Risky Business: Living History Events in Traditional Museums
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The document discusses two living history events hosted by the Newport Historical Society and Rhode Island Historical Society - a reenactment of the 1765 Stamp Act protests in Newport and a recreation of a typical day in the life of the Brown family in 1770s Providence. It provides an overview and background of each event, details on planning and preparation, successes and challenges experienced, and recommendations for taking risks with future living history programming to engage new audiences and expand interpretation of history.
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Risky Business: Living History Events in Traditional Museums
- 1. Elizabeth Sulock Manager of Public Outreach & Living History, NHS Kirsten Hammerstrom Director of Collections, RIHS Risky Business: Living History Events in Traditional Museums
- 2. Event Overviews Stamp Act Riot Recreates a specific event in Newport history in the place where it happened What Cheer Day Brings to life a typical day in the Brown family
- 3. SITE-SPECIFIC, TIME-SPECIFIC Immersive Living History Performances
- 4. Stamp Act Protest Newport, RI: August 23, 2014 Organized by the Newport Historical Society
- 5. Stamp Act Protest Washington Square, Newport, RI: August 23, 2014 Organized by the Newport Historical Society
- 6. Stamp Act Protest Washington Square, Newport, RI: August 23, 2014 Organized by the Newport Historical Society
- 7. What Cheer Day John Brown House Museum, Providence, RI: October 24, 2014 Organized by the Rhode Island Historical Society
- 8. What Cheer Day 2013 • Used RIHS’ “Faith & Freedom” theme as a driver • Also inspired by the Occupy Movement • Alice Brown’s pre-marriage pregnancy and family opposition to her suitor, James Brown Mason • Slavery and the slave trade
- 9. What Cheer Day John Brown House Museum, Providence, RI: October 24, 2014 Organized by the Rhode Island Historical Society
- 10. Preparing • Provided materials to read • Training Session/ Orientation • Offered a schedule of the day’s events • Minimal script for people to memorize
- 11. What Cheer Day Background Information
- 12. What Cheer Day Schedule
- 13. Event Successes • Happy interpreters: reenergized interest in programming focusing on civilian/daily life • Refocused staff on research and shifted long-term interpretive goals • Both organizations are eager to offer more new/innovative programming and take more risks • Helped to initiate our latest partnership, History Space
- 14. Stamp Act Successes • Social media buzz • Media coverage • Expanded organization’s professional network • Attracted new audiences • Extended life on web through social media photos & YouTube videos
- 15. What Cheer Day: Expanded Visitor Reach
- 16. An Occupied Room
- 17. What Cheer Day Successes Non-linear , simultaneous action
- 18. Event Successes Has inspired partner organizations to try this approach Images courtesy Newport Restoration Foundation.
- 19. Common Concerns • African American history challenging to represent • Some interpretation aspects are works-in-progress • Covering event expenses: is it worth it?
- 20. Risks Stamp Act • Public space: can visitors & interpreters suspend disbelief? • Uncertain about public reaction • Staging a protest and hanging an effigy in the wake of Ferguson What Cheer Day • Messing up the house • No guided tours; unclear docent role • Unscripted, “eventless” day • Event w/o John Brown
- 21. Stamp Act Concerns Stamp Act Protest: The modern location creates safety concerns.
- 22. Stamp Act Concerns Stamp Act Protest: Attempting to interpret something that has not been done in our area. Sparked concern for how the public would react.
- 23. What Cheer Day Risks & Concerns Interpretation or Instruction?
- 24. What Cheer Day Risky “Living”
- 25. Common Risks Going Forward • How authentic can we safely be? • Will interpreters be interested again? • Do interpreters work well together? • Is another day of occupation interesting? • Are staff beyond event organizers engaged? • For other organizations: how do you build relationships with interpreters/re-enactors you can trust?
- 26. History Space Workshops • “Professional development for public history practitioners.” • Guides new and experienced interpreters in building appropriate period wardrobes • Secondary benefit: Interpreters gain familiarity with each other and establish better interactions. • Helps expand interpretive and improvisational skills • Use our collections to build personas—both library resources and textiles
- 27. History Space Talks • Free talks create a better audience-- authors, teachers, kids • Material culture knowledge creates better consumers of history, museums and living history • Expands our mission and reach "An educated consumer is our best customer." --Sy Syms
- 28. Take Risks
- 29. Recommended Museum Risks • Be Specific – Use your locations as inspiration for your interpretation and events • Trust Your Interpreters – But you’ll need good ones • Think Beyond Happy History – Interpret events not usually represented
- 30. Recommended Interpreter Risks • Be Plain, Dirty or Poor – History wasn’t all pretty • Be a Bad Guy! – They can be fun • Try a Risky Character – Not everyone was nice
Editor's Notes
- Elizabeth: Explain why NHS chose to do this event.
