Leisure and Hospitality Industry Job Opening – Historian

“What?” My exclamation startled the dog. “The United States' Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies museum and historic site staff as working in the leisure and hospitality industry?” Tobias, who is not up-to-date on current museum culture, decided I was truly talking to myself (again) and not him, and went back to sleep. I continued to harangue a (mostly) empty room.

“Interpreters work within the service industry?” My tone hovered between incredulous and scoffing. “But, that would mean pleasing the customer comes first. Before historical accuracy. Before preservation concerns. Before financial stability.” As I heard the phrases echo in the room, I thought of the Grinch, confused as to how Christmas came without the trappings. (“It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags.”) Luckily for me, I didn't have to puzzle for three hours with grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow. Taken in context within this week's Managing History readings on the general topic of museums, while the industry label is still a bit jarring, how we as a culture arrived at such a classifications makes sense. Raises questions and concerns, but fits within an understandable progression.

In two-score speeches and essays written between 1990 and 2000 and collected in his book, Making Museums Matter, Stephen E. Weil emphatically documents that since World War II, the foci of museums have shifted from collection and preservation to education and public service. One driving force in this transformation was the shift in the third sector from being “charitable” to being “not-for-profit” - in simple, to being held accountable and measurable for some sort of a bottom line. The public pays for museums, public or private, in one form or another. Museums are therefore not only answerable to the community, they have an obligation to be of service to the community and the individuals within it.

In her article, Crafting emotional comfort: interpreting the painful past at living history museums in the new economy, Amy M Tyson goes a step further to suggest that two specific living history museums have gone beyond simple accountability of civic engagement to selling a product in a service sector. The focus then becomes keeping the customer happy, up to and including adapting historical interpretation in ways that cue off of and protect visitors', and interpreters', levels of comfort.

How does the 2008 Annual Report for the American Association of Museums (AAM) relate to Weil's theories? I argue the choice of the themes presented proves his point and indicates how the trends he identified have progressed in the decade following his comments. Weil indicated that part of the mission of the museum sector in the 90s must be to identify the kinds of public service it not only could, but should provide. The AAM's identification of museums as providers of lifelong learning, sources of civic pride, and invaluable community assets are in line with concepts Weil already envisioned. While his language was not as precise as the AAM's in seeing museums as an economic engine, he wasn't far from that definition. Serving as a therapeutic oasis and a social services provider go a bit further than Weil envisioned, I believe, when he discussed the emotional responses of the public.

For all of the excellent grounding, forward thinking, and deliberate inciting of thought generated by Weil's book, the unasked question echoing in the room is, “What about the history?” While somewhat understandable from a man whose vast experience was based in art museums, one wishes Weil had asked this question in his reviews of where museums are and where they should go. Tyson observed a deliberate choice to give customer comfort pride of place before opportunity to generate discussion about controversies in our historical time line. What questions do we ask next? Is the presentation of historical content a social mandate? What difference does history make in the difference made by museums? While we search for answers to these questions and continue to formulate others, those of us who work on the boundary between history and public satisfaction will very likely find ourselves reminding others in the larger sector to “not forget the history!”

Managing History Readings for September 21, 2009

I am intrigued by a question in this week's texts. “How does an individual use history to define one's self?”

According to the readings, individuals do not seek out history to understand someone else's life; they do so to understand their own. Moreover, they view the historical fact or object or story through their own cultural lenses and interpret it with personal senses of self. While there is an emotional response, the ultimate result is personal validation, or an “existential” authenticity.

Authenticity is a term historians use – are guilty of over using – when validating the representation of a time, person, or place. I will admit to having cavalierly bandied about the term, most often in reference to the (proper) representation of a time period through (appropriate) use of external props that are justified by documented knowledge. However, the survey and sociological survey studied suggest that authenticity is internal, not external; that the use of a 1930 teacup isn't emotionally satisfying because its use places us in another period of time, but because our internalizations of that period of time is one more layer in our definition of who we are, how we fit, where we come from, and what we want to be.

Perhaps the next logical question to be asked by public historians requires flipping the observation of an exhibit or object from,“What does this object say of the past” to “How can this object help define someone's future?”

Texts referenced include: Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000) and Hyounggon Kim and Tazin Jamal, "Touristic Quest for Existential Authenticity" in Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 181-201, 2007.