Happy 4th!

Well okay, now its the 5th, but Happy Extended Celebration of American Independence! I worked in the Chandlery yesterday, and it was really interesting seeing how another museum celebrated the day. Mystic Seaport's roleplayers are set in 1876 (one year after Walnut Hill at Living History Farms). While the Farms is 3rd person, not 1st person, it is still fun to get pretty into the day. There is always a parade, in which two years running I got to be a suffragist, a medicine show, a speech, lots of decorations everywhere and of course good food. In Tangen last year we had fried chicken, German style potato salad and a sour cherry pie I made myself. All cooked on a wood stove, of course.

Yesterday at Mystic followed some of the same themes. There was a grand parade, where squad dressed in costumes like Neptune and the Grim Reaper, the actors lugged the giant fire engine around, a band played, some "vets" marched, and though I couldn't see their flag, a group of finely dressed ladies strolled in a dignified manner. My guess is either temperance or suffrage. There was also, of course, the mandatory parade of adorable children, led down the route by my roommate Ginger. I love kids, and I love watching how excited they are to be able to participate in something like a parade. All of this came right by my stoop at the Chandlery, but unfortunately we are very much stationary during the day so I didn't really get the chance to wander around and see what else was happening. According to the schedule my first visitor of the day "borrowed" (isn't that always the way!), there were Civil War reenactors,  a game of croquet on the village green, a picnic, and ice cream making, along with the normally scheduled squad demonstrations. Normally I will try to find a way to interpret the holiday within whatever site I am stationed at, but yesterday was mostly answering questions about the blast gun, baggywrinkle, and oakum. It was a good day, not as busy as the first weekend but not slow either.

One thing I have on my list of big life goals is to visit the other big living history/open air museums and see how they portray the 4th of July. Do we make it one big party with a red white and blue theme, or do we still work to reach out and teach our visitors what that day meant to a particular group in a particular time? I know the roleplayers at Mystic talk all year long about the Centennial celebration in Philadelphia, and what the nation's 100th anniversary meant to them and their neighbors. I would really love to see even more of that incorporated into all of the lh/oa museums, and not just for the roleplayers. But, in the meantime, there is nothing wrong with cherry pie and a good game of hoop and stick!

Emotions

Is it the job of a museum to try to inspire in its visitors particular emotions? I am talking about the step beyond "hey this whaling ship is awesome!" sort of thing.


"The USS Constitution Museum serves as the memory and educational voice of USS CONSTITUTION, by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the stories of "Old Ironsides" and the people associated with her. We seek to create a positive, memorable experience for both children and adults by inspiring within them a love for the freedom that CONSTITUTION symbolizes. We will share CONSTITUTION's contributions with a global audience, and we will strive to be the best museum possible based on scholarship and innovative ways of sharing CONSTITUTION's stories." (emphasis added)


This is, as you can probably tell, the mission statement of the USS Constitution museum. I talked a little bit about the museum a couple of posts ago, but in our follow-up seminar this was something that came up. Some of us were uncomfortable with the phrase I highlighted above, especially considering that the museum itself is a privately run institution. If the mission of the ship herself had included that phrase, we would have been a little more okay, because she is run by the Navy. Do not take this as a criticism of the museum itself or as my opinion of American freedom, it is not my intent to negatively portray either. I just am unsure how a museum goes about inspiring those particular feelings in a person. If I were British, and came to the museum, I believe I would have very different feelings about the meaning of the USS CONSTITUTION. 


I'm not sure if there is a right or a wrong answer here. A lot of museums will be spending this weekend celebrating the 4th, and I know that all three of "my" museums have special events planned. Those celebrations, in their essence, lift of the tenets of our American identity. So the Constitution Museum is not alone in celebrating freedom, but I am still not sure if that fits as the central mission of a museum.