Welcome to the Directing Dumbarton Blog!

... an online discussion forum focused on the future of historic house museums in America. Each month Dumbarton House full time, part time, and volunteer staff will meet to discuss a reading about some aspect of historic house museum operations, musing on the impact for our field and the impact for Dumbarton House specifically, where appropriate.

We kicked off the roundtables this week with a reading of James Vaughan’s article, Introduction: The Call for a National Conversation, in the Spring 2008 issue of Forum Journal, a publication of The National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The discussion was spirited with nineteen in attendance offering a variety of perspectives and ideas. Jenna Watson and I will begin blogging in earnest early next week, tackling first a topic that generated a good deal of attention at our roundtable: the perhaps ambivalent relationship between trends in heritage tourism and trends in historic site attendance. In future weeks we’ll move on to discuss the issue of relevance at historic sites; the James Vaughan article generally; and finally, the varying wants and needs of local communities vs. the tourist audience.

Through this blog we hope to present our own thoughts and opinions, but also encourage further discussion, debate, and inquiry. Feel free to add a comment, start a new discussion thread, ask a question, or counter our arguments. We look forward to continuing our conversations online through this new forum!