VisitPhilly.com, a tourist information site, features a list of the 25 most visited attractions in Philadelphia. A significant number of the places listed here involve experiencing a part of Philadelphia's history, from more explicitly historical institutions, like Eastern State Penitentiary, to fun locations that have an added historical bonus, like Reading Terminal Market. No matter the subject, Philadelphia's history is spread out across many different institutions.
The 25 Most Visited Attractions in Philadelphia, via VisitPhilly.com
The authors of A Vision for a Historical Center in Philadelphia recognize this. They cite this spread as a key factor for forming what would become the Philadelphia History Museum in the first place — they suggest that instead of having all of these disparate organizations, there should be a single museum to encompass the entirety of Philadelphia's history.
What do you notice about that map?
Of the most visited institutions in Philadelphia, almost all of them are located with the Center City area. This presents to tourists a biased and incomplete picture of Philadelphia history, and of the city itself, that ignores the rich culture and history of other neighborhoods in Philadelphia. The concept of a single Philadelphia History Museum, especially given its eventual location at 7th and Market, only makes this issue worse. Even if PHM's galleries include narratives that highlight people of color, immigrant neighborhoods, more recent history, etc, its location primes visitors to only pay attention to white colonial history.
For comparison, here is a map of Philadelphia's
neighborhoods, with a cutaway of Center City.
So what should they do instead?
The Vision article cites PHM's eventual competition with other historical institutions, and outlines what it would need to do to come out ahead of other institutions. Frankly, in light of that acknowledged competition, it seems selfish to me to want to create another institution to join the pool.
Instead, a better alternative would have been to support the existing institutions. The article cites a fundraising goal of $50M, including a $20M endowment, and that money could instead be used to create a framework that could encompass all existing historical institutions, to make them a more cohesive network instead of disparate organizations.
This could include ideas like:
- Admission passes that will encourage tourists to visit multiple organizations under a single ticket;
- Scholarships for admission and transportation to improve accessibility for populations typically left out of the cultural sector;
- A city-wide catalog, similar to PACSCL, that can help locate artifacts, exhibits, and other resources held by different institutions;
- Cross-institutional lecture series;
- Promotion of smaller, farther away, and more obscure museums and historic houses to encourage visitation;
- Outreach efforts to better include and support neighborhood organizations and community centers;
- A financial safety net to support growth and encourage historical institutions to take risks.
Not only would this kind of plan help existing institutions and the larger cultural sector, but it would also benefit Philadelphia's economy at large, as it would encourage the tourist industry to expand past the few blocks of Center City.
TDC proposed a similar approach, what they call a "system." While they note small budgets as a major obstacle in realizing their History System Project, the reappropriated funds raised for the PHM could theoretically diminish that barrier.
What other qualities or features would you want to see in this kind of system or consortium of historical institutions?
100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment conducted by graduate courses at Temple University's Center for Public History and MLA Program, is exploring history and empowering education. Click here to learn more.
I also notice that there is quite a bit of overlap between museums and Starbucks locations. However, unlike the cultural sector, I think it would be better if there were only one single super Starbucks location. Then everywhere else, small independent coffee shops and bodegas were allowed to flourish.
This is an interesting point and I think it's a useful comparison to make. A single super Starbucks is entirely improbable because, however popular, Starbucks remains a capitalist colossus. Similarly, cultural institutions seem to thrive on competition as part of their own capitalist market. So the idea of a central museum allowing other smaller museums to thrive is interesting but strikes me as unlikely.
So instead of building a big-box History Center, we'd get what? ... a robust
History System.You point out that maybe we've had one all along and just need to recognize and support it. What would it take to do that adequately - at a level that would really make a difference. What's stopping that from being reality?This was one of the issues I had with the TDC piece. They outline the need for a History System, and the obstacles that have prevented its implementation in the past, but don't go far into specifics of what that system would look like or how to get there. (Unless I completely missed that part??) So I tried to imagine what a history system would look like instead.
I think one of the primary obstacles to implementing a system like this is the very nature of a non-profit organization existing within a capitalist society. The drive to make money, the constant need to report to a board of trustees who play a large role in fundraising, the encouragement to stick to more conservative decisions instead of taking risks, and the overall tendency to see other institutions as competition rather than partners... I'm not sure if a truly cooperative system is possible without a major paradigm shift of seeing value in increased accessibility, audience engagement, and educational opportunities instead of revenue and other financial markers.
The business jargon in the article makes the solution seem really vague, but one part of the History System plan that stuck out to me was the reporting back to partners and other vested interests in the nonprofit history world. As I mentioned in my blog, this insular and elitist approach got us into this underfunded, underutilized mess and is EXACTLY why someone might propose a History System in the first place.