I finished my dissertation, “Enriching the Public History Dialogue: Effective Museum Education Programs for Audiences with Special Needs”, defended it successfully, and got all those signatures!  After a final edit session and a short walk across a stage, I will officially be Dr. Katie Stringer!

Also, I just updated my CV on here to include some new work, a post-doc fellowship, my first “real” publication, projects, presentations, and more!  Check it out at: http://katiestringer.wordpress.com/cv/ ‎

More detailed updates and blogs coming soon…

Created by graduate students studying Public History at the Loyola Univeristy of Chicago, Public History Ryan Gosling is a blog using the tumblr platform that pairs the popular “Hey Girl” meme with theories and concepts behind public history. 

The tumblr was an amazing success – easily reaching + 60,000 individuals and creating all sorts of Public History and Gosling dialogues! In an October 2012 post, the creators of the site analyzed the effectiveness of using popular culture and social media as a communicative device for historians. 

So what happened to Public History Ryan Gosling? Well, from quick observation, it looks like the student authors of the blog may have gone on to pursue internships and/or jobs. In their interview, the creators note the ”ephemeral nature of online culture” and point out that “Public History Ryan Gosling lost his cachet within months” and by fall 2012 the site was “somewhat outdated and irrelevant.” 

With the Internet’s attention span all of about 20 seconds, this raises the question – How can historians, museums, and other sites of informal learning effectively utilize social media to communicate with the public? One thing is certain – the frequency of updates and posts are essential – as is the quality. 

What are some ways your institution – or cultural organizations you follow – effectively use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and tumblr? What would you change? 

‘I am consulting the papers of A.F. Pollard because, in addition to founding the Institute of Historical Research, he was an early protagonist of Public History, especially during World War I.

The IHR was the first occupier of the site upon which Senate House now stands. It was founded in 1921 and was the first of the Senate Institutes. Its notorious temporary accommodation was named by historians as the ‘Tudor Cottage’.

Public History is a broad set of ideas - loosely it is history that is not singularly owned by professional historians and it also draws on a multiplicity of sources: oral, material, film, web, video, as well as the more traditional primary sources.  Justin Champion sketches the idea at The Historical Association.’

John Tosh is one of the convenors of the recent and ongoing series of seminars at the IHR concerning Public History and at the time of writing there are three seminars to go.

All very well. But I’m posting about it here because they’ve organized a truly excellent piece of public history to accompany it, entitled Recalling 1993. It’s a beautifully simple idea that must have been a heck of a job to organize: dial 1-855-FOR-1993 from any public payphone* in Manhattan, for free, and hear what was happening in that neighbourhood—or even on that corner—in 1993.

The only problem is that you have to be on the island of Manhattan to take advantage of it. But there’s a sample on the website, at least, and the bridge and tunnel crowd and other non-Manhattanites can admire the idea—and even if we can’t nip down and visit the building, which opened in 2008 and is quite remarkable, we can read about it.

*Yes, I’m surprised there are so many public payphones left in Manhattan too, but there it is. A lot of them are in, or in front of, shops, I think—but here’s one that almost has room for Clark Kent to change in just down the road from the museum.

I have been working on this redundant waterworks for over a year now. As I am growing with it, I am discovering new ways to look at it, as I grow both personally and intellectually. With this new knowledge, I am discovering alternative ways of looking at it, slowly peeling away its historical layers, revealing a rich and useable past.

I am a Public Historian; I am constantly looking for alterative ways of understanding the past through means other than written documentation. Without contradicting what I have just written, I recently I read with great interest a document by Graham Smart and Graham Jennings entitled The South Devon Atmospheric Railway Myth Exploded.

There is a consistently recurring theme, cropping up again and again and again suggesting that the original James Watt & Co engines installed at Sandfields were in fact originally built for Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s ill fated South Devon Atmospheric Railway.

I am not for one moment going to attempt to prove who is right or not, what ever the case may be, because that is not what public history sets out to do. What is important to understand is that all of these records, stories, documents and myths are here because that is how these people saw the world at that time; I am inviting you to look back in an alternative way.

I have been looking at some of the work of Edward Adams, so it was quite a surprise to me to find that Adams was not in fact a member of the Royal Institution of British Architects (RIBA), so therefore would be unable to call himself an Architect. He was in fact a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Saying that, he designed some beautiful buildings, Lichfield Station, Walsall Station, Queen Marys Grammar Schools Walsall, St Anne’s Church and of course the original Sandfields Waterworks Building.

I said in my previous posting about Edward Adams that ‘you can clearly see the influence of the railways in his designs’, but this does not quite convey strength and robustness seen in the Sandfields building; where did this influence come from?

As a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, who would Adams draw inspiration from, could it possibly be Isambard Kingdom Brunel?

This photograph is of one of the eight pumping engine houses in Torquay in Devon, all of the other building were of a similar design, the massive square chimney stack being the signature of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Photograh by kind courtesy of Dr Mark Hows; Weird and Wacky Railways of the British Isles; www.hows.org.uk/personal/rail/wwr/atmos.htm

For museum studies I have been plugging away on my Fanshawe Pioneer Village assignment where I am researching women’s clothing during WWI. I have found some cool information and am excited that this project will be LOADED with pictures (my favorite kind of project!).

Public History has continued to be busy ever since we returned to school in January! Although our exhibit at Museum London is up and running, my public programming group still has one more program. We started with our Story Time and Ask a Historian program were we got to craft and read stories with some kiddies and educated some people on London’s Labour History! Special thanks to Erica, Jesika, Caileen and Vanessa for helping out. Our second program was a knitting workshop that we co-hosted with Forest City Gallery. I really enjoyed this program and got to brush up on my knitting/crocheting skills and mingle with some really interesting people! Our last program is next Friday – it’s a Pop-up photo exhibit where Londoner’s are sending in their photos of contemporary labour in London!

For this class I also have the Metras Oral History project where I get to interview a UWO athletic alumni with Erica! More on that come…

For Interactive Exhibit Design, Jesika and I have been speeding along with our pop-up book! Two weeks ago we did all the programing and this week we started construction on the physical book. Jesika mastered the paper cutter, creating an amazing Paris skyline (sorry no pictures yet!) and I worked on our fashion wheel (also no pictures – sorry for the tease). The project is due on April 11^th so we will be working like busy bees to get that all finished in time!

Apologies for the lack of photos from my actual school work – here are a few fun ones for those who feel themselves a little stressed out. They are courtesy of the hilarious Demetri Martin!

Now, two some caveats. First, I should observe that I’m conflating my trips–although, come to to think of it–if you could manage a historical swing through Virginia that embraced both Revolutionary and Civil War sites you would have plenty to see.

Second, most of the visits were taken with small children in tow. On one hand, I really appreciated being able to expose my kiddos to historical sites and ideas. Seeing their eyes light up with fresh discoveries is terrific. I hope I’m planting some serious historical contexts into their lives. And, at the very least, my 6-year old can now report on the multiple uses of a bayoneted musket on an 18th-century battlefield. On the other hand, this meant I didn’t examine every detail as minutely as I might like. I tend to be a museum completionist, so these visits have altered how I look at things.

