Regarding the recent reply of Vincent Lyon to Carol Ely's important
point:
Correcting errors in public history isn't always a cut-and-dried as
changing an incorrect date, but it still must be done.  The CA state
historical marker at Sutter's Fort, for example, completely omits the
Indians -- yet they built it and their labor operated it.  I would have
no objection to a marker next to that marker, pointing out its
astonishing omissions and telling that its text provides insight into
the mindset of white Californians when it went up.  It would be easier,
however (and perhaps less cluttered), to replace it with a more accurate
marker.
    Various states have programs in place doing just that.  LIES ACROSS
AMERICA describes a sample result, in VA (in the entry titled "Snowplow
Revisionism").  While the new marker is not perfect, there can be no
question that it tells more history and more accurately than the old one
ever did.
    If Mr. Lyon is worried about losing the old marker text "from the
historical record," well, it will be in the files of the VA office.  But
on the landscape? Leaving it there would have impoverished, not
enriched, the historical understanding of everyone who read it.
    The same holds for historic house museums that leave out or distort
"the bad parts" of their pasts, for ships that omit "the bad wars" they
served in, only treating the nice ones, etc.  Surely we want our history
museums to leave visitors with more accurate information, thinking about
the issues that relate to a site, as they leave.

--
James W. Loewen, best email address: [log in to unmask]
Simon & Schuster has just released LIES ACROSS AMERICA
in paperback.  Try it -- you'll like it!

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