This week's readings completed the book we began last week, The New History in and Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg, by Richard Handler and Eric Gable. Of course, the book is filled with interesting information and thoughts to consider, but one thing particularly stuck out to me in the last half of the book.
Chapter seven is entitled, "The Front Line: Smile Free or Die." While that almost sounds like the title of a psychological thriller movie, by the second page of the chapter, I was thinking back to some of our previous readings, and rather fascinated by the challenge presented. Colonial Williamsburg employees were told that the worst thing they could do was be rude to a customer. That would result in immediate dismissal. While on the surface, that sounds reasonable, Handler and Gable went on to say that Colonial Williamsburg's VP stated the reason for this as being that the museum is "an intellectually open environment: people can say or think whatever they want about history, as long as they remain polite in their dealings with visitors." (pp. 170, 171). Again, this didn't sound too bad until I read on, about the frontline guide's interpretation: "...from that fact, she concluded not that Colonial Williamsburg is a domain of intellectual freedom, but that it is a big entertainment center and not an educational institution." (p.171).
This got me thinking. While Colonial Williamsburg is presented as a museum, and a place of accurate historical education, it does also have to make money. While it would be nice to be able to have such a place only be concerned with the accuracy of information and nothing else, the reality is, this is such a large operation that private funding alone is simply not going to cut it. Colonial Williamsburg has to draw enough people willing to pay the steep admission prices to compete with places such as Disney World, Six Flags, and Paramount's resorts, among other popular vacation destinations. Of course, we talked about a similar issue weeks ago in regards to the "Disney's America" theme park, and many of us focused on the danger of "Disnefying" history. But what about Colonial Williamsburg? Are providing good historical presentation and good entertainment mutually exclusive? Or can they both be accomplished? Are there ways to reconcile the two without totally damaging the integrity of the history being presented?
I'm genuinely asking those questions- I don't know the answer off the top of my head. As an academic historian, I tend to want to say the only right course of action here is to stick with "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." But then, if we do that absolutely, what do we sacrifice? Do we then end up with a defunct Colonial Williamsburg? Does the existence of a Colonial Williamsburg that gets as close as possible to the absolute truth without sacrificing tourist traffic still present enough of the real picture to justify any changes it has to make here and there, or any intentional oversights or minimalizations of certain issues?
Maybe, maybe not. One of the difficulties for public- and academic- historians is knowing where the "happy medium" lies. This actually makes me think of my recent food experiences, as I've become pretty much a health food nut in the last few months. At some point when I'm cooking for other people, I have to find the balance of just how many "healthier" substitutions I can make before my guest is going to be disgusted by my substitutions of honey for sugar and coconut cream for heavy whipping cream, and spaghetti squash for actual spaghetti. I think Colonial Williamsburg, among other public history sites, is more or less chronically in the same place. At what point do they need to add in a little sugar or spaghetti to appeal to enough people to keep the museum viable? Does adding a little historical sugar completely negate the accuracy of everything else?
Again, I don't know. And I'm not even sure the above analogy made sense (I'm hungry, can't you tell?). But if I keep trying to get people to eat my super duper healthy paleo substitutions for everything, they're eventually not going to want to eat my food at all (and it has nothing to do with my cooking skills...let's just get that straight!). From a business perspective, Colonial Williamsburg needs to do more or less the same thing. Just how that measures up in terms of historical integrity, I'm not sure. But it's certainly something interesting to consider.
Chapter seven is entitled, "The Front Line: Smile Free or Die." While that almost sounds like the title of a psychological thriller movie, by the second page of the chapter, I was thinking back to some of our previous readings, and rather fascinated by the challenge presented. Colonial Williamsburg employees were told that the worst thing they could do was be rude to a customer. That would result in immediate dismissal. While on the surface, that sounds reasonable, Handler and Gable went on to say that Colonial Williamsburg's VP stated the reason for this as being that the museum is "an intellectually open environment: people can say or think whatever they want about history, as long as they remain polite in their dealings with visitors." (pp. 170, 171). Again, this didn't sound too bad until I read on, about the frontline guide's interpretation: "...from that fact, she concluded not that Colonial Williamsburg is a domain of intellectual freedom, but that it is a big entertainment center and not an educational institution." (p.171).
This got me thinking. While Colonial Williamsburg is presented as a museum, and a place of accurate historical education, it does also have to make money. While it would be nice to be able to have such a place only be concerned with the accuracy of information and nothing else, the reality is, this is such a large operation that private funding alone is simply not going to cut it. Colonial Williamsburg has to draw enough people willing to pay the steep admission prices to compete with places such as Disney World, Six Flags, and Paramount's resorts, among other popular vacation destinations. Of course, we talked about a similar issue weeks ago in regards to the "Disney's America" theme park, and many of us focused on the danger of "Disnefying" history. But what about Colonial Williamsburg? Are providing good historical presentation and good entertainment mutually exclusive? Or can they both be accomplished? Are there ways to reconcile the two without totally damaging the integrity of the history being presented?
I'm genuinely asking those questions- I don't know the answer off the top of my head. As an academic historian, I tend to want to say the only right course of action here is to stick with "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." But then, if we do that absolutely, what do we sacrifice? Do we then end up with a defunct Colonial Williamsburg? Does the existence of a Colonial Williamsburg that gets as close as possible to the absolute truth without sacrificing tourist traffic still present enough of the real picture to justify any changes it has to make here and there, or any intentional oversights or minimalizations of certain issues?
Maybe, maybe not. One of the difficulties for public- and academic- historians is knowing where the "happy medium" lies. This actually makes me think of my recent food experiences, as I've become pretty much a health food nut in the last few months. At some point when I'm cooking for other people, I have to find the balance of just how many "healthier" substitutions I can make before my guest is going to be disgusted by my substitutions of honey for sugar and coconut cream for heavy whipping cream, and spaghetti squash for actual spaghetti. I think Colonial Williamsburg, among other public history sites, is more or less chronically in the same place. At what point do they need to add in a little sugar or spaghetti to appeal to enough people to keep the museum viable? Does adding a little historical sugar completely negate the accuracy of everything else?
Again, I don't know. And I'm not even sure the above analogy made sense (I'm hungry, can't you tell?). But if I keep trying to get people to eat my super duper healthy paleo substitutions for everything, they're eventually not going to want to eat my food at all (and it has nothing to do with my cooking skills...let's just get that straight!). From a business perspective, Colonial Williamsburg needs to do more or less the same thing. Just how that measures up in terms of historical integrity, I'm not sure. But it's certainly something interesting to consider.
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