Over Spring Break we had the chance to do a three-day stint at Colonial Williamsburg. I was primed to be a bit skeptical, and let’s admit it–there is a faux-quality to trying to reproduce an entire 18th century town while hundreds of 21st century tourists mill around with smart phones. Still, I really enjoyed the experience. I give huge props to the historical interpreters who did great jobs staying in character yet translating for a modern audience who may know very little about Revolutionary Virginia. One woman we saw on successive days in different venues, and she did a fantastic job both times, relating to both children and adults.I enjoyed being able to toss early-America references into my interactions with some of the costumed participants, although I restrained myself from interrogating each of them on how they saw liberalism vs. republicanism motivating their desire for independence.

Our super-interpreter.

Exploring the town gave a great sense of scale. It only had about 2000 permanent residents at the Revolution–yet it was a key site for Virginia politics. A crowd gathering in front of the capitol or powder magazine could get to the governor’s mansion in a matter of minutes–time for passions to build but not to cool.

The gate to the Governor’s Palace

The strategy of Colonial Williamsburg might be labelled “living history,” and by doing it well I thought the program allowed an imaginative leap into the era of the American Revolution.

Too much historical reality?

By contrast, the approach at Monticello might be termed a “great man/great house” presentation. Part of the presentation focused on the architectural beauty that is Monticello. Being there to soak in the Palladian structure carries definite weight. The presentation inside the house was quite respectful of “Mr. Jefferson,” which one would expect. Still, the guide was well-read on Jefferson’s world and so was able to contextualize the house’s contents and meanings when asked.

Monticello has also expanded its treatment of slavery at Monticello and worked the Hemings family into the story. I appreciated the archaeological work that had been done to map out the slave outbuildings, which suggested that Monticello was a bustling concern with lots of inhabitants, not only a graceful structure serving a few whites.

Although Jefferson is not my favorite founder (to put it mildly), the site still impresses. I may still appreciate many of the Federalists critiques of Jefferson–o.k., I do. Even so, it was hard not to marvel a little at the level of learning and sophistication that Jefferson had brought to an area pretty close to the frontier. And yes, I would have wanted to be a part of one of Jefferson’s dinner parties when he was in his prime.

Finally, I had an afternoon to visit Yorktown Battlefield. I understand Yorktown has their own living history military encampment, but I skipped it to see the actual battlefield. Managed by the National Park Service, the presentation centered on artifacts and preserved battlefield. Many of the siege lines are still in place.

Here again, space mattered. Yorktown was only a village, and the siege area did not strike me as large. The redoubts which Alexander Hamilton assaulted were perhaps 30×30. By the time Americans got their second siege line up, the British were pinned down just a few football-fields away. The lesson again would be that significant events took place on a very limited scale.

Still, finding the historical heartbeat in the open green-spaces was more difficult. More could have been done with both information and context.

So, seeing three different styles of interpretation can prompt us to think about history can best be presented. I appreciated the semi-immersive sense of Colonial Williamsburg. I’d like to build into my students that sense of a world inhabited by people confronted with American Independence.

For commentators, let me ask–where are the places that history comes alive for you? And, why does it happen there? What are the historical sites you’ve most loved exploring?

Our Town Stories www.ourtownstories.co.uk is a new website from Edinburgh Libraries. Edinburgh Central Library has a fabulous collection of material related to the history of Edinburgh, in fact the largest in the world. Capital Collections www.capitalcollections.org.uk already gives access to many of the highlights but we hope Our Town Stories which puts out collections in the context of time and place will tap into the huge interest in local and personal history and expose our collections to a much wider audience.

With Our Town Stories people can have fun exploring the history of Edinburgh through images, maps and stories from 1700 to the present.

An up to date map of Edinburgh is the starting point for the discovery of the past, each type of material is indicated by a different coloured pin on the map. So the user can quickly find images, maps and stories. Exploring the map reveals images of Edinburgh both past and present. This connection is developed further with one of the most popular features of the site, the ‘Then and Now’ images, where contemporary scenes of familiar places like George Street, the Meadows and North Bridge are contrasted with how they used to look as captured in historical images from our collections.

We have a selection of historical maps that trace Edinburgh’s development since 1700, including Craig and Kirkwood’s Plans of the New Town from 1767 and 1819, and plans of Edinburgh dating from 1742, 1784, 1845 and 1890 recording the expansion of the city. These historic maps overlay the contemporary map and a then and now filter allows users to witness how the city or specific areas have changed over time. Unique to the website are the stories of Edinburgh’s people, places and city life, including the inspiring true story of Greyfriars Bobby, the hidden gems of Edinburgh’s literary connections and the stories behind some of Edinburgh’s famous landmarks and monuments. They also include the stories of famous and not so famous people. One story explores Robert Louis Stevenson’s connections to the City, another reveals Florence Morham’s Victorian upbringing Newington.

We will be adding more stories using material from our collections, as well as working with individuals, organisations and community groups to help them contribute their own stories of Edinburgh to the website. Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature, The Museum of Fire and Edinburgh City Archives have already donated stories.

The exhibit, about “Campbell County’s “Crime of the Century” will open to the public on May 10 and will be available for viewing Noon-4.30p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

From Cincinnati.Com:

On Feb. 1, 1896, a gruesome discovery was made on a Fort Thomas farm where the brutally slain body of 22-year-old Indiana native Pearl Bryan was found.

More than a century later, the murder mystery still captivates with questions of why the pregnant Pearl was killed by her lover and why her severed head has never been located. In what was dubbed the “Crime of the Century,’’ the tragic event culminated in the last public hanging in Campbell County. It would become a national news spectacle and forever link communities in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.

“It’s just one of those stories that grabs you,” said Debbie Buckley, renaissance manager and economic development director for the city of Fort Thomas.

Pearl was one of 12 children in a prominent family from Greencastle, Ind. She was a bright, attractive girl who enjoyed a relatively normal life until she met Scott Jackson. Jackson had moved to Indiana after avoiding prison time in an embezzlement scandal while employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. in Jersey City, N.J.

The pair started a passionate, but surreptitious love affair that resulted in Pearl’s pregnancy.

Jackson moved to Cincinnati to enroll in the Ohio College of Dental Surgery after being expelled from the Indiana Dental College. That’s where he met Alonzo Walling, a former classmate. The two became roommates, then later co-conspirators.

After learning of Pearl’s pregnancy, Jackson convinced her to take several concoctions intended to induce abortion back in Greencastle. Those attempts failed, and Pearl – holding out hope that Jackson would marry her – went to Cincinnati on Jan. 28 to meet with him.

“Pearl made poor decision after poor decision,” said James McDonald, co-author of “The Perils of Pearl Bryan: Betrayal and Murder in the Midwest in 1896.” “She should have left Cincinnati when it was clear that Scott Jackson was not going to marry her.”

McDonald of Indianapolis wrote the book (published in 2012), along with Joan Christen of Indianapolis, after finding his grandfather’s journal. The journal indicated that his grandfather was a newsboy who sold The Kentucky Post, which enjoyed booming sales during the Pearl Bryan murder case.

McDonald was intrigued when he discovered Jackson and Walling had attended Indiana Dental College, precursor to the Indiana School of Dentistry in Indianapolis, where the now-retired McDonald taught for 36 years.

It was reported that Pearl, five months pregnant, was drugged prior to another failed abortion attempt in Cincinnati. That led Jackson and Walling to hire George Jackson, a carriage driver, to transport the three across the Central Bridge into Kentucky on Jan. 31. The driver was told the woman was ill and her doctor was accompanying her home.

“Back then apparently cocaine was over-the-counter, and they drugged her,” Buckley said. “He drives them over and can hear her moaning in the back of this carriage when they tell him to stop and wait, and they drag her up the hill to murder her.”

