Whither the Urban History Exhibit? The Peale Museum's "Rowhouse"

Abstract

Urban history as a holistic exhibit theme is a comparatively recent phenomenon. The history of cities typically has been treated in fragmented and indirect fashion by local historical societies, municipal museums, and historic preservation agencies. These institutions have focused on the famous and well-to-do, on politics and epic events, and on architecture, furnishings, and the decorative arts in relation to cities. Their exhibits have tended to be modestly funded, to have been mounted with little or no input from professional designers, and to have dealt with objects in isolation rather than the broader aspects of urbanism. House museums sometimes have presented a fuller view of urban life than have interpretive exhibits, but only through the windows of particular individuals. With few exceptions they have been concerned primarily with the achievements of their former occupants and with architecture and household accoutrements. There are no urban villages per se, though historic districts, particularly in smaller cities, often outdo museums in providing material for the interpretation of urban social history. A common museum genre is the street exhibit, as seen, for example, at the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Detroit Historical Museum. Many of these were developed in postwar years of urban decay. They feature full-size or scaled-down replica facades of commercial buildings and are virtually devoid of explicit interpretation. Implicitly, however, there is a strong message: Visitors are supposed to imagine themselves strolling through an old-time downtown magically free of crime, pollution, and other evils mistakenly viewed as plagues peculiar to the 20th century. Rather than serving as learning experiences, these exhibits trade on false memory, myth, and cute nostalgia.