Open Letter to the Curators of the Baron Von Munchausen Historic Home

Update: I heard back from the curator of the museum and she really let me have it!


Note: What is the obligation of a public historian when the history you are presented at a historic site is not right? Do you smile and nod? Politely correct the presenter? The following is a real letter I sent off this week to the curators of a historic home in the American south. A few names have been changed to protect the well-meaning--my goal is not to shame the museum but to help it improve.

Friends:

Thank you for the very enjoyable tour of the Baron Von Munchausen historic home today. The passion and commitment of your staff made for a terrific visit. As an academic and public historian I am fortunate to visit a lot of historic sites, and want to offer a few friendly comments, which I trust will not be taken amiss.

On our tour I was concerned about some of the historical "facts" presented by some of the staff.  I would like to refer you to this article from the Colonial Williamsburg foundation, Stuff and Nonsense: Myths that Should be History, which dispels some of the historical myths that  get passed down from one interpreter to the next and even published from time to time. Our guide repeated as fact five of the ten myths debunked by the article. Specifically:

1. Fireplace screens were not used to prevent women's wax makeup from melting. Colonial women rarely wore makeup, and it was not made of wax. Accordingly, this is not where the expression "to save face" comes from.
2. People were not shorter in the colonial period--they seem to have been almost exactly the same height as today.
3. There was no closet tax in any of the colonies. If closets were uncommon it was because people had only a few changes of clothes.
4. Colonial portrait painters did not charge extra to paint people's hands. Accordingly, this is not the origin of the phrase "to charge an arm and a leg."
5. There is no evidence that pineapples were a symbol of hospitality in the colonial era.

Some additional questionable interpretation items from the (very nice!) person who gave us our tour include:

• The story that most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were singled out by royal forces and suffered disproportionatley is a myth that gets forwarded via email. See this Snopes page which takes the myth apart: http://www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

• Our guide said that most women married and 12 or 13 "back in those days." There are certainly cases of that in the 18th and 19th century, but it was very rare. In the Chesapeake region in 1750 the average age at marriage was 22 for women (and 27 for men) so it was probably about the same in your town.

• Our guide said that only the wealthy knew how to read and that there was no public education for women until the mid-19th century. Literacy was fairly widespread in colonial America--according to one recent textbook, "By 1760, New England's literacy rate was 70 per cent among men and 45 per cent amongst the female population. The south saw a lower rate of between 50 per cent and 60 per cent for men and 40 per cent among women." Public education was widespread in the north.

• Many of the "and that is where we get the saying" stories our guide shared were dubious. Bad books and websites on the origins of popular sayings are legion. You local library probably has the multi-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary which is a good source for the orignins of popular sayings.

The biggest problem with the interpretation at the Baron Munchausen House was the absence of slavery. There was no acknowledgment that Munchausen even owned slaves. Our guide referred to the slaves who ran the house as "servants" which is whitewashing history. Our guide used the word "slave" only once in passing. Slavery was at the heart of Munchausen's world. He owned many slaves and even advertised in newspapers for the return of his runaways. Slaves built the Munchausen fortune, cooked his dinner, and kept the opulent house running. A Google Book Search for "Baron Von Munchusen" + slaves provides some resources for specific information, including names and descriptions of some of Muchausen's runaway slaves. The interpretation at the Munchausen House would be richer and more interesting if you included stories of the slaves rather than omitting them.

Thank you for all you do to preserve and welcome the public to this historic treasure. The work you do has saved an important historic landmark and serves thousands of visitors. It is because what you do is so important and so good that I offer these small corrections. Feel free to contact me if you like.

Cordially,

Larry Cebula

Lantern Slide Shows of Washington State: 1910-1939

Here is a fun image collection from the Washington State Digital Archive: Lantern Slide Shows from the Washington Department of Conservation from between 1910 and 1939. [Unfortunately I cannot link directly to the images--you will need to go to the DA site, then Keyword Search => choose "Photographs" from the drop-down menus => then under "Record Series" select "Show All Records."] These arresting images show Washington State at a pivotal time in the decades just before the Great Depression. We see modern scenes of battleships in Seattle Harbor, images of farming, and early highways along with beautiful scenes of nature across the state. (To the left we see Monroe Street Bridge in Spokane.)

These slides were made for use with an early version of the modern slide projector, the "magic lantern." The picture of the magic lantern to the right is from this page at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, which provides this helpful description of the devices:

Magic lanterns are an early equivalent of today's slide projectors, with a few important differences. First, magic lanterns used fire instead of electric bulbs to illuminate the slides. A second difference was the shape of the slides. Today's slides are often made of lightweight, thin plastic or glass, and come in single frames. Magic lantern slides came in strips of large, bulky pieces of glass held together with metal or wood. They often contained mechanical features that allowed limited movement of one or more slides within the projector, a feature no longer found on modern slide projectors. Lastly, many magic lanterns could display images of greater complexity than today's slide projectors.

The slides in the Digital Archive Collection feature many interesting and historically important scenes from early 20th century Washington. And many are by Asahel Curtis. Asahel was the brother of infamous photographer Edward Curtis and an important figure in his own right--but that is a subject for another post. Here are a few of my favorites of these slides:


Cattle herd at Grand Coulee:

This image has a wonderful 19th-century feel to it and is a reminder that mush of Washington State was still very rural and undeveloped in the early 20th century.


Alhambra Cabins, Soap Lake:

I love this picture of early automobile tourism!



In the loggers wake, clear cut debris:

There are a whole series of these illustrating environmental degradation, which is quite surprising for a set of slides produced by the state government.


Speed Boat Racing, Lake Chelan

The boat in the center has an almost 3D effect.

H.C. Bohlke with poultry at Grandview

Finally, a boy and his chicken:


There are over 250 of these wonderful images at the Washington State Digital Archives, so come pay us a visit!