, boring, or, even, insulting.
These works share several things, multiple authors with different specializations, large amounts of community involvement, and concern for the status of history in America that led to the credibility and reliability of these works. Even the wide range of input about the definition for public history is more encompassing for reaching out to professionals of all types, the most experienced to the most raw.
History is important to people today, just not the traditional, scholarly history that is so often thought of. People do no see themselves in this national narrative, it is the personal, often local, history that guides people in their hobbies, actions, and plans for the future. A thought in A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry stuck out to me, history should be reflective, reflecting the convictions of the American people. It should not attempt to convince people on what to reflect.