Public historians have a unique set of difficulties to handle which many of us in academia don't have to deal with nearly as much. Public historians- whether site directors, historic preservationists, heritage educators, or others- have to figure out how to find the balance between the truth, education, and securing funds. This week, we read the article "Interpreting Uncomfortable History at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site in St. Louis, Missouri" by Timothy Baumann, Andrew Hurley, Valerie Alitzer, and Victoria Love.
As the title suggests, the article detailed the issues involved with purchasing, restoring, and presenting the Scott Joplin house in St. Louis to the public. The original presentation ignored some very important things, such as "the urban milieu that nourished his talents, the origins of African/African American music, or the lasting legacy of his music on contemporary composers" (p.45). They apparently also neglected to include locals in the original site planning. There was concern among the leadership about cost and potential controversy. Joplin's life was hard- wrought with the pains brought by racism, money problems, and sexually transmitted disease. Presenting this factually to the public certainly ran the risk of creating even more controversy in a city with a less-than-stellar racial history.
This article contained another example of a recurring problem we have been looking at all semester: how do we as public historians find a good balance between accuracy, education, and bringing in money? Obviously, no site can run without money, and few sites have the funding to be able to operate without worrying about specific donors or fees paid by visitors. To some degree, the site has to cater to the desires of non-historians, just to keep its doors open. This may require ignoring a certain aspect of the site's history, or glossing over it. And in some cases, this may not be unforgivable. But it does require an awareness of what is going on and the ability for site directors and heritage directors to have at least some idea of the point at which the history they're presenting ceases to maintain any standard of accuracy or integrity. This job seems to be akin to walking a tightrope: unless the site manages to balance things just right, it will fall off, whether it falls to one side because it commercialized its history too much, or to the other because it lost funding by refusing to listen to patrons and donors.
I'm not sure there's ever a perfect balance, and I'm not sure one a sustainable balance is found, it can be counted on to always work, even for the same site. But it is something of which public historians need to be aware, regardless of how hard that seems to be.
As the title suggests, the article detailed the issues involved with purchasing, restoring, and presenting the Scott Joplin house in St. Louis to the public. The original presentation ignored some very important things, such as "the urban milieu that nourished his talents, the origins of African/African American music, or the lasting legacy of his music on contemporary composers" (p.45). They apparently also neglected to include locals in the original site planning. There was concern among the leadership about cost and potential controversy. Joplin's life was hard- wrought with the pains brought by racism, money problems, and sexually transmitted disease. Presenting this factually to the public certainly ran the risk of creating even more controversy in a city with a less-than-stellar racial history.
This article contained another example of a recurring problem we have been looking at all semester: how do we as public historians find a good balance between accuracy, education, and bringing in money? Obviously, no site can run without money, and few sites have the funding to be able to operate without worrying about specific donors or fees paid by visitors. To some degree, the site has to cater to the desires of non-historians, just to keep its doors open. This may require ignoring a certain aspect of the site's history, or glossing over it. And in some cases, this may not be unforgivable. But it does require an awareness of what is going on and the ability for site directors and heritage directors to have at least some idea of the point at which the history they're presenting ceases to maintain any standard of accuracy or integrity. This job seems to be akin to walking a tightrope: unless the site manages to balance things just right, it will fall off, whether it falls to one side because it commercialized its history too much, or to the other because it lost funding by refusing to listen to patrons and donors.
I'm not sure there's ever a perfect balance, and I'm not sure one a sustainable balance is found, it can be counted on to always work, even for the same site. But it is something of which public historians need to be aware, regardless of how hard that seems to be.
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