The driver fled on foot, leaving behind the carriage. After hearing about the horrific murder, George Jackson would later contact authorities.

The crime scene was ghastly. It was clear there was a terrific struggle as the decapitated and yet unidentified body lay atop pools of blood.

As word got out, throngs of spectators came to the farm in present-day Fort Thomas where the murder occurred, near Grandview Avenue on Alexandria Pike. The adjacent reservoir was drained in an attempt to locate the severed head and identify the victim.

However, the clue determining Pearl’s identity lay at her feet. Newport shoe merchant L.D. Poock took a decided interest in the case and noted a model number on the victim’s shoes, leading authorities to Louis and Hays Shoe Store in Greencastle, where records indicated Pearl had purchased the shoes.

Jackson and Walling were arrested after eyewitness accounts, including that of George Jackson, implicated the pair. They were extradited to Newport, where they were jailed.

The case was front page news in the New York Times. Before and during Jackson’s trial, the men gained a bizarre following of women, often visiting and bearing gifts, intrigued with their notoriety.

For years, people would ride the streetcar to the farmhouse on the property, which is now the Children’s Art Academy on South Fort Thomas Avenue, where refreshments were sold to onlookers.

Jackson’s trial began on April 21, 1896, and ended May 14 with a conviction. The 26-year-old was sentenced to death. Likewise, a separate trial for Walling, 21, resulted in a guilty verdict and a death sentence. Neither of the men admitted any guilt and blamed each other for the crime.

The men were moved to the Covington jail after threats of lynching. After a jailbreak, in which the pair took no part, they were again relocated, to the Alexandria jail. They remained there until March 20, 1897, when they were moved to Newport for the double hanging. A crowd of more than 5,000 gathered to watch the last public execution in Campbell County.

Theories swirled that Pearl’s head was incinerated in a dental school furnace, or tossed into the Ohio River, or was used in an occult ritual at the slaughterhouse now known as Bobby Mackey’s. Despite pleas from authorities and Pearl’s family members, the men took the secret to their graves.

Public fascination still abounds 117 years later. Several Pearl Bryan ballads – most recent by A.L. Phipps and the Phipps Family in 1965 – were written about the murder. Pearl’s alligator valise, which reportedly was used to transport her head, is on display at the Campbell County Historical and Genealogical Society, 8352 East Main St., Alexandria.

As authors Trevor Owens, Fred Gibbs, and Patrick Leary suggest, the accessibility to digital tools, sources, and methods of manipulating data allow us to examine and interpret information with a fresh perspective.  Incorporating new forms of data into our historical research and writing requires that we rethink “the nature of historical writing as a product and process of understanding.”[1]  Not only will it shape how we work, but also how we think about and frame questions for research.  Once again, it brings us back to looking at history with fresh eyes.

I personally love this idea of seeing things from a new perspective and branching out of our traditional sources for historical data.  I believe it will help us develop more thoughtful questions and new interests for historical research.  As I have mentioned before, changing the way we think about historical data and our means of interpreting it, does not imply we have to abandon our close reading and critical analysis.

Fred Gibbs and Trevor Owens suggest historians need to see how data is manipulated and interpreted for research.  By doing, and observing the work of others, we can learn to use data effectively.  Perhaps I value this transparency and collaborative nature because of my experience as a classroom teacher.  Teachers are always sharing their work, elaborating on their process, to enable others to replicate and improve upon their work.  It may make some individuals uncomfortable, but it serves to improve the field of history.

One of my all time favorite things to do on this Earth is travel abroad! In the past 8 years, I have traveled to Germany, Belgium, accidently to the Netherlands, Canada, China, and Italy. In order to prepare for smooth sailing across the pond, I often consult websites like Yahoo Travel, Yelp, and Tip Advisor for suggestions on places that are a “must see” or ones to “definitely avoid.”

Sara & Dr. Fisher on the Great Wall of China 2010

Florini Vacation to Italy 2012

While some might argue that I should take what people write on these websites with a gain of salt, historians like Trevor Owens maintain that their commentary is useful to “triangulate the ways in which publics make sense of and use cultural heritage sites” (Owens).

The Visitor Experience

Public historians and museum professionals are obsessed with determining the inner workings of the visitor mind. John Falk, a pioneer in the field of visitor studies, states that patrons invest leisure time and money into exploring museums and other cultural heritage sites to satisfy personal interests, experience the physical historic setting, and to engage in social interaction (The Museum Experience, Falk, p. 2-3). In order to determine how visitors interact with a historic site or exhibition, professionals generally conduct observations or on the sport visitor surveys. In the eyes of Owens, “the ability to observe how people interact with a site is powerful, but crucially it does not provide access to what is happening inside the minds of visitors to a site” (Owens).

Trip Advisor Rates Einstein

In Trip Advisor Rates Einstein: Using the Social Web to Unpack the Public Meanings of a Cultural Heritage Site, Owens blogs about a recent visitor survey he conducted using commentary from Yahoo Travel, Flicker, Trip Advisor, and Yelp to analyze reactions to a bronze sculpture of Albert Einstein. Developed by Robert Berks,’ Einstein’s monument is located near the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences (not far from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial) in Washington, D.C.

Sara & AL 2007

Owens’ visitor evaluation, via his interpretation of social commentary, uncovered some interesting themes. First, many tourists mentioned they love the obscurity of Einstein’s statue because it is conducive to reflection and relaxation away from the hustle and bustle of downtown D.C. Second, parents and teachers enjoyed the informal nature of the statue, since it invited kids to climb and play on “Al”—something children are not allowed to do with statues like FDR (Owens).

FDR WWII Memorial

As Owens points out, the WWII memorial is a space intended for formal introspection and reflection. Unfortunately, some reviewers disliked the informal nature of Einstein’s statue, for they found that students ignore the meaningful quotes written on the base of the monument, and overall educational opportunity to learn about this scientific genius (Owens).

Sara & FDR 2007

Implications for Public & Digital Historians

The social web provides another vantage point to develop a different kind of narrative. In juxtaposition to the story of creation and critique the next story is a story of use, of what the monument means to ‘everyday’ individuals (Owens).

According to Owens, critics like Paul Richard initially dismissed the construction of Einstein’s monument because they were afraid the scale would “make him into some kind of titan.” Yet, “the pose of the statue, and the way the idea of Einstein invites a sense of informality, has translated into…reinforcing the idea of Einstein as a relaxed everyman.” As people continue to climb, photograph, and reflect on “Al,” they become an inherent part of the overall visitor experience to Einstein’s monument (Owens).

Two of the many impressions I had at this particular event are as follows:

Photo from the US-Dakota Wars panel discussion at Sitting Bull College on March 22, 2013.

1) This public format remains one of the best ways to open a discussion that broadens the exchange not just with the “official” panel discussants, but with the audience members as well. The quasi-lecture and conversational format brings new voices into the fold, and this is important in that it allows researchers an opportunity to hear about historical particulars that simply do not exist in the archives or in “official” histories.

2) In this Sitting Bull College context, one audience participant noted how they, as a Native, felt a bit more comfortable opening up and chatting about the history and memory of the US-Dakota wars: depending on social contexts, individuals may or may not decide to talk about particular points of memory and history. This is an interesting intersection between our Sense of Place and Sense of History: the history we will talk about is largely dependent on where we are and who we are with. This also made me think about how it would be interesting to track how each one of these discussions played out. For example, in chatting with Richard Rothaus after the discussion happened on March 23, 2013 in Watford City, North Dakota, Rothaus noted how the audience contributed a completely different set of voices, and asked a completely different set of questions. This no doubt is due to the different range of cultural back-drops everyone comes from, and also how our vision and memories of the past are shaped by the different cultures we are born in to (for example, the first panel discussion was approximately 240 miles from the second panel discussion, both of which were in North Dakota: the first was at Sitting Bull College, Fort Yates, the second in Watford City, North Dakota).

