Public History, Private Memory: Notes from the Ethnography of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

Abstract

Colonial Williamsburg, and U.S. history museums generally, claim to transform public history into collective memory. That is, they convey an objective documented history to the public who, absorbing that history, acquires an appropriate collective or national memory. We argue that the emphasis on consumer (visitor) experience at such museums collapses the distance between the reconstructed past (the museum's history lesson) and the visitor's touristic or familial experience at the site. Visitors indeed remember their visits to Colonial Williamsburg, but their specific memories would seem to have little to contribute to any 'collective memory' of a 'national history.'