- Historical themes and issues brought to life, not just summarized.
- Offered different “stations” for visitors where they can see how the politics of the Stamp Act affected everyone.
- What Cheer Day began as a society initiative in 2012 as a day to celebrate history; the name comes from the phrase the Narragansetts are said to have greeted Roger Williams with-- “What cheer, netop?” (a 17th-century version of “What's going on, friend?”). After trying programs at all 4 sites in one day, we scaled down in size and up in interpretation, focusing What Cheer Day on a living history event at the John Brown House Museum based on our annual interpretive themes. When we were planning 2013’s event, Occupy Providence was in full swing; we talked about using vignettes to illustrate stories, but after hearing the word “occupy” repeated so frequently, and inspired by “Sleep No More,” we decided to Occupy the John Brown House for a day in 1800.
- In 2013, the theme was Faith & Freedom; to highlight these ideas, we decided to tell the story of Alice Brown (the youngest Brown daughter), her out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and her marriage to the sometime cad James Brown Mason the day before the birth of their first daughter, Abby. That year, the interpreter portraying James Brown Mason had a friend who had just had twins, so baby Abby’s role was also interpreted. We also trained interpreters in the background of John Brown’s role in the Atlantic slave trade and his support of the slave trade as an important component of the early Federal economy, despite fierce opposition from his brother Moses, a Quaker convert.
- In 2014, the theme was Rhode Island Landscapes and Seascapes; we retained interpretive points about women’s freedom and the slave trade, though we knew visitors had not fully engaged with them. We added components to show the Brown’s role as important consumers in Providence and their place in the town through their relationships with various tradesmen and women. We also gave servants more to do, and brought in a fortune teller, trying to ground the story and the house in the landscape of Providence in 1800.
- Elizabeth: Explain SA walk through. Tried to develop this to be an easy event for the participants to attend. Many driving from a few hours away so arrive in late morning, orient them/mini tour of sites, four hours of public program and conclude with a beer and cheese party
- To prepare for What Cheer Day, we assemble primary and secondary source material. We use Brown family letters and diaries, census records, diaries of Brown family friends—the material is transcribed or scanned and shared on dropbox along with articles about Providence in 1800, an early sketch map of the city, paintings, and images of the Brown family members. We rely on interpreters to be self-motivated and to read and assimilate a lot of information, but we do begin sharing it about 10 weeks ahead of the event. We also have a training day usually two to three weeks ahead of the event, depending on interpreter schedules; this past year we included a session on developing a character from documentary evidence, using Stacy Roth’s principles, and went on a walking tour to help ground our interpreters in the city and its landscape; this is especially important for our interpreters who don’t live in Providence, or even in Rhode Island. It also helps accommodate interpreters various learning styles– we have two who are dyslexic.
- Finally, the day is run from a schedule of action rather than a script; if I could draw better, we’d use a storyboard. You can see we have activities planned in most spaces simultaneously; we strive to create an immersive experience that really brings the house to life in 1800.. The logistics are managed by education and house staff; the research and schedule are developed by curatorial staff, who also serve as interpreters.
- Elizabeth: Discuss media coverage (ProJo), helped us launch our YouTube page, the location attracted tourists; explain NRF program, local businesses are excited about the event and help to promote it. Explain NRF/Whitehorne program. Tweet about “learning valuable life skills such as how to build an effigy” Visitor inspired to engage in history after the event
- Kirsten: In 2013, we saw increased dwell time in the house: people came in the morning, went on a walking tour, and then came back in the afternoon because they wanted to know what happened. We were successful in creating engaging characters that visitors cared about. In 2014, these two ladies read about What Cheer Day on an interpreter’s blog and decided to spend the weekend in Providence to check it out. They came early and stayed late, and definitely enjoyed their visit.
- We also succeeded in making the house look much more lived in. The work on messing up the rooms—and the evolution between the sedate mess of Friday night and the fully occupied mess of Saturday morning—attracted some attention from other museums and historic houses on twitter.
- What Cheer Day employs some of the Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums tactic: it’s self-guided and unscripted for visitors, who can customize their experience. Lots of different things are happening all at once, and visitors need to move through the house to get a more complete picture of what’s happening, and who the characters are. We also embrace gossip, warning visitors about a certain tavern on Main Street that’s really a disorderly house, in 2014, we brought in a fortune teller, based on visits Providence girls in the Brown daughter’s group had made to a variety of palm readers, and in the afternoon, we played lawn games. And visitors responded well; a Brown student wrote to us that My friends and I really loved the whole experience of What Cheer Day. The house really came alive, with all the … conversations (and food & games at the end!).