This is the first of 4 discussions, and each discussion is happening (or happened) at a different location.  The third discussion will take place on Friday, April 5, 2013, at the Ellendale Opera House in Ellendale, North Dakota, and the fourth discussion will be at the Lake Region Heritage Center in Devils Lake, North Dakota on Saturday, April 6, 2013. More details at the following links here and here.

If you’re not familiar with top hat ceremonies, it’s a maritime tradition spanning the decades of top hat wearing sailors in which the captain of the first ship to enter the system, harbour or in our case, canal gets to sign the inside of the top hat and wear the top hat for all to see (and be jealous of – because who doesn’t want to wear a top hat!?).

Here’s a link of some coverage from the 2012 Top Hat Ceremony. I wasn’t there in 2012…and it was a different shipping company in 2013, but it’s pretty much the same thing.

http://www.calgarysun.com/videos/entertainment/comedy/671177285001/top-hat-ceremony-in-st-catharines/1462942235001

Oh – and it’s as boring as can be. Absolutely sleepy. The most exciting part of the ceremony (the awarding of the top hat) is unfortunately the shortest part. Nevertheless, I was determined to get some excitement going over this annual event and maybe attract some new audiences to come and enjoy the first ship through the canal. Plus, I just have this thing for top hats.

We have been making a lot of effort in staying consistent with our social media and making sure that the information we give – whether ship times or historical information or excitement over Top Hat – is quality. It’s one thing to post a lot, it’s another to post a lot, with quality. The Top Hat Ceremony is a pretty unique event for a region that isn’t so obviously maritime. I thought we should take advantage of the opportunity to get our audience excited about something that they have heard of and seen before, in a new way. Plus, I just love top hats. Since we have revamped our costume collection, we had enough top hats to do some sort of count down. It started with me just being really excited for Top Hat last Friday…then I said to my supervisor…”let’s get the rest of the staff in top hats and fill our social media with it all next week.” And so that’s what we did. We filled our social media – facebook, twitter and instagram – with top hats. It was fun for our audience but also fun for the staff. It’s not everyday you get to wear a top hat…unless you’re me. Even if our visitors and online audience weren’t going to attend the ceremony, at least their newsfeeds would be filled with top hats and they could get excited as we were for the return of the ships.

See how clever I am!? “Return of the Ships.” Clever.
Also, see the beginnings of the discussion this tweet prompted. Many joined in looking forward to the ships, celebrating history, or just looking for a way to deal with ‘bridges up.’

And so, we began the ‘count up’ (as opposed to count down) to the Top Hat Ceremony. And it worked very well – we had many comments, likes and discussions centering on the canal’s importance to the community, all because we posted a fun photo of a few of us in top hats.

Here’s a selection of some of the photos and a few other related social media goodies from the week of Top Hat;

1 Top Hat. Friday, March 15.

2 Top Hats. Monday, March 18.

3 Top Hats. Tuesday, March 19. New instagram filter!

4 Top Hats. Wednesday, March 20. The ‘point’ continues!

5 Top Hats. Thursday, March 21. That’s the real Top Hat that Tanya is holding. We had fun with this one.

5 Days of Top Hat post on Thursday. With some kind comments. Genius. Genius, people. Genius!

If you’re interested in seeing some photos from this year’s Top Hat Ceremony, check out the museum’s facebook album.

For us at the museum, it’s really important to be connected and continuously engaged with our social media audiences because most people don’t visit the museum everyday. More often than not, we still have visitors that are surprised we exist with the “we have a museum?” Hopefully, these types of mini-campaigns of fun, encourage people to get excited about the resources and the institution. Hopefully, they see, even through a little silliness, that we’re doing something important and worth while. If we’re engaging our audiences in multiple ways and people are connected with what we’re doing all the time, then maybe we can stay on their radar. Radar is a nautical term.

Also. Top Hats = Win.

.

I am a huge fan of review websites like TripAdvisor and Yelp, and I also tend to read reviews of products whenever they are available.  The height of my need to know the experiences of others was definitely while I was studying abroad and booking hostels or looking for the cheapest places to eat, but even while at school I read user review sites to help me plan outings.  I also try and write reviews, since I rely so much on what other people say.  That being said, I though it was really interesting to see online ratings studied in an academic sense.

Owens writes that “the social web provides another vantage point to develop a different kind of narrative. In juxtaposition to the story of creation and critique the next story is a story of use, of what the monument means to ‘everyday’ individuals.”  Visitor reviews can be useful not just to other potential visitors, but also to the stewards of those sites.  User reviews and photographs show how visitors interact with a monument (or, potentially, a museum, piece of artwork, etc.) as opposed to how visitors are expected to interact.  And the beauty of the user review is that it is unsolicited–there is no sense of artificiality as might exist in a face-to-face interview.

I wonder if anyone has ever studied online user reviews and responses of the Denkmal für die Ermordeten Jüden Europas (Berlin, Germany), as the memorial was designed so that everyone could draw their own meaning and interact with it in different ways. This is what my family did…

When the stones are wet, you can draw pictures on them.

The potential of user reviews as historical evidence and documentation is clear.  Today they can be useful to public historians and museum professionals attempting to understand how the public interacts with a particular location, setting, or object.  For future historians, these reviews will serve as a basis for building certain social and cultural moments.  To facilitate that, Owens advocates that more focus be put on digitally archiving websites based on user-generated content such as Flickr, Facebook, or Youtube, similar to the Library of Congress’s initiative to archive tweets.

I’m torn on this matter.  While I see the potential and know that it’s easy for things to get lost or completely disappear in the depths of the Internet, part of me feels like that is going a step too far.  Archiving any of those sites would be a massive project and would have to be updated so frequently, seeing how quickly things get uploaded.  It also seems that there might be some issues of privacy…in general, I’m all for preserving things, but I’m still wrapping my head around the theory and practice of web archiving.

The 1994 re-enactment of a slave auction at Colonial Williamsburg created a stir in the media, and, accordingly, with the public, but only a few weeks, a couple of months at the most.  Reviews were mixed, and once the sensationalism had played itself out the public moved on.  But the significance of the event and the reactions to it reverberate loudly even now as an example of the power of history, the power of heritage, and the effect created when the two converge in an emotionally charged environment.  This essay explores the history versus heritage concept and examines the roles of the historian and of society when emotions over historical truths (or beliefs) are running high.  The Colonial Williamsburg theme park is the best laboratory in America for this examination because it is there that history and heritage are constantly intermingling as interactions play out daily between the visiting public and the costumed staff portraying 18^th century “personas.”

Good historians strive to understand and use the past as impartially as possible.  But the public’s concept of history, and its uses, can be very different.  This public, or popular, version of historical/traditional/folk memory can be encompassed under the umbrella-term, heritage.  Before analyzing how history and heritage interacted in the Colonial Williamsburg slave auction, I want to define the concept of “heritage.”

