The Changing Face of the Museum

Museums are constantly changing and evolving.

Take Colonial Williamsburg, for example. The living history museum was built in the 1930s by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and represented a clean, orderly version of colonial life in Revolutionary America - a perfected portrait of Americana sans dirt, animals, and slavery. Today, it is much different. Certainly, there are no animals wandering the roads willy-nilly, but an effort has been made to incorporate the African-American story into the living history presented. It may still be slightly idealized, but it has a more balanced approach.

Colonial Williamsburg - not as idealized, but still picturesque for colonial America

Or, for a more traditional example, look no further than the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY). Founded in 1923 to counteract the "old man's club" of the New York Historical Society (Wallace 35), the museum initially focused on exactly the same topics, but with more interesting displays: Dining in Old New York and Heirlooms of New Yorkers Past feature among exhibit titles from the 1940s and 1950s (Wallace 37). However, by the 1930s, the realization of its location on the fringes of high society, Harlem, and the Hispanic community forced the museum to change its exhibit focus. The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of a greater number of exhibits on the history of the ethnic groups surrounding the museum, but a slow draining of funds during the 1980s saw the progress gained slowly recede. As the museum dwindled, new curators arrived, with grand plans, and the museum continues to flourish, faring better in the long run than its original rival the New York Historical Society.

The Museum of the City of New York

But why have these museums (and many others across the nation - these are only two examples) changed their focus?

Because their original focus was too narrow and exclusionary.

In the case of Colonial Williamsburg, Rockefeller wished to portray the planter class of Virginia. The museum had, and still has, no visible issues: it is, as Mike Wallace points out in Mickey Mouse History, "a corporate world: Planned [sic], orderly, tidy, with no dirt, no smell, no visible signs of exploitation....The rest of the population - the 90 percent who create the wealth - are nowhere to be seen. The only whiff of conflict appears in recollections of the stirring anti-British speeches in which the founders enunciated the timeless principles since passed down..." (15). Williamsburg, in its original form, was too perfect, too idealized. It did not even attempt to touch on slavery until 1972, but remained uncomfortable discussing the relationships between blacks and whites. Because Williamsburg as a museum was built on the concept of idealizing the ideals of liberty which had motivated the founding fathers, "Admitting that the reality of exploitation contradicted the ideal of liberty was only a first step" (23).v

With the MCNY, the focus was also too narrowly classed. Many of the original donors were members of New York's elite society (the Carnegies, du Ponts, Guggenheims, and Vanderbilts were all on the original roster, to name but a few), and lent and re-borrowed their items from the museum as if it were a bank vault for temporary storage (Wallace 36-7). By the 1940s, the MCNY widened its focus to include the communities around it, beginning a lecture series that was given in Spanish (Wallace 38). It slowly incorporated the histories of the classes and people around it, and the museum became more than just a history of the glory days of Old New York. Despite the slight downturn in the 1980s due to lack of funding, the museum is coming back, returning to its focus on more than one socio-economic group.

These changes have, for the most part, been for the better. Both of these museums now include a wider perspective on the place (and, in the case of Colonial Williamsburg, the time period as well) that they cover, including the voices of men and women of different ethnic backgrounds.

However, they have also failed to change in some respects. Williamsburg still remains an idealized vision of colonial America - a clean-cut structure, where families can wander down Duke of Gloucester Street and stop in the little shops and houses along the way, eating gingerbread and drinking root beer that are made from recipes dating back to the time period. And the MCNY also struggles with retaining its image, most notably during the financial crisis of the 1980s, when it reverted to the Edith Wharton-esque portrayal of New York.

There are more museums in America (and in Mickey Mouse History, Mike Wallace's book of essays which was the basis for this post), than I can possibly blog about here. But, overall, I would like to think that the changing face of the American museum is a good thing, and, hopefully, it continues to improve, allowing for improved discussion and greater interest in historical topics.