- Whitehorne House 1820 maids program; currently developing another program with them for the summer.
- K: African American history can be a challenge: there’s a limited pool of reenactors, and there’s concern about what roles and scenarios are OK to portray. We got push back from Administration defining what African American roles could be portrayed. Some primary source materials of interest to us remain in carefully-guarded private hands; that means that how we interpret Mrs Brown, for example, is always in progress, as well as the servant roles. And we have come concerns about event funding and making sure that we cover expenses even as we meet our mission.
- I think I was the only participant worried about hanging an effigy in Newport two weeks after the Mike Brown shooting, but I’m from St. Louis and I was concerned that this might resonate with lynching imagery—fortunately, no one else made that connection and the day stayed grounded in 1765. There was a perceived risk in messing up the John Brown House and presenting a face so different from the standard house museum prettiness. In 2013, we were nervous about how administration, board members and docents would feel about seeing the house disrupted by habitation; there had been a spate of docent resignations and resentments over the shift to a social history tour in 2005. On What Cheer Day, we found that visitors loved it; board members, administration and staff loved it, but the docents were bored. We thought people would ask them more questions, but they had very little to do interpretively or in terms of traffic flow. In 2014, we messed the house up even more, and had fewer docents on hand. No central conflict: I worry that this will play more a bad version of Waiting for Godot, when nothing AT ALL happens. John Brown is absent—for a day, this is Sarah Brown”s house. That’s a big departure from the name on the sign in front, even though we have brought the rest of the family to the docent and audio tours.
- Costumed spectators?
- Much of what we do at the John Brown House is really instruction, though we call it interpretation, as guided tours provide an unscripted but controlled narration audio tours are also controlled and tend to be used in order. A day of unscripted interaction gives each visitor an individualized experience, which is often more appealing to younger visitors—but which presents a challenge and a risk: you really have to trust your interpreters, and make clear the interpretive points they’re responsible for.
- One the biggest and potentially most controversial risks we took was in allowing interpreters to inhabit the house. We use a combination of permanent collection and reproduction furniture for interpreters to use; we allow them to eat and drink the display rooms. We had face washing this year, with “vegetable milk” that was supposed to remove freckles. None of these things are normally permitted for anyone! We’ll codify the use policy before 2015’s event, but for the past two years, we’ve managed these risks by having the Director of Collections act as the housekeeper, serving the food and generally watching over the action throughout the house.
- As we think about 2015’s What Cheer Day, we’re asking questions about authenticity and interpretation. We can’t use the fire places or sit on most of the furniture, and we don’t understand much about the Browns’ relationship to their servants, so we’re asking questions about how to solve those issues. Eliz: Three day riots can’t be done K: Is What Cheer Day engaging enough to make interpreters want to do it again– and again? An engaged interpreter makes an engaged visitor, so this is important. E:2015 OK, 2016 more of a question. K: In any group, you have different personalities who may clash or disagree about interpretation. We draw from a small, but growing, pool, and hope that working together more will buld better relationships. E: Engaging the public K: Is it enough to merely occupy the house with small dramas? As we plan for this year, I think we need to work with larger points, and reflect current issues. I think this will engage staff members and docents and may give them more of a role. E: Other organizations: how to build trust?
- Eliz: Expands our mission…we educate/train interpreters who will then help us better educate our visitors during unique events. We have flyers that discuss our upcoming programs.
- KH: The workshops and talks really expand our mission and our reach: we hope to make the past more engaging to people as they learn more about how to read it. It’s a different place, we can provide the map for historical fiction writers, creative writing teachers, kids, and genealogists. We realized that even if we were not immediately attracting people who would become interpreters, we would building better audiences. The more people know and understand about the process of living history, about material culture, and the ways we interpret the evidence of the past, the better consumers of history they’ll be, whether at our events or elsewhere.
- E: Specific K: Trust Your Interpreters E: Think Beyond Happy Stage small events to get public more comfortable with uncomfortable history– can build conversations, especially with younger audiences who don’t want to be lectured to. If we work to portray the difficult or charged issues of the past, we hope to interpret them more fully, and better understand the present, which is really our mission as historical organizations.
- K: Be Plain, Poor or Dirty. It’s OK not to be pretty: Historic costumes are appealing to visitors; we can push dirtier, worn, and patched clothes farther to better represent the full range of social levels in early American society. E: Be a bad guy! K:Take Risks with your Character: not every body was respectable, genteel and refined. The sailor you see here is always on the make– and if interpreters know and trust each other, they (we) can expand interpretations to more honestly and accurately represent the past.