Few, I would argue, have even considered the differences between academic history practiced by full-time historians and heritage, the public history of, well, everyone else.  For most of the public heritage is just another term for our past, a synonym of history.  Any differences in what historians practice as history and what the layperson does with it, again I would argue, from the standpoint of the public’s perception simply manifest themselves in terms of detail (scholarly historians, presumably, operating at a higher standard of detail than the general public).  But a clarification of the terms “past,” “history,” and “heritage” helps to illustrate the differences.  In English, we tend to interchange these three terms pretty freely when referring to the same concept, but as stated by Keith Jenkins in Re-thinking History, the “past” is simply that which has already happened[2].  The “idea of history” is a “discourse about, but categorically different from, the past.”[3]  “History” is everything historians have produced, books, articles, films, in an attempt to study the past.[4]  In fact, Jenkins goes so far as to say that we don’t really study the past; we actually study that which is written about the past.[5]  Similarly, David Lowenthal makes the point that the “past” is unrecoverable, and that “history departs from the past in being an interpretation rather than replica: it is a view, not a copy, of what happened.”[6]

History and heritage are similar in that both use the past.  Each, according to David Lowenthal attempt to “show things as they were – bring the dead to life with imagined empathy, make the past more knowable, tie up loose ends, remove unsightly excrescences, offer images clearer than reality.”[7]  In this way they are inextricably bound, and Lowenthal makes it clear that history and heritage converge as much as they diverge.  What makes each distinct from the other is motive.  History’s goal is objectivity,

perhaps elusive, perhaps unattainable, and certainly arguable, as evidenced in Novick’s That Noble Dream.[8]  But all the while the target is to get the story as accurate as possible, and subjecting that story to the scrutiny of peer review.  Thus the historian’s aim, writes Lowenthal, remains true: “to explain through critical inquiry.”[9]  Heritage, on the other hand, aims to “celebrate and congratulate.”[10]  Heritage affirms identity, inculcates loyalty, stirs patriotism.  Heritage aims to justify our present and our future, explaining, finding precedent in, and apologizing for the past.

I first encountered this concept of heritage in an essay by David Lowenthal, “Dilemmas and Delights of Learning History,” from the book Knowing, Teaching, & Learning History.  In the essay, while explaining how relatively open the discipline of history is to amateur scholarship, Lowenthal writes the following: 

…because it is open to all and matters so passionately to so many, history is readily seized on as a weapon for this or that cause, this or that faith – it continually risks being turned into civics or heritage[11]

My point here is this, the public rarely questions historical accuracy.  When it comes to heritage “plausibility is as good as the truth,” and revelations that time honored traditions are flawed or even wholly invented “leaves most people unfazed.”[14] U.S. peacekeepers did not discern between heritage belief and historical fact, what the combatants in the Balkans cited as reasons for fighting was what was deemed necessary for soldiers to understand.  And Serb leaders did not care what evidence suggested.  That prevailing belief among Serbs was that they had suffered for their religion at the hands of Muslims was all that mattered.  It served their purposes.  Similarly, Lowental points to Israel’s continued use of Masada as a preeminent symbol of national identity “though literary and material evidence totally discredit the myth of 1^st-century mass suicide.”[15]  Historical truth does not matter; it is what Masada represents as a source of Israeli patriotism that “truly” makes it relevant.  “Visitors come to Masada today not for tangible evidence of the ancient legend but to experience a modern passion play of national rebirth.”[16]

It is faith, therefore, that is the crucial differentiator between history and heritage.  Historians use critical inquiry to question and examine the past. Heritage is believed.  Historians attempt impartiality and to overcome bias.  “Bias”, writes Lowenthal, “is the main point of heritage.”[17]  It cannot help being biased, heritage is by nature personal, it affirms our identity.  “Prejudiced pride in the past is not a sorry consequence of heritage,”[18] writes Lowenthal, “it is its essential purpose.”  Not only does heritage serve our pride, it serves our collective conscience.

By serving to validate our worth, heritage adjusts the past, alters it to reflect our present morals and ideologies.  We celebrate the glories of our past (factual or imagined) and omit, excuse or update that which is unpleasant about the past.  School mascots are changed to reflect current political correctness.  Language is altered to render neuter that which was formerly written in masculine tense, as in the case of the Maryland state motto, Fatti maschii, parole femine (manly deeds, womanly words), changed to the more socially acceptable “strong deeds, gentle words.”[19]  When the events of the past so offend our present sensibilities and cannot be omitted or adjusted, as with slavery in America, the Irish Potato Famine, and the Japanese invasion of Nan king, governments issue apologies or express remorse.  We project our modern morals upon our forefathers, not understanding that what is currently deemed unacceptable may not have been so regarded in the past.

These heritage adjustments make the past more appealing to the public in general, more “congenial” in Lowenthal’s words.  Thus heritage attempts to make the past relevant.  Instead of cold, objective, dispassionate history, heritage is alive.  History is the stuff of dusty archives, “old stuff that has nothing to do with us.”  In contrast, “heritage stands for all that is backward-looking and alive today and good.”[20]  And, just as important, heritage is regarded as something that is relevant.  Relevancy provided the impetus for educators to drop “formal history” in the early 1900s for social studies and civics, synonyms, notes Lowenthal, for patriotism.  He cites the Kansas Supreme Court ruling in 1927 that “history” was no longer a “record of events but an ‘inspirational’ account ‘revealing how the past still lives in us.’”[21]

Because heritage still lives, and is relevant to us all, we can experience rather than learn it.  As noted above, the visitors at Masada are not searching for “evidence” they are going there to “experience.”  Using another museum in Israel for an example, Lowenthal cites the guide, “we are not here to teach history, to do the teachers’ work.  Let them learn history at school.  We are here for the experience.”[22]  Experiencing something is far easier than studying it, and it fits well with the modern obsession with instant gratification.

So with heritage we celebrate the glory, accept the plausible, alter the unpleasant, apologize, omit, and experience.  We learn it in the civics-minded social studies of our grade school education.  We watch movies and television programs “based on true stories.”  We hear stories at home, visit monuments and museums, and observe holidays.  The more we learn our heritage, the more we practice it.  The more we are indoctrinated by heritage, the more we claim it as our own.

It is important to note that heritage is not inherently bad.  Nor is it “bad history.”  It is simply different from history in its use of the past.  Heritage serves to create group, clan, tribal, and national identity and to define those values a society holds sacred.  With out heritage there is no culture because nothing is valued.  Thus heritage serves a vital role in any society.  But it can be misused.  To return to the example of the Balkans, the Bosnia Country Handbook, printed in 1997 for soldiers serving in the peacekeeping mission, makes the following assessment:

In the Balkans, past history is closely linked with perceptions of the present and future.  Religious and cultural animosities have developed over centuries and are deeply ingrained among the various warring factions.  Violence has been, and will likely continue to be, prevalent.[23]

In fact, Croats and Serbs routinely recalled massacres committed when they warred against each other in World War II as justification for similar atrocities committed in 1991.  Deeply ingrained animosities “developed over centuries” are hard to overcome, it seems, despite the fact that for nearly fifty years Croats and Serbs lived side by side as members of a single nation.  But when the power that held Yugoslavia together waned, allegiance to group overrode allegiance to nation, and the country splintered.  When history and heritage, or the heritage of one group versus another, come into direct opposition, is conflict the natural result?  The Balkan conflict, as well as the unrest in Palestine, Northern Ireland, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, etc., etc., seem to point to this conclusion.  Different groups contesting over the same living space can use heritage in very dangerous ways.  Passionate heritage mongering can incense fanaticism, and pits competing group “histories” against one another in the attempt to justify “ancient” claims, or address “ancient” grievances.   America is a very diverse nation, comprised of countless groups identifying themselves by race, ethnic background, religion, region, sex, sexual orientation, state, and any combination of these of any other differentiator.  What happens when one version of heritage conflicts with another or with the historical record?  The slave auction at Colonial Williamsburg in 1994 provides and excellent example of what happens when this heritage/history conflict occurs. 

