Download Free The New History In An Old Museum Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The New History In An Old Museum and write the review.

An ethnographic exploration of the presentation of history at Colonial Williamsburg. It examines the packaging of American history, and the consumerism and the manufacturing of cultural beliefs.
Defining Memory uses case studies of exhibits from around the country to examine how local museums, defined as museums whose collections are local in scope or whose audiences are primarily local, have both shaped and been shaped by evolving community values and sense of history. Levin and her contributors argue that these small institutions play a key role in defining America's self-identity and should be studied as seriously as more national institutions like the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In small community museums, truck stops, restaurants, bars, barbershops, schools, and churches, people create displays to tell the histories that matter to them. Much of this history is personal: family history, community history, history of a trade, or the history of something considered less than genteel. It is often history based on the historical record, but also based on feelings, beliefs, and memory. It is neglected history. Private History in Public is about those history exhibits that complicate the public/private dichotomy, exhibits that serve to explain communities, families, and individuals to outsiders and tie insiders together through a shared narrative of historical experience. Tammy S. Gordon looks beyond the large professionalized museum exhibits that have dominated scholarship in museum studies and public history and offers a new way of understanding the broad spectrum of exhibition types in the United States.
SALTZMAN/OLD MASTERS; NEW WORLD
In Creating Colonial Williamsburg, Anders Greenspan examines the restoration and re-creation of the structures and gardens of Virginia's colonial capital beginning in 1926. The restoration was undertaken by the Rockefeller family, whose aim was to promote a twentieth-century appreciation for eighteenth-century ideals. Ironically, those ideals, including democracy, individualism, and representative government, were often promoted at the expense of a more complete understanding of the town's true history. The meaning and purpose of Colonial Williamsburg has changed over time, along with America's changing social and political landscapes, making the study of this historic site a unique and meaningful entry point to understanding the shifting modern American character. In recent years, financial struggles and declining attendance forced a new interpretation of the town, extending the presentation into the period of the American Revolution, while adding new interpretive approaches such as street theater and a greater emphasis on technology. Over its eighty-year history, says Greenspan, Colonial Williamsburg has grown and matured, while still retaining its emphasis on the importance of eighteenth-century values and their application in the modern world.
The Negro Motorist Green Book was a groundbreaking guide that provided African American travelers with crucial information on safe places to stay, eat, and visit during the era of segregation in the United States. This essential resource, originally published from 1936 to 1966, offered a lifeline to black motorists navigating a deeply divided nation, helping them avoid the dangers and indignities of racism on the road. More than just a travel guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book stands as a powerful symbol of resilience and resistance in the face of oppression, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience in the 20th century.
Living History Museums: Undoing History Through Performance examines the performance techniques of Living History Museums, cultural institutions that merge historical exhibits with costumed live performance. Institutions such as Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg are analyzed from a theatrical perspective, offering a new genealogy of living museum performance.
Old Poisons, New Problems is a practical guide to identifying, testing for, and dealing with contaminated cultural materials archived in museum collections. Special features include worksheets for performing basic tests, charts of scientific and historical information on known pesticides, data resources, and illustrations. This book will be useful to the museum community and tribal groups involved with the management and/or repatriation of these collections.
Table of contents
The author shows how museum culture offers a unique vantage point on the 19th and 20th centuries' preoccupation with history and subjectivity, and demonstrates how the constitution of the aesthetic provides insight into the realms of technology, industrial culture, architecture, and ethics.