Ye Olde McDonald's vs. Monticello?

...People are hungering for history, but they don't seem to want to do brunch with us. What can we do to snag an invite?

As an accomplished museum curator from a nearby historic house museum voiced right at the outset of our meeting, we departed not a little perplexed about our first and foremost focus question: Why is heritage tourism UP while visits to historic sites and museums are DOWN?

Needless to say, armed only with Vaughan's introductory article and sixty-odd minutes of discussion time, we failed to fully dissect the oniony layers of this seeming paradox - although we weighed it in our collective palm and made a few preliminary cuts that might cause museum-focused eyes to water and sting!

So let's recap our conversation and apply some additional consideration to what we'll call... the Commander Salamander Conundrum: People increasingly seek out perceived "historic experiences" in tourist environments such as Georgetown, which are authentically rich in history. Yet, once there, they often choose...

•  to shop on architectually well-endowed Main Streets - whether at the type of (now extinct!) unique boutique for which this conundrum is named or at the much-contested Apple Store soon to fall from the corporate tree;
• to sleep in inns or B&B's that happen to snuggle up inside historic structures;
• to dine (increasingly, on cupcakes) in restaurants that are similarly situated;

... But ironically, they less often choose to visit actual historic sites and museums, such as Dumbarton House and our many neighboring institutions.

When these folks ditch our visitor entrances, where else do they head off to? Why should we take this seriously, and what should we do about it? Our accomplished museum curator neighbor served up the idea that the level of engagement is what's truly at stake. Unlike the mourned J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, who repeatedly visited NYC's Museum of Natural History precisely because he appreciated the permanence of the exhibits...

“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed where it was . . . . The only thing that changed was you . . . . Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to just stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.” (The Catcher in the Rye)

.... our visitors may NOT feel compelled to return again and again. As one brave docent proposed, our limited collections and exhibit space mean that things may not change sufficiently to satisfy the repeat visitor once an historic house’s staffers have made their chesslike moves to "right" its interpretation.

Moreover, our daring docent continued, we should consider whether our increased drive for accurate furnishing and interpretive plans – which we museum professionals and proponents looove - may inadvertently deter visitors whose history nerdishness factor competes poorly with ours. For one thing, visitors like Holden will miss the lack of comforting unchangeability:  Public history professionals know that for some, it's far more reassuring to gaze upon the static, statuesque curves of The Tyrannasaurus Rex of History than to fondle the puzzling bones of evolving, multiple historical narratives.

And even on a more fundamental level - our docent observed that visitors also miss the "pretty stuff" often ousted by a revised and corrected furnishing plan, that they feel the site is "colder" and "have trouble picturing life there, or wanting to live there themselves."

If this is true - gosh, how should we feel about being so incredibly unsatisfying on both the "edu-tainment" and Meaning of Life fronts? After all, as two of our worldly, well-traveled, and talented graduate student interns warned – bad historic house museums run the risk not only of being dreadfully boring, but also of ruining the very reputation of historic sites to the extent that everyone except the Very Biggest History Geeks Of All will go racing off to the Apple Store and Cupcake Shoppe instead!

A sage, experienced docent and NSCDA member countered that, sure, “accurately interpreted sites don’t look like Hollywood’s version of history anymore, and that turns people off. However, the drive for authenticity is still [inherently] important!” And our wise neighboring curator who launched this thread in the first place provided some comfort by asserting that Yes!-we can find ways to be historically accurate but still engage – even when we're divested of our lushest furnishings while M Street's lovely storefronts are decidedly not.

So - Certainly the ability to gnosh, snooze, or shop-'til-they-drop within or near an historic property may facilitate some visitors' perception of an Immersive, Meaningful, Enjoyable Historical Experience. But for those museums whose mission statements and curatorial policies fail to embrace such dramatic changes in site usage - what lessons can we at least take away about ways to engage and remain historically accurate? And what else do we need to know about the predicament of heritage tourism UP, visits to historic sites and museums DOWN? Our Director will share her thoughts with us, and we hope you will also!