Jay's comments are dear to my heart. We recently had an interesting
discussion on the ALHFAM list as we tried to get at what our visitors see as
"history" and how historical sites could improve their appeal to
visitors/justify their existance in this age of cuts. Below are a couple of
posts I contributed to the discussion, and one from George Chapman of NH,
one of the most experienced and respected interpreters on this continent.
While we are addressing the problems of historic sites, or comments are
equally applicable to museums.

I began the discussion, viz.:

"We have had discussions recently on the closing of living history sites and
no doubt we will have more and more of them, as pieces of our history
summarily disappear. I have noted the comments on the need for sites to be
"relevent" to the needs of contemporary clients - and the fact that so few
sites really know what their clients, real and prospective, need or want. In
particular, too few of us spend much time thinking of the mental PERSPECTIVE
of the visitors, and how they view the "historical" things we show and do.
And that is where the problem lies, as that perspective varies so widely
from person to person. Unless we appreciate that fact, we will become
irrelevant - and we will close.

 I think that, unless we try to get inside the heads of our real and
potential visitors, to see where they are coming from, what they bring with
them, and what they need and want from us, sites will continue to fail. Of
all Tilden's principles, it is the first that we have increasingly ignored.

What is "living memory" and what is "history"? I think I may have said all
this before, but can't remember...sign of getting old, I guess.

To many people of my children's ages (30-35), the Beatles are an historical
event. It is part of their perspective as denizens of a very fast-moving
age. To many recent immigrants, even this bit of "history" is not shared;
historical memory is centred, like that of our own immigrant ancestors, on
other times and other places. Why, then, should living history sites have
any possible meaning for them? Why should they - our children or the
immigrants -  visit them and why should we be surprised that they do not
protest when they close?

But I can remember getting a comic book at Christmas 1950, speculating on
what the next 50 years would bring, so ALL of the 50s are very much part of
my living memory. I collect all the sci-fi movies of the 50s I can, mainly
to chuckle over their visions of space travel and other worlds. I can
remember V-E Day, though I was a small boy at the time, so WWII is part of
MY living memory.

My uncles were all veterans of WWI, though they never talked about it. After
that war, one of them homesteaded in southern Manitoba, so those experiences
seem like recent past and not "history" to me. They "mean something".

My grandfather was born in the 1870s and, for him, the Boer War was part of
HIS living memory. Born in Yorkshire, it is conceivable that, as a boy or
young man, he knew one or more veterans of the Crimean War or even the
Napoleonic era and, for him, the Industrial Revolution was a comparatively
recent event. He apprenticed as a sword cutler, a trade that revolution made
redundant. As a young emigrant, working in Camillus NY after the turn of the
century, he very likely met veterans of the Civil War, so that, too, would
be part of his memory, as was working for America's first profit-sharing
company, a revolutionary innovation at the time..

So none of these events seems very remote from me, as I have fairly direct
ties to all of them - they all seem "recent past", rather than "history" -
and I am doing what I can to ensure that my children - and their children -
feel part of this connection to the past.

So what, to me, is "history"? Where is the disruption in the timeline? What
is more difficult for me to build perceptual bridges to? Probably the
arrival of my maternal ancestor Abraham Voortman in NYC in 1758 or his
flight from Philadelphia to Canada during the Revolution, as one of the
United Empire Loyalists.

Yet, when I do a Rev War reenactment, or demonstrate wood-butchering as it
was done at that time, is it REALLY far off in the past? Is it "history"? On
the other hand, I wonder how many of our visitors share my sense of
"history" and how visiting our sites may be affecting them.

Very often, when I do my trades demos, the old-timers will pick up a tool,
such as a two-man crosscut saw, and tell their children and grandchildren
who are with them, how they had used such a saw when they were young - and I
am always glad to see this, partly because it helps bring "the past" to life
in ways that I cannot, but especially because they are giving the younger
generations of their families their own "living memories" - the perspectives
that will help them appreciate our historic sites.

But I sense that there are few of them around and they are growing
scarcer.How many of our visitors HAVE that kind of historical perspective?
Judging
by the questions one hears from them (or from Tom Kelleher, who has the
greatest collection of them I have ever heard!), not many. So what, then,
are we doing for them? and should we be surprised that there is so little
outcry when a wonderful site, like Ste. Marie Among The Iroquois, folds? I
also wonder how many of the powers that be, who close living history sites,
have never had such experiences and memories themselves.

It is well that we spend a lot of time working on the quality of what we DO,
as historic interpreters. I suggest, however, that we need to spend a lot
more time looking at our visitors, partiulrly THEIR mental perspectives, and
what we can and should be doing for them. Simply saying "Well, here we are.
This is what we do so come see us" just doesn't cut it, and probably never
did."

and George's comment:

"I think Harry has hit the nail on the head.  Remember when nails had heads
and were driven in with a hammer instead of shot with a nail gun?

The memory gap is just as import to understand as part of the so-called
generation gap. This was brought home to me some years ago when I heard on
NPR an
intelligent and obviously well educated young woman who had recently seen
the Little Rascals movie exclaim that it was about time someone made a movie
out of the old television program.  I was embarrassed for her because she
did not know that what was shown on TV were old short movies!

