Heroes or Villians

So we took a look at the controversy surrounding the exhibit on the Enola Gay in the National Air and Space Museum.  In short, it revolved around what view the exhibit would take of the bombing of Hiroshima. The exhibit, as originally planned, would focus much more on the destruction caused to the city and its inhabitants, and the effect the first use of a nuclear bomb in war would have upon the future of the world.  Veterans groups, understandably, did not appreciate this idea, and wanted a much more sanitized version.  Eventually, the minds behind the original exhibit would resign, and the final product would be a simple look at the plane and crew.

Now, we are supposed to take a side and support it.  Honestly, however, I can sympathize with both sides.  The exhibit as originally planned would have been a stark look at an intensely controversial episode of the past.  It would have passed all of the fluff and hero-worship so common with any view of American military history, and World War Two in particular, to focus on the consequences of America's actions.  Especially, it wouldn't have looked at the victims of the Hiroshima bombings as nameless "enemies", but people who were changed forever as a result of what happened.

On the other hand, the exhibit, while not openly criticizing those who flew the mission, by not defending them showed them in a negative light.  The crew, and veterans in general, were understandably upset by the exhibit.  They were following orders, and honestly believe that what they did was not only right, but the only option.  They did not enjoy what happened, but it was something that they had to do.  A museum exhibit that focuses on such things as child casualties doesn't reflect this, and so of course they were upset.  

But for the exhibit to be completely scrapped, and reworked as a perfectly acceptable fluff piece is unacceptable.  The veterans certainly deserve respect, thanks, and admiration, but not the power to keep any history critical of them from being shown.  I think that the original exhibit should have been expanded to look at both sides, and shown not just the consequences, but the moral ambiguity of the bombing in general.  Show the crew as people who believed in the justice of what they were doing, while still showing the consequences of their actions.  

To be honest though, with such a contentious issue, compromise was probably impossible from the beginning.  Maybe in the future there could be an exhibit that shows both sides, but for now, I don't think it can be done.

What is Public History?

What are some considerations when viewing public history exhibits? What Prof. Jordanova's essay said to me was that first you have to think about what is public history.  Museums and such, obviously qualify, but I never thought of historical fiction as public history.  But it's true, and actually, a little worrisome.  Tying back to the Alamo exhibit, The Alamo with John Wayne would be many people's only knowledge of the Alamo.  These people now believe in a history taught to them through a for-profit, highly glamorized, if not fictionalized movie.  Beyond that, even museums or other things that one would think of as actual history, have some motive behind their production.  The problem arises when that motive interferes with a non-biased portrayal of the issue in question.  As Jordanova pointed out, a major drive with public history is to both place blame, and to educate so that mistakes are not repeated.  An admirable goal.  In every class I have ever taken that dealt with World War 1, I have been told a similar, but still different reason for it beginning.  Historians do not agree.  If they did, there would be far fewer, because no one could publish a new book.  So how are exhibits to keep the past from being repeated, if we can't agree on what the past is?

A New View of the Alamo

The Alamo exhibit at the Walker Education Center was not what I expected.  A few panels with a few pictures and essays tacked to them is not what I think when I think of a museum exhibit.  But once I started to read, and examine it, I began to appreciate it more.  As a native Texan, I have always seen the same John Wayne movie story of the Alamo.  It's almost impossible to think of it as anything other than a place of battle.  Intellectually, I know it was a mission long before that, and later was empty, although the information that it was used as a warehouse was new to me.  I just don't think of it as anything else.  But the exhibit showed a lot of the other sides of the Alamo.  From the earliest known image of it, to the cartoon from the Mexican perspective, it examined the story from another viewpoint.