The Ohio Renaissance Festival is a museum?

       

        This past weekend I went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival with a few of my friends back home. As I waited in the pouring rain for my friends to arrive, I was reminded at how Dawne said that this was a kind of museum. I had never thought about it before but it’s true! The instant you walk in you are transported back to Elizabethan England and all of its glory. The queen herself even makes a few appearances.
       When I think of museums I usually think of an enclosed building with glass over documents and trying to resist the urge to touch things. In this museum there is no glass, and the exhibits come out and talk to you, in some cases they may even flirt with you! The best part, especially for my friends, is dressing up, so they essentially become part of the exhibits. This is basically a museum with no boundaries, there is no 'DO NOT TOUCH' sign and the only thing to watch out for is the mud. Come to think of it this is the most fun I have ever had at a museum.
      So what if we took the energy and excitement of the Renaissance Festival, and other open air museums and brought them inside. Instead of having a bunch stuff under glass and behind 'DO NOT TOUCH' signs, what if we invited our patrons in to be immersed in the period and smell the smoke from the blacksmith's house or feel the heart pounding excitement of the joust.
       I realize I'm not breaking any new ground here, but how would our museums look if our guests were completely swept up by the subject of our exhibits, even to the point where they wanted to dress up and take part in it? What would happen if everyone fell in love with the time period from just one visit to your museum?

Time Capsules

A time capsule was found during the excavation of the Dillie property that was previously located in Sugarcreek Township for a new retail center (more about that in a later blog). The Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Times newspaper wrote an article about the finding of the capsule. This got me thinking about time capsules in the realm of public history. These containers are created at a specific time period by people wanting to preserve what they feel is important for future generations to know about during that time.

The items placed in the box could range from a child’s toy to medical devices. There could be personal, community or business capsules. I am highly interested to find out what is in the Dille capsule since the house is linked to John Patterson.  I wonder about how many other time capsules are out there just waiting to be discovered.

If I were to create a time capsule to be opened one hundred years after I pass, here is what the future generation would find:

• A family tree printed the year I pass so it would include the most up to date information
• Photographs of the people on the tree (as many as possible)
• Teddy Bear given to me at age 2 by Uncle Mervin (mom’s brother, also a middle child)
• The red-headed Crissy doll from my childhood
• Dawn dolls that I played with inside their case
• A timeline showing all the placed I have lived including a map
• School Yearbooks and pictures
• The DVD oral interview recorded during the Vets Voices class
• College degrees
• Newspaper clippings showing the changes in technology

I could add a bunch more items. This is a starting off list, I am thinking about doing a time capsule for future descendants to know me.  How about you?  If you had the chance to create or add an item to a time capsule, what would it be and why?

A post on Sense of History

...further provoked my curiosity about the place of the past in American life, and how popular ideas about history differed from those of historical professionals.

Sense of History by Glassberg, page 5

This quote explains one of the reasons I want to become a public historian. Sometimes the difference between the beliefs historical professionals hold and those held by the public exist in part because of the American public's lack of historical knowledge, the politics of official history, and professionals unwillingness to see beyond what they perceive as History.

A good example of this is Glassberg's story of his second table, Mesa Verde National Park. The park rangers relegated the puebloan people to prehistory, something archeologists are interested in but not historians; the rangers pointed Glassberg to the surrounding towns as places he could study history. The rangers considered Mesa Verde as exclusively a national park, not a national historic site. What I find odd about this is that Theodore Roosevelt created Mesa Verde National Park in 1906 to "preserve the works of man," the first national park of its kind. So why didn't the park rangers embrace the puebloan people's history and culture?

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park

Part of Glassberg's duties at the Mesa Verde was demonstrating the pottery-making and grain-milling methods employed by the puebloan people. The fact that Glassberg was not trained well in pottery-making (as attested to by the four Native American tourists who watched in "amused silence") at least implies a lack  of respect European Americans had for the Native Americans' past. Including Native American history and culture would give park visitors a more accurate idea of what Native Americans were like when the Europeans came to this continent Popular culture has both demonized and lionized the indigenous people of the Americas; they need to be shown as people, not blood-thirsty savages nor as people living a a utopian civilization the white man destroyed.

Welcome!

Welcome! This blog was created to provide a place for you to post your thoughts and ideas about public history. Write about anything related to public history, whether it be an exhibit you saw, a living history event, a site you visited, or class readings and discussions. Post photos, links, quotes, and questions. I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say. And I hope that all of you will take the time to respond and comment on your classmates' posts. So start blogging!