Established in the 1920’s, financed by John D. Rockefeller, Colonial Williamsburg claims to be the largest scale restoration project in America.  Covering over 170 acres the park consists of some 500 restored and reconstructed buildings based on archaeological and archival research, for example, the Governor’s Palace restoration is based upon the 1770 Botetourt inventory.  Time is frozen at the park, where it is perpetually the eve of the American Revolution and, according to the Colonial Williamsburg visitors’ guide, for “one crucial moment in history, becoming Americans was a choice.”  The town is a working anachronism where the restored homes are occupied and the shops and taverns are operated by some of the 3,500 people employed by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, including historians, archeologists, researchers, and historical interpreters.  It is the interpreters, assuming roles of 18^th century “personas,” that the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation credits with making “this living history museum such a special experience.”  Again we encounter the concept of historicalexperience.  As a heritage center, providing visitors with the experience of life in the 18^th century capital of Virginia, is the attraction:

Colonial citizens in period costumes have assumed specific personas of actual people who lived.  By conversing with these townspeople, you can learn the most about 18^th century opinion and state of mind.  Keep an ear open as you encounter the “locals.”  The possibility of a free America is on the lips of everyone in town – and then again, you could overhear a bit of gossip involving a recent scandal.  You might even be lucky enough to meet Thomas Jefferson, Martha Washington or some other colonial celebrity.[24]

Experience, entertainment, a little excitement, and some history mixed in, this is Colonial Williamsburg’s formula where, as Lowenthal put it, “heritage is seen to merge in [a] cheerful conspiracy with the past.”[25]  It is an effective mix, demonstrated by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Financial Review.  The Foundation states that its long-term goal is to “maintain a condition of financial equilibrium in which revenues and expenditures are balanced, adequate funding is provided to maintain and preserve our facilities and collections, and the purchasing power of the endowment is maintained.”  For the year 2,000 the numbers were $193.8 million in total revenue, of which $148.5 million were operational revenue including admissions, hotels and restaurants, products, and real estate ($5.7 million).  These operating revenues were actually down from the previous year, but from 1996 to 2000 there has been a healthy increase in total revenue, about $35 million.[26]

As successful as it may seem, Colonial Williamsburg has not been with out its critics.  Some use the numbers quoted above are used to charge that entertainment and drawing large crowds, not history, is the real business of Colonial Williamsburg.  Many complain out that the Foundation has focused its restoration and interpretation on the lives of the white gentry class.  Social historians note that racial representation in Colonial Williamsburg is glaringly unbalanced, when the evidence, in fact, demonstrates that over half of the town’s 18^th century population was comprised of free and enslaved blacks.  The demographics of visitors to the park appear to reflect the unbalanced interpretive representation.  Most visitors are white, college-educated, and earn above average incomes.  Blacks account for a mere 4 percent of the million annual visitors.[27]

In the area of black representation, Colonial Williamsburg has made efforts to correct the record.  In 1988 efforts to better reflect the black historical presence in the town were formalized with the creation of the Department of African-American Interpretation and Presentation (AAIP).  The result was additional attention to the role of blacks, especially slaves, in daily life in Colonial Williamsburg.  Tours of the homes of the white gentry included discussions about the slaves who served in those homes.  More black interpreters were added.  And there was the reconstruction of slave quarters at Carter’s Grove.[28]

Located eight miles south of Colonial Williamsburg, Carters Grove consists of four sites: a 17^th century reconstruction called Wolstenholme Towne, the Carter’s Grove mansion, the Winthrop Rockefeller Archeological Museum, and the reconstructed slave quarter.  Consisting of a small court yard surrounded by two double houses, a single family dwelling, corn crib and pens for livestock, the reconstruction aims to depict the lives of Virginia slaves in the “last two decades before independence [of America],” and to “explore black and white relations in the American colonies, the rise of the slave system, the institutionalization of racism, and the development of African-American culture.”[29]

These were small victories to be sure, but as more programs were added depicting the lives blacks, free and slave, “the number of black visitors…slowly crept up.”[30]  The comments of Linda Redmond, a black woman from Forestville, Virginia, quoted in a 1999 article by Washington Post writer, Dan Eggen, illustrate the correlation:  “I used to think, ‘Why go to Williamsburg?  There’s nothing there about us.  Now there is, even if it’s not something I’m happy about or comfortable with.”[31]

Critics were unimpressed.  Mercedes Quintos of George Washington University, argues that despite the additional programs, “the average visitor to Colonial Williamsburg [did not] leave with an understanding of the pervasiveness of slavery in the colonial city’s society.”  Only by having black interpreters in costume at a number proportionally correct to colonial times, will visitors get a true sense of what the town actually looked like.  The few buildings reconstructed to portray slave life can not compete with the rest of the restoration, she maintains, they are simply “overwhelmed by the grand houses…which Colonial Williamsburg founders focused their preservation, restoration, and interpretive efforts.”  Add the fact that with Carter’s Grove situated eight miles away from the main attractions at Colonial Williamsburg, and again the majority of visitors do not get a complete “experience” of slave culture in the town.[32]

Much of the problem for Colonial Williamsburg is that having neglected the topic of slavery for so long, there is essentially fifty years or more of catching up to do.  The scarcity of slave artifacts, having been disregarded until the rise of social history in the 1960s and 1970s, further compounds the problem for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in providing better representation. 

The delicacy of the issue itself, the long slighted, highly politicized and emotionally charged nature of African-American history, amounts to a no-win catch 22 – “a heritage minefield” in Lowenthals words.  He points out that even as Colonial Williamsburg tries to correct the record to the satisfaction of social historians and black interpreters, political correctness applies its pressure from a conflicting point of view.  “In slave huts, rumpled facsimile blankets once suggested slaves stumbling out to labor at dawn had no time to tidy up.”  But to some groups “this pandered to stereotypes of blacks as slovenly and slothful, so the blankets are now neatly folded.”[33]  From one point of view Colonial Williamsburg had not done enough to accurately portray the presence of blacks and slavery in the town.  From another point of view they were telling the story wrong.  In to this minefield, in 1994 the Colonial Williamsburg Department of African American Interpretation and Presentation brazenly ran headfirst.

