Marilyn Gardner's presentation on understanding the importance of Museum Interpreters in terms of preservation of history as well as promotion of employment, especially in smaller museums.

1. The Importance of
Museum Interpreters
Marilyn Gardner Milton

2. History is both a beautiful and
incredibly important subject.

3. It’s beautiful because people back
then felt the same things and
thought the same way that people
do now and it’s beautiful to see
that sort of connection, even if the
technology has drastically changed.

4. It’s also beautiful because the art
that humankind created
throughout the ages has stood
against the flow of modernity and
still maintains the ability to
inspire awe and rapture like it did
when it was first created.

5. History is also important because
it allows us to see how we reacted
to new and different things, thus
allowing us to learn from our past
mistakes and, hopefully, use those
lessons to avoid similar mistakes
in the present and future.

6. While history is most definitely an
important subject, many people
see it as dry and uninteresting.

7. This is where the importance of
museum interpreters and living
history re-enactors come into play.

8. Museum and historical
interpreters breath a sense of life
and tangibility into history.

9. It’s one thing to hear about how
the Red Coats went around
harassing the colonists before the
Revolutionary War, but it’s a
completely other thing to actually
see it in action.

10. It makes the experience more
visceral and more real, increasing
how interesting it might be to
someone who has never been
interested in history before.

11. The importance of these re-enactors
is real in other ways too.
Many of the re-enactors are older
and retired and they do these both
as volunteers and as paid
employees.

12. These jobs allow them to create
second careers for themselves
instead of just sitting at home.

13. The other reason these jobs are
important is because of numbers.

14. Many of the places where
historical re-enactment takes
place are smaller and more niche.

15. They don’t have the funds or the
necessary public interest to
become large museums.

16. The fact that these smaller
museums have live actors adds a
new dimension to the historical
experience of the visitors.

17. It allows these smaller museums to
offer something that the larger
and better funded ones can’t.

18. It also allows them to focus on
more niche historical experiences,
like living on a plantation or on a
navy ship and a shipboard
surgeon.

19. To read more, visit:
!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/
business/retirementspecial/retirees-are-
finding-second-careers-at-historical-
sites.html?
partner=rssnyt&emc=rss