Public Hstory: Historic House Museums and Slavery

In this weeks blog we are looking at Public History and its relationship with Historic House Museums,  their reinvention/reinterpretation and Slavery. This required the reading of two books, two eassys and a newspaper article on the previous topics. The main issue derived from those readings are finding eceptable solutions for the reinterpretation of historical landsmarks and historic accounts. They show the discourse that can occur when reinterpretation of facts change the event or alter's the original appearance of the landscape, architecture/structure. Nicolai Ouroussoff article, An Architect's Fear That Preservation Distorts, looks at the problems that occur when the perservation distorts the architectural appearance, the landscape. In The Next Cliveden: A New Approach To The Historic Site In Philadelphia, David W. Young looks at the important role preservationist play in their new approach to perserving the Cliveden, which they incorporate the communities participation in this new mission. From the readings they show the impotance of the public's interpretation  and subsequent reinterpretation based upon discourse that includes this dichotomy. James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton assemble essays by a variety of authors that touch on reinterpretation of historical events involving African Americans and American History. All these readings challenge the public memories and ask the question whether landmarks and other historical sites are worth the investment. Those institutions face  problems raising and acquiring the financial resources necessary to perserve Historic sites such as house museums.  the retelling or reinterpretating of slavery todayfrom the eyes of African Americans, has been increasingly examined by Public Historians and others scholars on African American History. In Historic House Museums:An Embarrassment of Riches, Marian A. Godfrey looks at the amount of historical house musems in Philadelphia. She uses statistics  to ask the question whether some of these buildings are worth the investment, because they are under used and the communities have become disconnected. Taken together they all show the difficulty in maintaining the past, then incorporating misinterpreted history such as slavery accounts. Those issue need further investigation by public historians and tose communities afflected.