Memory, Place, and New England

A PhD. Student’s Exploration of Memory, Museums, and the Making of New England’s Past

Mission Statement:

Reconstructing  New England explores how recreated villages, living-history museums, and public history sites have shaped our understanding of the region’s past. By examining who built these places, why they were created, and the stories they were designed to tell, this blog follows the research journey behind a doctoral study of how New England’s history has been remembered, interpreted, and reimagined. 

Welcome;

As a child, my Auntie Anna took me to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Now, I live ten miles from the rock that famously memorializes the 1620 arrival of the Leyden Separatists. But as a child of about seven, my parents moved South so my father could attend Bob Jones University. It was a big deal to be home in Massachusetts with my cherished favorite Aunt visiting historic sites. Even at that young age, my parents had instilled a love of visiting historic sites. We visited the long-gone Plymouth Wax Museum at which representations of the Wampanoag participation in Pilgrim history was problematic at best. Still, I recall the displays at this museum with a special fondness as they are some of my first experiences with the history of the Indigenous people of my area. Experiences such as these led me to ask questions about how we remember and recreate the past.

I am still asking questions about how we remember and recreate the past in New England. I am a non-traditional aged PhD. student. My name is Will David Hunter. This blog is to document my experience of research for my PhD. dissertation. This is the launch of my research journey. If you are interested in why we remember and recreate a usable past in New England (and beyond), please feel free to join me here on this blog. 

New England is dotted with living history museums and public history sites that are not actual historic sites, but rather recreations of historic New England villages. Why do these recreated Colonial villages look the way they do? Who decided which buildings belong there and who decided whose story would be remembered there? Public History today is a battlefield where politically and socially motivated narratives rule. This is not new. This is historical. Public historical memory is not a passive or neutral reflection of bygone eras. It is actively manufactured in the context of the contemporary twentieth-century ideology. 

This research into recreated New England villages will intersect cultural history and memory studies in  New England. The working title for my dissertation research is “Reconstructing the New England Village.” New England is dotted with living history museums and public history sites that are not actual historic sites, but rather recreations of historic New England villages. My intended research can be described using an X, Y, Z framework as follows: “I am working on”(X) the institutional origins, financial structures, and curatorial strategies of mid-twentieth century New England living-history museums, focusing on distinct models such as Salem’s Pioneer Village and Old Sturbridge Village, “because I want to find out”(Y) how the creators of these physical spaces mobilized specific historical memories of the colonial, federal, and maritime eras to articulate a cohesive regional identity, and precisely how their choices in curation mirrored the immediate social, cultural, and political dynamics of the twentieth century, “so that I can help others understand” (Z)  how public historical memory is not a passive or neutral reflection of bygone eras, but is actively manufactured in the context of contemporary historiography.

Whereas this research will be rooted in cultural history and memory studies, the methodology will focus on database research in historical newspapers.The primary source methodology will analyze available museum administrative records and seek details from guidebooks and published materials. A narrative will be formed from these primary sources. Combining information and insights from published materials with press releases and contemporary newspaper coverage analysis of the perceived memory of New England identity, the time will be made to support the historic narrative. Historical newspaper databases will be utilized to access early and mid-20th century New England papers. New Englanders’ ancestors loved to publish everything in their many newspapers. Records of these organizations will be sought as well as papers and letters of the founders of these organizations. Interviews of people who worked at or visited these living history museums might be used to fill in an employee or public perspective. By interesting data points from these differing primary sources, a narrative picture will be created. Then, analysis will be attempted on how the creators of these physical spaces mobilized specific historical memories of the New England past to articulate a cohesive regional identity, and precisely how their choices in curation mirrored their twentieth century ideologies and values.

As every year passes, hundreds of school field trips and thousands of tourists wander through recreated New England villages such as Plymouth’s Plimouth Pawtutex (the former Plymouth Plantation), Old Sturbridge Village, and Salem’s 1630 Pioneer Village. They watch a blacksmith’s hammer or cooking demonstration as they pass through dirt lanes lined by Federal white clapboard or Colonial thatched roofs. They imagine they are transported into the 17th or 18th century. But, what if these villages tell us just as much about the 20th century as they do about the 17th or 18th century? 

You are welcome to join on the quest to answer these questions.

 Sources:

Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, 9th ed., rev. Wayne C. Booth et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 12–13.