I was also taken back when interviewed by my 7th grade daughter and asked,
"Did they have radio in olden times when you were a boy?"

Each succeeding generation has different memories because each has different
experiences. I am the last living link to the family farm upon which my
family owned inWindsor, NH from 1792-1957.  Even then my memories are
different from thoseof my sister (19 years older) and my brother (16 years
older) for they grew
up on the farm while, though born on the farm, I grew up after the family
moved to town.  Most of my memories are of visiting the farm to cut hay,etc.
to maintain it while they actually lived there.

How do we make the experiences of the past seem relevant to the succeeding
generations?

I believe it is not enough to know what we think they should know about
outsites.  If that is all we do, then we are irrelevant.  However, if we can
find those things in the site story which express universal themes that
areexperienced in every generation we may be closer to being perceived as
relevant.

Connections between the generational experiences is the key.  Somehow topose
the questions, implicitly or explicitly and encourage reflection upon
them.  "What did the Rev. War soldier experience which you also
experiecedwhen you were in the service?"  "How does a knowledge of birth and
the
raising of children in 19th century America connect with your
ownexperience?"  How has the music your generation listens to been
influenced
by what Blacks have experieced in America?"  "What have you learned
heretoday that has a connection to your life experience and how will what
you
have learned better equip you to understand live in your own present and
toprepare for the future?"

Blending knowledge of the past with opportunities to take that knowledgeinto
the present and prepare for the future seems to me to be the key.
Actually one of the keys, added to good marketing, etc.

George D. Chapman
Living History Interpretations
199 Fullam Hill Rd.
Fitzwilliam, NH 03447-3207"

George and I were reminded that wanting to pander slavishly to what sites
prceived as the whims of the public was not the answer and we were reminded
of horror stories caused where this has been done. My final comment:

"Tom raises a VERY valid point. Slavish catering to what someone in a living
history site - or a museum - usually in managements positions not in contact
with the visitors - THINKS will appeal to the public is a sure recipe
fordisaster - and we have all heard of places that introduced such glaring
anomalies that the result was to turn people away, NOT attract them. We
havean example right here in eastern Ontario where the corporate management
of
our leading historic site was all set to destroy it by building whatamounted
to a completely unrelated theme park on the same grounds, cheek by
jowl to the historic area.

So I say "Well said, Tom!"

But how can we attract the visitors and make ourselves more relevant without
resorting to hideous anomalies? At the risk of being repetitive, I return to
Tilden.

Tilden's first principle argues that interpretation needs to be related to
something in the visitor's own ken - be it experience, historical memory,
pride in one's town or what have you - things several people who have
participated in this discussion have very rightly raised.. It is the need
for this kind of linkage that we have argued for - NOT ill-thought out
"raree shows". The more we can develop such links, the more visitors can be
attracted AND the better we will be able to carry out our educationalmission
which, at the end of the day, is what we are all about.

We must therefore do three things:

First, we must buy into Tilden's philosophy. Why should we not? It is
solidly based in experience and well proven by practice over forty years. I
hear a lot of mouthing about all his principles - but I continually see
sites that obviously ignore or don't understand any one of them.

Second, we must take the time to examine two very different things (a) what
we have to offer our visitors (our end of the connection) and
(b) what the visitors have in their own backgrounds, interests, needs etc.
(their end of the connection).

We should have a pretty good idea of the first, but this is not necessarily
so. How often does YOUR site look at what you do and ask questions like
"What are we trying to do?", "How well are we succeeding?" and "Can we get
better resukts by doing something else?" - or simply "Why are we doing
this?". Or do you keep on doing what you're doing, in the faith that "if it
ain't broke, don't fix it"?

As far as understanding the visitors are concerned, there is simply no
substitute for research - talking to the visitors - asking them questions to
identify how we can connect to them and produce the greatest impact we can
in educating them in what we want to get across and, at the same time,
giving them such an interesting and enjoyable visit that they will want both
to come bck again and to tell their friends. Yes, research can be expensive
but, as I argued at ALHFAM 2003, one of my most useful research projects was
done for under $25 (oh, yes, and we're talking tiny little Canadian dollars,
here!)

Finally, we must use the information we deduce from our visitor
research,together with our own hard-earned knowledge and professional
expertise, to
change and improve our programs. We must marry up the two ends of the
connection to attract more visitors and do a better job with them. To my
mind, the old (curatorial?) chant of "We know what's good for 'em!!!" has
LONG outlived its usefulness.

We do NOT need to throw the baby out with the bathwater - but we do need to
take a hard look at both the visitors and ourselves and do what we can to
make it better.

Finally, I could not agree more with the excellent suggestions that have
been made about publicity, attracting political support, etc. But, in the
long run, I think these are secondary things; if the site loses its basic
appeal to a changing clientele, all the publicity and political cozying-up
in the world will not save it from eventual demise."

Harry
--
Harry Needham, Principal ([log in to unmask])
Harry Needham Consulting Services Inc.
Solutions for Heritage Institutions - and Others!
74 Abbeyhill Drive
Kanata ON K2L 1H1 Canada
(Voice) +1.613.831-1068
(Fax) +1.613.831-9412

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