In the auction staged in 1994 by the AAIP in front of Wetherburn’s Tavern, four slaves were “sold.”  The first was a woman named Suki, a laundress who fetched a price of 20 pounds.  Next came a man named Billy, a carpenter, who, with his tools, was bought for 70 pounds.  The final two sales were the most dramatic; two house slaves, a man and a woman, she visibly pregnant, were sold to separate buyers.[34]  It was a deliberate tug at viewers’ emotions, no doubt to demonstrate the horrors and sorrow of slavery in America, and in doing so, give shock value to the historical fact that humans were sold as chattel – depicting a family sundered by sale.  There is no way to be sure of exactly what happened in an auction such as the one re-enacted by the AAIP.  Records document what property was sold, even noting the names of the slaves, but the words spoken by and reactions of the “personas” depicted in the auction were the interpretations of the Colonial Williamsburg staff.  That did not matter, as the effect was achieved.  In the words of one reporter covering the event, “you didn’t need textbooks or movies to understand a mother’s sorrow.”[35]

Reactions among the public were just as emotional even before the event occurred.  Once word of the AAIP’s plan to re-enact a slave auction at Colonial Williamsburg got out, leaders from the local chapter of the NAACP expressed outrage, denouncing the program before it was even seen.  Indignant over what, in their view, trivialized and exploited, “their history” for the purposes of entertainment, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference appealed to the president of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, at the time Robert Wilburn, to cancel the re-enactment.[36]  Colonial Williamsburg stuck to their guns, so members from both the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference arrived the day of the event to protest.  It wasn’t much as protests go, but it speaks volumes to the power of heritage.  The Rev. Curtis Harris of Hopewell, VA, and the Rev. Milton Reid of Norfolk, VA, sat on the steps of Wetherburn’s Tavern, an act of silent defiance reminiscent of a 1960’s “sit-in,” protesting an event they had not even seen, but concerning a subject they felt intimately passionate about.  “This is 1994,” Reid is quoted in the New York Times, “As far as we have come, to go back to this, for entertainment, is despicable and disgusting.  This is the kind of anguish we need not display.”   The new director of the AAIP, Christy Coleman, who was also portraying the young, pregnant wife in the auction, countered the protesters.  Addressing the political action chair of the NAACP, Jack Gravely, attending the event in protest, Coleman demanded that he and the protesters watch the re-enactment and then “judge with honest hearts and honest minds.”[37]

After the half-hour re-enactment was over, Rev. Harris remained unconvinced.  “I think this is a show,” a reporter quoted him.  “It is not real history.”[38]  Real history.  For Rev. Harris, the NAACP, and others this was not real history because it was their history, or more appropriately, their heritage, being told by someone else, and in a manner that they did not deem appropriate.  Because heritage is so personal we feel uniquely privileged to own it and the historical facts that may encompass that heritage.  Thus the protesters did not feel that Colonial Williamsburg was qualified to have access to their heritage.  Coleman defended Colonial Williamsburg, and her department.  The painful memory of slavery had not been trivialized for entertainment, she maintained, and Colonial Williamsburg was “eminently qualified to do this presentation.”[39]  The event, in her opinion, put “a face to what happened.  People will remember what they see, what they feel, what they hear.”[40] But in using emotion as dramatically as they did, the AAIP was pandering to heritage as much as they were depicting a historical interpretation.  The emotional impact, however, drove home the historical reality that people were sold as slaves.  Unlike Rev. Harris and the NAACP, however, most who attended the event, white and black, accepted the re-enactment as a “fair” and “accurate” presentation of “history.”

The Virginia chapter of the NAACP, for its part, remained critical.  Though Jack Gravely had recanted his objections after witnessing the re-enactment, calling it “passionate, moving and educational,” the organization made it clear that he was speaking only for himself.  The NAACP, in a statement issued the day after the slave auction, emphasized that it “remained concerned about slave auction portrayals and would discuss it further with officials of Colonial Williamsburg.”[41]  The question of who owns historical topics, especially when those topics clash with a particular group’s heritage, was certainly at issue here.  Who has the right to produce living history productions concerning slavery?  Had the NAACP had its way, there would not have been a slave auction portrayed at Colonial Williamsburg.  Mercedes Quintos suggests that the fact that Coleman and Colonial Williamsburg did not give in under the pressure demonstrates “the limits of respecting a groups concerns” when providing historical interpretation.[42]  Having seen the project through, the AAIP was able to overcome the initial objections and even change some minds, as in the case of Jack Gravely.  Quintos contrasted Colonial Williamsburg’s tenacity with the controversy over the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Enola Gay exhibit.  “Had the Smithsonian’s leadership possessed the same conviction of the soundness of their curator’s scholarship, they would have listened to the veterans’ groups but known at what point incorporating their views would have undermined the effectiveness of the exhibit.”[43] 

But the differences between the slave auction at Colonial Williamsburg and the Enola Gay exhibit in the Smithsonian are stark in terms of the risk each institution took in presenting a potentially controversial exhibit, and to whom each institution had to answer.  As soon as veterans’ groups were given access to draft scripts of the proposed Enola Gay exhibit, they cried foul.  Charging that exhibit focused more on the suffering of the Japanese after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instead of acknowledging of sacrifice of Americans fighting in the defense of their country, veterans went to Congress.  Under Congressional pressure, the Smithsonian had no choice but to capitulate and scrap the planned exhibit (entitled, “The Final Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II”) for something more benign.[44]  The result was further controversy and protest from those who felt the “watered-down” exhibit omitted debates over using, and devastation resulting from, the atomic bomb.  In the end the Smithsonian looked foolish and feeble, unable to facilitate “real” scholarship.

Colonial Williamsburg is not governed by the United States Congress (beyond the normal sense), nor does it rely upon Congress for funding.  In taking the risk of portraying the slave auction, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation had only to answer to itself.  Ultimately, pursuing and portraying what they felt to be serious historical research and scholarship out weighed any risk of controversy.  The fact that black patronage at the time accounted for only 4 percent of the million plus visitors, no doubt, left the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation little to lose.  And controversy can actually serve to generate interest, so, unlike the Smithsonian, Colonial Williamsburg was in a better position to counter opposition.

Having countered the opposition, and tenaciously presenting the slave auction, in spite of the protest, Colonial Williamsburg seems to have come out the better.  Jonathan Yardley, a writer for the Virginia Pilot newspaper, criticized the NAACP for its premature condemnation.  “It is unfortunate that the NAACP felt obliged to intervene…it should be said that protesting in advance about a re-enactment that had been seen by no one except those involved in staging it serves no interests save those of the falsification or self-interested revision of history.”[45]  Those who witnessed the event, white and black, appeared to be moved by the portrayal and satisfied with its effectiveness.  “I am a little emotional” remarked a retired math teacher (who is black) to a reporter, “It told the truth, and I still say our history must be told.”[46]  For some blacks, the fact that Colonial Williamsburg was including their history in the tale of American colonial heritage was satisfying, even if it was uncomfortable.  This was in no small part due to how the AAIP presented the material.  Mercedes Quintos notes, “Colonial Williamsburg’s slave auction depicted a dehumanizing event,” but the staff ensured that the “personas” they were portraying “displayed admirable qualities of strength and dignity amidst the deepest of suffering.”[47]  The laundress, named Suki, who was the first to be sold, was “purchased” by her husband who was a freeman, a more upbeat outcome that could be contrasted with the separation of the husband and his pregnant wife.  Quintos maintains that the slave auction was successful because the AAIP were careful to “incorporate complexity and balance in their presentations.”  The portrayal, she says, did not shy away from “graphic evidence” but did not sensationalize the subject with depiction of overwhelming brutality.  “By interweaving aspects of tragedy with moments of celebration, exhibits [such as Carter’s Grove and the slave auction] more accurately portray the complexity of slavery.”[48] 

Evidence of Colonial Williamsburg’s confidence that they were successful in portraying the slave auction effectively is demonstrated in the Foundation president’s remarks following the event.  “Our whole purpose,” said Robert Wilburn, “is to get a better understanding of these issues and have a discussion.  I was pleased.  People came here to learn, and they stayed and they discussed it.”[49]  Faith in their success and a commitment to more accurately portraying blacks and the role of slavery in Colonial Williamsburg manifested itself in the Enslaving Virginia program initiated in 1999.  Interestingly, the NAACP endorsed this program, in sharp contrast with its quick condemnation of the slave auction in 1994.  King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the Virginia chapter of the NAACP praised the program for it’s “extensive treatment of Colonial slavery.”[50]  In 1994, the slave auction was viewed as an “objectionable” program because, in their view, it trivialized the subject.  The NAACP turn around marks the most significant success of the Colonial Williamsburg slave auction re-enactment.  By gaining the approval of the group, in this case African-Americans attending the event, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in effect trumped the Virginia NAACP, which viewed itself as steward of its group heritage.  By endorsing the Enslaving Virginia project, the NAACP was acknowledging Colonial Williamsburg as a suitable steward of African-American heritage as well. 

