An updating of exhibits at Fort Union National Monument in New Mexico will provide more insights into Officers Row, now in ruins/NPS
Federal funding is allowing Fort Union National Monument in New Mexico to update its museum exhibits, which have grown outdated down through the years.
This three-year project is being funded from the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, with a phase completed each year. FLREA funds come from the recreation fee revenues – entrance fees – and must be used directly for visitor enjoyment. The project is intended to address major deficiencies in outdated museum exhibits constructed in the early 1960s at the park's visitor center.
Fort Union National Monument commemorates the largest frontier military post in the Southwest and multi-cultural stories of Hispanics and Native Americans of the region. Although “state of the art” when built, displays are outdated in content, theme, perspective and relevance to our changing society, park officials said.
Rehabilitated exhibits are expected to provide visitors a better view of the changes brought about by the U.S.-Mexican War, Fort Union and the U.S. Military, the Civil War, the Santa Fe Trail, and the American Indian and Hispanic cultures of the region. New exhibits and interactive displays will focus on the multicultural aspects of the Civil War in the New Mexico Territory, Civil War battles, Indian Campaigns and Great Plains tribal communities, women’s history, and lasting impacts to the local economy and political scene.
Comments
I'm not quite sure how the "theme, perspective and relevance" of something from 150 years ago changes because of a different society today. Do we have to rewrite history to make it politically correct?
EC--
Or, an alternative perspective is that since the 1950s & 1960s, historians have figured out more about what was happening then and there, especially about the lives of the travellers on the Santa Fe Trail and the local natives, traders, and settlers. Society today seems to want to understand those stories, too. Is that rewriting history to make it politically correct, or just including _more_ history and more understanding, including the scholarship of the last 50 years? Al? Harry? What say you?
Beyond that, I recently saw the 1970s era displays at FWS Patuxent visitor center, so I have a sense for that era's state of the art displays, especially interactive displays. We're talking about flat metal cutouts of birds or hunters that either arc across the sky on a track, or swing on hinges from the painted reeds, when visitors push buttons or levers. See for example:
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Patuxent/visit/exhibits.html which doesn't do it full justice (hint: that's a painting on the other side of the glass)
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/national-wildlife-visitor-center-laurel?... (flat birds that swing out)
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/national-wildlife-visitor-center-laurel?... (flat biologist who may or may not move)
Such displays really need to be updated to be relevant and interesting to visitors today. [I'm clearly a nerd: I thought the Patuxent dioramas were retro. Then again, I was there for a training workshop on wildlife statistics: ubernerd.]
From a much more practical standpoint, by law FLERA funds from entrance fees (in this case shared from entrance fees at other parks because FOUN has no entrance fee) can only be spent on discrete projects of direct benefit to visitors. They can't save up across years to pay for larger projects like re-sealing their parking lot. So, updating the museum exhibits in 3 annual chunks might be the best possible use of their share of those funds.
tomp2 - If indeed scholars have discovered more artifacts and more contemporary accounts of events, I have no problem incorporating them them into the interpretation. But, that would have nothing to do with our "changing society". I suspect, the changes aren't motivated by new information from the time
All history reflects the society in which it is written. Historians - real ones - learn that on almost Day One. That doesn't mean that facts don't matter but history books and exhibits are interpretations where actual human beings make conscious and unconscious choices about what to include.
I visited Fort Union last summer. Its exhibits are good but focused an awful lot on common Anglo soldiers. But hey that's what historians were writing about after World War II. Bell Wiley's The Life of Johhny Reb was the pattern for tons of "daily life of x" books. And those are sorts of secondary sources that the exhibit designers used as their framework 40 years ago.
You'd be excused for not realizing what Indian or Hispano people thought of the fort and Santa Fe Trail. Also, what about Army wives? Civilians? Children? Those primary sources were known then but not a lot of secondary sources had used them yet. It's almost like changes in society changed what sources historians.
But hey, proud know-nothingism is a lot easier for old, incurious guys. Get off your lawn!
Good point, and a reasonable reason for making changes. Unfortunately, that is not what the story indicates is the reason for the change instead it cites "our changing society".
Do I have to repeat myself? Changes in society were why those new histories were written!
What do you think that phrase means? Be explicit.
Changing Society?
You mean like the Texas textbook commission trying to remove any mention of slaves in history texts to be used in Texas? Referring to them instead as "immigrant farm workers."
"Political correctness" depends entirely upon one's point of view.
Young, I think it means exactly what you (and Lee in his post) indicate. "new histories" There are no noew facts since the 1960s, At least none identified in the stury, only new interpretations shaped by todays "changing society". It is the typical, in my opinion, improper judging of older cultures and long past people by today's standards.