On Two Revolutions – Public History in the Bicentennial Era

In years surrounding the Bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, public history underwent a revolution of its own. Planners had hoped to stoke the flames of patriotism with a large, unified Bicentennial celebration. They instead watched as the national celebration splintered into smaller localized commemorations and the state-approved narrative of American excellence and exceptionalism began to crumble.

For in the 1970s, the general public began to see their history in new ways. They longed to ditch the Great Man theory of history and instead look at the past through multiple, diverse lenses. A lot of this shift had to do with the politics of the era – the grassroots movements that rejected the story of America as only the white man’s story and the growing level of mistrust of the government after the lies of the Vietnam War and the corruption of the Nixon administration being two prime examples.

History-tellers of all kinds, both academic and non-traditional, rose to meet the demands of the time. They recognized the power of history to build identity, especially in marginalized groups, and raise political consciousness. They jumped at the chance to make history more relevant to contemporary events by keeping the past in conversation with the present. They heeded the call to experiment with affective engagement, leaning into the ability of emotional responses to make history come alive.

In History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, author M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska dives into the transformation of public history during the Bicentennial era from activism on the ground to pushback in the seats of power. M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska examines this pivotal moment in how we looked back on our 200 years as a country across the spectrum of culture and collective memory practices, from television shows to archives and museums and even historically conscious forms of protest.

Each chapter is chock full of fascinating practices and events that I could probably fill out a ten-page paper on the subject nicely. For the sake of keeping this blog post readable, I’m going to focus in on a chapter I found particularly interesting, namely the chapter on innovative museum practices that evolved in the 1970s.

Creating relevant, engaging exhibits is something I constantly strive for and a goal I consider at every step of the exhibit development process. As I work on a permanent, core exhibit that could very well be open to the public for the next 15, even 20 years, it is somewhat frightening to think that what might be considered cutting edge today, could soon be outdated and even cheesy.

Looking back on Boston’s “The Revolution” exhibit nearly 50 years later, I couldn’t help but cringe a little. As a disclaimer – I think their intentions in creating the exhibit were very noble. They wanted to connect the past to the present in a meaningful way. But presenting fake news footage of the Boston Massacre? It reminded me of some of the cheesiest videos I watched in my elementary school classes. You know, the ones the sub would pop into the VCR player featuring well-meaning adults trying way too hard to connect with “the youth”?

I personally believe a certain amount of subtlety is crucial to drawing connections between the past and the present. From my experience, visitors prefer to discover these links to the past on their own (with just a little bit of guidance), not be hit over the head with the fact.

To be fair to the developers of this exhibit, they were creating their exhibit for a specific time period – Bicentennial era – and under a certain set of constraints (pressure to be more celebratory than critical, attitudes of the time, etc.) Ultimately, I think they succeeded in pushing the boundaries of what could be done in an exhibit. Overall, the 70s encouraged museum professionals to think outside of the curiosity cabinet and beyond the supremacy of the historical artifact. The push toward experiential learning opened up a whole new creative realm for exhibit designers and paved the way for exhibits that encourage visitors to think of history not as an inevitable progressive path but rather as the complicated result of complex choices.