The New Town Square: Museums and Communities in Transition by Robert R. Archibald

Abstract

D. Laird argues that theNative faiths ? both traditional and syncretic ? remain vital today, while the various Asian temples and churches functionmuch as the settlementhouses of an earlier century: venues that help keep both language and ancient faithsalive forPacificRim immigrants. Mark Shibley's extensive discussion of the secular but spiritual segment isgenuinely path breaking.He maintains thatrelativelyfewof this group are actually atheists or even agnostics. Instead, he suggests that thevastmajority have launched on a search forthe sacred on theirown terms,outside? sometimes quite faroutside ? the traditional bodies of organized religion. Because no religious group holds anything close to amajority, thevarious faith traditions can influence local, state,and national politics only by forging shiftingalliances, what James Madison once termed "factions." The faction with themost political potential seems to in volve an alliance to protect the awesome natural physical environment itself. Whether thePacific Northwest,with its majority of "nones," isa pro totypeforthenational futureor a blank slateripe for religious entrepreneurs remains to be seen. This fascinating collection of essays belongs on the shelfof anyonewho hopes tounderstand the changing role thatreligionhas played increating the socialworld of thePacificNorthwest. TheNew Town Square: Museums and Communities inTransition By Robert R. Archibald AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, Calif., 2004. Photographs, notes, index. 232 pages. $24.95 paper. Reviewed by Chet Orloff Portland, Oregon Robert Archibald's TheNew Town Square: Museums and Communities inTransition is an autobiographical tour of the author's life in his hometown of Ishpemig,Michigan, his adopted cityof St. Louis, and his profession as a historical agency director. The book is a col lection of essays about place, history,and com munity based on lectures and radio addresses given over thepast fiveyears to audiences from planners and arts advocates to religious groups and transit specialists. This is a good book, well written by aman passionate about history and its ever more critical role insociety.Before discussing its many strengthsandwhy one should read it, however, I should acknowledge its minor weaknesses. As a collection of essays about theauthor's life ? de veloped over time and fordisparate audiences ? TheNew Town Square's subtitle is misleading. It is less about "museums and communities in transition" and more about Robert Archibald, instructive and exemplary though his lifehas been. While we should admire thisman and his countless contributions to our profession, I suspect that many of our colleagues would pre ferto readmore ofArchibald's ample thoughts about place, history,and themuseum's twenty first-centuryrole than about life in Ishpemig. Finally,because he has used certain stories and lines in a number his talks, the essays suffer fromrepetition,a problem thatcould have been avoided bymore forcefulediting (anecessity for most autobiographical discourses). This book holds lessons for anyone who works in public history or museums. Once, museums were about collecting and exhibit Reviews 505 ing artifacts.These aremerely the objectives, Archibald reminds us. The real goal is to tell stories, to explain communities, and to "facili tate the conversation" (asArchibald often says) about who we are as members of a community. Archibald and his staff at the Missouri Historical Society have demonstrated, aswell as anymuse um in America, how to creativelyand effectively apply the lessons of place and story in exhibits and public programs. For anyone governing or simply participating in a community, theway stories are told and theway places ? buildings or ground ? arepreservedmake a difference in the quality of community life.There is a deep environmental ethic inArchibald's lifework: "My perspectives as a public historian [onewho practices history in thepublic, rather than the academic, realm] combined with my commu nity activityhave helped me acknowledge that places that trulyassist in the pursuit of happi ness are inherentlylessdemanding of theearth's resources" (pp. 152-3). This is a good book, most of all, because it relates one mans varied involvements inhis community and profession as object lessons forpeers and career aspirants. For Archibald, museums and historical agencies are not places in which historians and curators are to sequester themselves ? as was once accepted and expected ? like monks inamonastery. Rather, they must be at the center of their communities, as mem bers of a profession who both hold and tell the stories that articulate and sustain their fellow citizens' identity.It isan awesome responsibility...