Enslaving Virginia was the inauguration of a comprehensive approach to the inclusion of “the shameful history of human bondage into the fabric of storytelling at Colonial Williamsburg”[51] It is still heritage that is being told.  Interpretations stress the “richness and complexity of African-American culture” in the late 18^th century.  The focus is on how blacks in general, and slaves specifically, adapted and overcame the trials and suffering a slave society presented.  Excitement is generated as slave patrols of three to four white men break up “unauthorized” gatherings of five or more slaves.  Visitors get swept up in the anachronism, urging “slaves” to run away or rise up against their white “masters,” as if what we perceive to be the sins of our past can be changed by “stepping back” into the past.  Historical interpreters stress the irony of the colonies wrestling with the concepts of liberty and freedom while slavery becomes more and more entrenched in the fabric of southern society.[52] 

The program has earned praise from many as a reflection of the challenges America is facing today.  “The program is about the contradiction between freedom and slavery in Colonial America,” explains Harvey Bakari, development director for the AAIP, “but it’s also about the contradictions of race in America today.”[53]  It also reflects the challenges faced by educators – in terms of what history we are to teach in schools and how.  Gary Nash, a history professor at UCLA and director of the National Center for History in the Schools, touched upon this question in 1994 while serving as co-chair for the National Council for History Standards.  “We don’t want to sugarcoat history,” he is quoted in a 1994 article.  “We have to look history in the face and admit our mistakes.  There are some dark chapters in our history.”  The “warts-and-all” approach to history is what makes the Enslaving Virginia program especially appealing to some social historians.  But, as Lowenthal points out, this is heritage-mongering after a fashion as well, a kind of heritage bashing.  Critics of “warts-and-all” presentation, however,  are quickly denounced as conservative, jingoistic, or “right-wing,” denoting an elitist, narrow mindset.  Nash’s remarks about criticisms of the standards developed by the National Center for History in the Schools bear this out: “all of the flak is coming from the far right.  They’re upset because their little game has been spoiled.  I view history as intellectual property, and the ownership has changed.”[54]

The ownership of African-American heritage has not changed, however.  As the story of blacks in the 18^th century town is told more and more, members of the Colonial Williamsburg staff have noted the differences in reactions falling along racial lines.  While every one tends to hiss at the slave patrols, “whites tend to view the depictions as relics of the past, while blacks draw comparisons with the present.”  Remarks about how blacks gathering on a street corner can draw suspicions from police today are typical from African-American patrons.  “I experienced a lot of what’s going on right here in front of us,” commented one 68-year-old woman, referring to a slave patrols treatment of colonial “slaves.”  She went on to explain that she grew up in the Jim Crow South where white attitude toward blacks was much the same.[55]

For some black visitors, the re-enactments strike a cord that is too personal.  After all, heritage is personal by definition.  Colonial Williamsburg staff point out that it is not uncommon for some black visitors to walk away from the more graphic scenes.  Others have taken issue with portrayals of free blacks who themselves owned slaves, no doubt a particularly troubling detail of historical fact that smacks in the face of heritage.  But on the whole, Colonial Williamsburg’s inclusion of the African-American presence at the park serves to affirm, which is the ultimate success for a heritage center.  One visitor announced as she walked out of the program, “I was proud.  This country was built upon the backs of my people, and we survived and we flourished.”   Another commented that, “as blacks, I’ve always felt like we had to justify ourselves as Americans, as if we hadn’t contributed anything.  This [Colonial Williamsburg] shows that we helped make this country what it is from the very beginning.”[56]

Aside from affirmation and instilling patriotism and self worth for African-Americans who, in the words of one teacher, “are starved for connections with their heritage and culture,”[57] some suggest the reason for Colonial Williamsburg’ success with the subject of slavery, thus far, is the increased interest in the subject in general.  Slavery is now talked about and analyzed more openly.  Ira Berlin, author of Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, suggests that there is more to the increased dialogue over slavery than mere consideration of the past.  “There is a recognition that American racism was founded in slavery,” he writes, and there is a general, if unspoken “understanding that any attempt to address race in the present must also address slavery in the past.”  Thus slavery becomes synonymous with race.  It is a means or “an entry point” for discussions about race.  Berlin credits Colonial Williamsburg for entering that discussion by conducting the slave auction, in spite of the objections of the NAACP.  By overcoming the heated emotions associated with the topic, anger, bitterness, sorrow, pain, humiliation, the slave auction opened the door for increased presentation of slavery at Colonial Williamsburg, which, according to Berlin, “has since become routine, and the results [of which] have been astounding.”  Astounding in the way the Enslaving Virginia program has engaged and been engaged by visitors, as noted above, going beyond discussing the topic with interpreters and attempting to save “slaves” and confront “masters.” [58]

So in terms of impact on society and by effectively treating an extremely sensitive topic, Colonial Williamsburg’s slave auction has proven to be a success.  The increase attendance by blacks and other minorities is a testament to how members of the African-American community as a heritage group have accepted the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s, and particularly the department of African-American Interpretation and Presentation’s, portrayal of black history at the park.  But Berlin offers this caution:

“Viewing the present though the lenses of the past is useful, necessary, and perhaps inevitable.  But it is also dangerous.  If the re-enactment in Williamsburg and the new interest in slavery show how the past can illuminate, they also show how the differences between the past and present can become blurred rather than clarified.”[59]

Clarification is the historian’s bailiwick.  Here is where those who have studied and researched must step in to ensure that the differences between the past and present, and our perceptions of the past from the standpoint of heritage do not become blurred.  The danger Berlin cautions against is the danger of “experiencing,” David Lownethal issues the same warning.  “Empathetic role-play and reenactment feed the illusion that heritage experience suffices to know the past.” As appealing as it may be to right past wrongs by “stepping back” in to the past, we cannot, and the temptation has to be dispelled by the historian.  As Berlin notes, the topic of slavery may very well be the “entry point” for discussions on race for Americans today.  But it is just that, and entry point.  Understanding the past as accurately as possible can clarify how certain things came to be.  Today’s problems, however, can only be addressed in the here and now. 

The goal the historian sets for himself in being objective, or at least impartial, serves as the counter to the conviction and passion associated with heritage.  That heritage is vital cannot be denied, the comments noted above of African-American visitors drawing a sense of pride from the exhibits and re-enactments they had just experienced is proof. But as the pursuer of truth about the past, it is the historian who is most qualified to be the guide that prevents the public from getting lost in the “heritage minefield.”  David Lowenthal writes that, “history needs heritage to carry conviction.”[60]  So rather than compete with heritage, historians need to recognize it for what it does and for what it is worth, all the while sifting through the clutter of convictions to present the more reasonable truth.  Heritage can celebrate what we perceive ourselves to be, but history will ultimately show how it is we got that way in the first place