In a message dated 4/28/98 8:14:38 PM EST, [log in to unmask] writes:

> You view the car collection in the Henry Ford Museum, adjacent to
>  Greenfield Village, and also trains and planes, etc.  The collection of
>  buildings in the Village, which you see by walking the "streets,"
>  provides an interesting array of historic building techniques and
>  craftsmanship.  I've been there maybe twice, when we've have company
>  visiting from out of town who ask to see it.  Otherwise...

Interesting that you mention Greenfield Village.  I have been sitting at my
computer composing a presentation on "Why Preserve?"  In reviewing the history
of the American preservation movement, it has been interesting to wander
through the various motives behind historic preservation:  patriotism,
memorializing loss and valor, the search for a cultural security blanket, and
even extravagant philanthropic enterprises (a lot of mixed motives there) like
Williamsburg and Greenfield Village.

I hadn't made the connection before, but I discovered that Greenfield Village
was begun the same year that John D. Rockefeller embarked on the re-creation /
reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg (1929). Neither of these projects make
the mark under current standards of authenticity, but at the time, the fact
that Rockefeller and Henry Ford valued preservation and/or "historic"
environments is worthy of note.

It is also interesting to note that Williamsburg is granted a certain greater
respect because of careful research in reconstruction (new made recreate old),
whereas Ford took the genuine artifact and plunked it down in an artificial
context.  Both approaches require artifice, but today Ford's approach seems to
receive more criticism.

We are critical of these approaches in current practice -- moving forward on
the continuum, I suppose. However, visits to Greenfield Village and
Williamsburg provide interesting reminders of how earlier generations were
wrestling with ways to preserve. I think that they have helped us understand
why the Disney approach to ersatz "historic" environments (at 3/4 scale) is
not acceptable today. We want to see something real.

Even Ford's Greenfield Village and Rockefeller's Williamsburg -- although
flawed -- are more real than Celebration. But have Americans come to expect --
do they want -- only a pasteurized history at 3/4 scale?  I hope not.

MDK