-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list ...
Behalf Of William Maurer
Sent: February 22, 2001 5:40 PM
...Subject: Proper term

... I checked and found that the statement was entirely
wrong.  It was as if the speaker wanted to shock the audience with great,
superior knowledge... The truth, of course, is that ...

I am wondering if there is a term for an entirely wrong statement of fact or
wild exaggeration. A statement that certainly should have been caught by the
director, educator or whoever is in charge of guide or docent training. Have
you experienced this as a common thing in historic houses and the telling of
the history? There must be a term stronger than "silly docent tales."

C.F.William Maurer
Director, Gomez Mill House
11 Mill House Road
Marlboro, NY 12542
(845) 236-3126
[log in to unmask]
www.gomez.org

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***** I am not aware of any specific term for this problem. I have worked in
a variety of national historic sites (8 years) and at an outdoor village
museum (14+ years) and I have often seen this problem arise. "Myths" and
"Legends" are two words to describe them. "Lies" as another reader suggests
is sometimes true, but most of these errors are unintentional, so the word
'lies' is a bit harsh.

Some ways to avoid the problem of myths and legends are:

1. THE STAFF RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TRAINING - These should include the Curator
or at least a member of the curatorial staff. 'Docents training docents' (or
Interpreters triaining Interpreters) is very dangerous as it is like a game
of "Chinese Whispers" - the deviation from the truth grows greater with each
telling of the tale. If you do have docents training docents, then monitor
them.  After training listen to some of the tours. At the very least,
Curatorial staff should vet the training documents before they are issued.

2. A TRAINING MANUAL - A training manual is very important for consistent
information, and needs to be kept up to date. Today with computers, this is
very easy to do. Many years ago I tried to economize on paper by using 3
ring binders and issuing only change pages each year. My feeling now is to
use three ring binders and issue 100% of the contents each year (replacing
binders only as needed), or to issue spiral bound manuals and print a fresh
set each year. Ideally one should also have vertical bars along the right
hand margin alongside text that has changed since the last edition so that
ongoing staff can glance through to find what has changed. This is done with
some military training manuals and works well, and some computer programs
have the capability to do this marking. Another approach would be to  have
an introductory chapter that tells what is different from the last version
as is done in computer program manuals. A training manual can also have a
page of "Myths and Legends" - and each can be listed and then the
truth/proof listed to dispel them. You can make this  fun thing by
encouraging staff and volunteers to contribute the most interesting actual
examples that they know of. Legends die hard. Two examples of this come from
the battlefield at Batoche (in what is now Saskatchewan, Canada). One
enduring legend is that the Gatling gun with the Canadian army, along with
the boat's smokestack, was knocked into the river in 1885 during the Battle
of Batoche when the steamer Northcote hit the ferry cable which had been
lowered by the rebels. It was suggested that staff send divers down to
recover it. This is a popular myth, showing a small victory by this side,
but there is ample and indisputable evidence that this Gatling gun (the only
one present) was removed from the boat just before the battle as the Gatling
was used prominently during the battle on land. The second example of an
enduring legend, albeit a new legend, is from when the Canadian Broadcasting
Company made a movie about Louis Riel, the leader of the above rebels. In
the film the CBC showed the rebels smashing the stove in the church so that
they could melt the metal down to make bullets. Our staff had a very hard
time convincing visitors who had seen this film that we still had the
original stove and that cast iron is not suitable for melting down to make
bullets. Having seen it for themselves on TV, they believed it.

3. HEARSAY - Stories from visitors often are accepted at face value by
interpreters. I encourage staff to get the source's name and address so that
we can verify the information (we can learn a lot from our visitors) BUT
also the story needs to be verified by Curatorial staff before it is used as
I often find erroneous information creeps in this way. Our visitors include
you, our professional colleagues, as well as otherwise knowledgeable
visitors and even people who lived in the community we represent. Two brief
stories to illustrate this: At the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village in
Alberta, an interpreter was in an historic house and doing a 'first person'
interpretation of a man who had lived in the house. One day an old visitor
identified himself as actually being the person that the interpreter was
portraying! At another site in Victoria, BC, an interpreter was told that
she could not correctly portray the servant. When asked why not, the visitor
replied that they knew the servant was black, and the interpreter was
Caucasian. The racial background of the servant had never come up during the
research, but this visitor had known the family.

4. MAKING UP STORIES - One of our Marketing people made up a ghost story
years ago for one of our buildings. Some people later started accepting it
as fact. Some people make up stories not realizing that 'truth is stranger
than fiction', and is actually our business.

5. TRAINING SESSIONS - These are very important, and one can actually
mention the erroneous legends and disavow them. Senior staff should show
that they believe the training sessions are important by attending, at least
to greet new staff/volunteers, to give some talks, and to vet the training
material in advance.

6. PERSONAL BIAS - If you are dealing with a site that has a controversial
history, emotions and bias creep in. I saw this when I worked at a
battlefield site, and a new staff historian arrived on site with
preconceived notions that it the cause of the fighting was primarily an
English vs. French thing. I pointed out that in this battle, "French" were
on both sides, and during the night just after the previous battle just
upriver, had exchanged insults in French. We all have biases, but need to
try our hardest to be objective.

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