The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial WilliamsburgThe New History in an Old Museum is an exploration of "historical truth" as presented at Colonial Williamsburg. More than a detailed history of a museum and tourist attraction, it examines the packaging of American history, and consumerism and the manufacturing of cultural beliefs. Through extensive fieldwork--including numerous site visits, interviews with employees and visitors, and archival research--Richard Handler and Eric Gable illustrate how corporate sensibility blends with pedagogical principle in Colonial Williamsburg to blur the lines between education and entertainment, patriotism and revisionism. During much of its existence, the "living museum" at Williamsburg has been considered a patriotic shrine, celebrating the upscale lifestyles of Virginia's colonial-era elite. But in recent decades a new generation of social historians has injected a more populist and critical slant to the site's narrative of nationhood. For example, in interactions with museum visitors, employees now relate stories about the experiences of African Americans and women, stories that several years ago did not enter into descriptions of life in Colonial Williamsburg. Handler and Gable focus on the way this public history is managed, as historians and administrators define historiographical policy and middle-level managers train and direct front-line staff to deliver this "product" to the public. They explore how visitors consume or modify what they hear and see, and reveal how interpreters and craftspeople resist or acquiesce in being managed. By deploying the voices of these various actors in a richly textured narrative, The New History in an Old Museum highlights the elements of cultural consensus that emerge from this cacophony of conflict and negotiation. |
Contents
The New History in an Old Museum | 3 |
Imagining Colonial Williamsburg | 28 |
Why History Changes or Two Theories of History Making | 50 |
Just the Facts | 78 |
Social History on the Ground | 102 |
Aspects of Corporate Culture at Colonial Williamsburg | 125 |
7 | 129 |
Smile Free or Die | 170 |
Picket Lines | 208 |
The Bottom Line | 218 |
Notes | 237 |
| 249 | |
| 258 | |
Common terms and phrases
able according administrative allowed American appearance asked audience authenticity become better buildings called changes chapter Colonial Williamsburg concerned consumer continued corporate critical culture develop discussion documents early educational employees example exhibition experience explained facts feel foundation foundation's front frontline give going historians Historic Area hostesses House important individual institution interests interpreters kind learned least less living Longsworth look means messages museum narrative never noted objects organization particular past perhaps position present problem professional progress questions relations relationship response restoration rhetoric Rockefeller seemed sense side slaves social history staff story streets success talk teach tell theme things thought tion told tour trainers union values vice president visitors workers Wythe Wythe House