Defining Memory: Local Museums and the Construction of History in America's Changing Communities

by Amy K. Levin (Editor), David Kyvig (Foreword by), Tami Christopher (Contribution by), James Connor (Contribution by), J Daniel d'Oney (Contribution by)

Overview

This updated edition of Defining Memory: Local Museums and the Construction of History in America’s Changing Communities offers readers multiple lenses for viewing and discussing local institutions. New chapters are included in a section titled “Museums Moving Forward,” which analyzes the ways in which local museums have come to adopt digital technologies in selecting items for exhibitions as well as the complexities of creating institutions devoted to marginalized histories.

In addition to the new chapters, the second edition updates existing chapters, presenting changes to the museums discussed. It features expanded discussions of how local museums treat (or ignore) racial and ethnic diversity and concludes with a look at how business relationships, political events, and the economy affect what is shown and how it is displayed in local museums.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759113886
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/01/2007
Series:	American Association for State and Local History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	298
File size:	478 KB

About the Author

Amy K. Levin researches and teaches on race, class, and gender in museums. After 21 years as a professor and administrator at Northern Illinois University, she began a career as an independent scholar in 2016.

Joshua G. Adair is associate professor of English at Murray State University in Kentucky, where he also serves as coordinator of Gender & Diversity Studies and director of the Racer Writing Center.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     vii
Foreword   David E. Kyvig     1
Frameworks     7
Why Local Museums Matter   Amy K. Levin     9
Local History, "Old Things to Look At," and a Sculptor's Vision: Exploring Local Museums through Curriculum Theory   Elizabeth Vallance     27
The Rebirth of a Nation     43
Public History, Private Memory: Notes from the Ethnography of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.A   Eric Gable   Richard Handler     47
The House of the Seven Gables: A House Museum's Adaptation to Changing Societal Expectations since 1910   Tami Christopher     63
Louisiana's Old State Capitol Museum: Castle on the Mississippi   J. Daniel d'Oney     77
Nostalgia as Epistemology     93
The Small Town We Never Were: Old Cowtown Museum Faces an Urban Past   Jay Price     97
"The Dream Then and Now": Democratic Nostalgia and the Living Museum at Arthurdale, West Virginia   Stuart Patterson     109
History Lessons: Selling the John Dillinger Museum   Heather R. Perry     127
Museums at Risk: Changing Publics     143
The Politics of Prehistory: Conflict and Resolution at Dickson Mounds Museum   Donna Langford     147
"Such isOur Heritage": Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museums   Jessie L. Embry   Mauri Liljenquist Nelson     161
"A Repository for Bottled Monsters and Medical Curiosities": The Evolution of the Army Medical Museum   Michael G. Rhode   James T. H. Connor     177
Challenging the Major Museum     197
Objects of Dis/Order: Articulating Curiosities and Engaging People at the Freakatorium   Lucian Gomoll     201
Cities, Museums, and City Museums   Eric Sandweiss     217
No Business Like Show Business     231
Business as Usual: Can Museums Be Bought?   Amy K. Levin     235
Conclusion: Museums and the American Imagination   Amy K. Levin     253
Selected Bibliography     265
Index     269
About the Contributors     285

Editorial Reviews

The second edition of Defining Memory is a wide-sweeping and engaging read for public history professionals and scholars who, along with the authors, continue to grapple with the complexities and potential of local museums.

The Public Historian

The second edition of Defining Memory: Local Museums and the Construction of History in America’s Changing Communities takes one of the essential themes of the first edition – the important and complex relationship that place holds for local museums – and brings it squarely into the hot issues of the 21st century. Expanded and new essays tackle subjects that augment the many contributions that local museums bring to our communities and to the country at large. Topics such as museums and race, relevance, and the never-ending narrative of how museums negotiate political reality underscores the raison d’etre for such institutions, as eloquently stated in Carol Kammen’s foreword: ‘knowledge of the past, and of who we are today, is not something only an expert knows, but is something for which we all search and to which we all contribute.’

Judith Margles

The second edition of Defining Memory is a wide-sweeping and engaging read for public history professionals and scholars who, along with the authors, continue to grapple with the complexities and potential of local museums.

The second edition of Defining Memory: Local Museums and the Construction of History in America's Changing Communities takes one of the essential themes of the first edition - the important and complex relationship that place holds for local museums - and brings it squarely into the hot issues of the 21^st century. Expanded and new essays tackle subjects that augment the many contributions that local museums bring to our communities and to the country at large. Topics such as museums and race, relevance, and the never-ending narrative of how museums negotiate political reality underscores the raison d'etre for such institutions, as eloquently stated in Carol Kammen's foreword: 'knowledge of the past, and of who we are today, is not something only an expert knows, but is something for which we all search and to which we all contribute.'

From the Publisher