What Outcomes Should the American Civil War Museum Measure? 2020 Annual Survey of Museum Goers

The new design features mostly large scale, wall-mounted image boards with some video and interactive opportunities embedded in them. There are only a few cases, here and there, that contain artifacts.
This is the new style that museums have adopted. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've been a few places where I felt they did little more than create a mood. But then I do remember how boring the old-style museums seemed to me when I was younger. Still, I would like to visit.
 
Well that would be my daughter and I who visited a little less than two years ago in 2018.

It didn't look anything like what I just saw in the film clip. Thank God.

It actually displayed numerous artifacts, even though these were intermingled with some boards and educational information.

There were flags, lots of flags. I don't see any here on display.

I was half hearted about it's purpose as a museum then. Now I'm even less convinced.

Personally, I wouldn't visit again. I'm much more keen to return to the Confederate museum in NOLA.

As to the questionnaire, I'm totally confused about how a museum is meant to make your job easier as a carer, unless you are leaving your child to wander through on their own :laugh: or they've added a creche! Seriously, what has that got to do with a museum?

The questioning is about as pointless as the museum now appears to be in terms of the purpose a museum generally serves, which is to display artifacts. At least that's my understanding.
That's what was disappointing about the walkthru to me.......it looked like lots of artsy fluff with huge empty spaces filled with giant pictures and little in the way of display cases with actual artifacts.......I would expect a national museum to have a larger collection then say an individual battlefields

Hopefully the walkthru is misleading, but it gave me the impression visiters centers like chickamauga have done far more with way less space.........
 
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I would expect a national museum to have a larger collection then say an individual battlefields
They have an exceptionally large collection which includes (or included at one time) everything from the old Museum of the Confederacy and the old Civil War interpretive center at Tredegar ---- including all the VA flags that were returned to State of Virginia from the War Department in 1905; all the flags for units that could not be attributed to a state were also held at the MOC; plus all the items donated by veterans and their families that were previously in the collection of the MOC; plus whatever had been at the Tredegar museum before the merger. I'm speculating, but Id guess it is (or was) the largest collection of Confederate artifacts in the world?
 
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They have an exceptionally large collection which includes (or included at one time) everything from the old Museum of the Confederacy and the old Civil War interpretive center at Tredegar ---- including all the VA flags that were returned to State of Virginia from the War Department in 1905; all the flags for units that could not be attributed to a state were also held at the MOC; plus all the items donated by veterans and their families that were previously in the collection of the MOC; plus whatever had been at the Tredegar museum before the merger. I'm speculating, but Id guess it is (or was) the largest collection of Confederate artifacts in the world?
What happens to items that were donated, & no longer displayed...? Quarantined to storage indefinitely..?
 
@Neagle2VR did your survey have the response options in the same order?
Yes, it was the same list, in the same order. When I read the first two pages of the survey, I was wondering if anyone else thought it a little strange for a Civil War museum. They are trying to change the way people look at the American Civil War to their ideology, which I don't believe should ever be done. When given the true facts about an event, people should be capable of their own thoughts on the subject. I thought this quote explains much of what's going on with the museum:


“Building this new museum is about building a new ideology about how we do history. It’s a celebration of the legacies that each of us brings to the table, but pivoting it for new audiences who are asking a whole new set of amazing questions.”

Christy Coleman
CEO, American Civil War Museum

From the same page with the walkthrough video.

Now I want to hear what that "New Idology" is. With all the recent state of Richmond, and Virginia politics, I have an idea. It's been coming for a long time.
 
I should say that when I visited in 2016 they had just opened the new building next to Tredegar. I visited the old museum, which was still open, the Confederate White House, Tredegar, and the new museum. Most of the artifacts had not been moved into the new facility when I visited and, like I said, they had filled a lot of the space with large photos and wall boards. It really seemed targeted at a black audience to show how slavery was bad and how they'd overcome so much (e.g. the whole room of Martin Luther King stuff and photos of race riots and the like); really not what I was expecting.

We only visited the new museum because docents at the old one said some of the collection had been moved there (and we were going to Tredegar anyway). I don't think I'd visit again.

I have also been to the one in New Orleans and that was a real museum of the Confederacy. Even my wife like it and she's not a CW buff.
 
Laura,

In my opinion, museums and Civil War battlefields should have education as their primary goals. Hopefully a visit will ignite a fire in some people to invest in a lifetime quest to learn history.

It constantly amazes me that far too many people have no knowledge or interest in history. The level of ignorance in history is staggering to me. Somehow we have lost our way. One Classic example is in my wife's home town. There is a WWI "doughboy" statue in the main intersection of the town. It is a fairly large stone carving of a WWI soldier on a large stone base. Just last Friday, we met friends at a firehall near that monument for a Friday fish fry. As we were waiting for the fish, we were talking about where my wife and I lived in our first place after we were married in 1978. A person asked me where we lived at and I said you make a left at the Doughboy memorial. I was floored by the response. A person who drives through that town ALL the time said, what's the Doughboy Memorial? That floored me. That person has driven around that Memorial thousands of time and she didn't know what the Memorial was and what it was honoring.

I have been to Gettysburg maybe 200 times in my life. I know the field well. I routinely take friends/ex coworkers out all the time for day trips (I live ~3 hours west). It stuns me on what people say on visits. Somehow history, memory, popular culture and ignorance has gotten all jumbled up in people's heads resulting in an incoherent mix of nonesense.

So museums and battlefields should place education as their highest priority. Hopefully a seed or two can take root to provide a lifetime of interest in history. Now having said that, I tell people on Gettysburg visits to simply read the inscriptions on monuments they visit. It takes just a minute or two to read the inscriptions but all too frequently I see people stand by the monument, strike their best selfie pose, get a picture taken and never read the inscription.
 
I received the same questionnaire and had the same response as many others here, and simply deleted rather than answering it. I actually DID fill out last year's questionnaire, with lots of notes concerning the ostensible purpose of a history museum dedicated to telling the story of the Civil War; it was somewhat cathartic for me to do so, but I harbored then (and still harbor) no hope that it would make any difference. The debate, in universities and public institutions as well as museums, is very much affected by an apparent mood to either (1) recast the past in light of contemporary mores or (2) to ignore/efface many aspects of the past altogether. This is generally sold as making history more accessible or inclusive, but often has the effect of distorting, editing, censoring, and overwriting facts with a new narrative. (I hesitate to mention the 1619 Project in this context, but it's relevant to the broader question.) I did visit the old MOC about 10 years ago and would readily agree that it needed a facelift; it was dated and lacked vibrancy and, even then, there were items in storage that I felt deserved to be on the walls. (Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans is a more attractive space, contains a fantastic array of artifacts and, most importantly, is clear-minded about telling the story of those it was founded to honor.). I can't comment on the new iteration of the Civil War Museum since I've not visited, but I'd feel better about it if its questionnaires were asking what I take to be better questions concerning its mission.
 
I took my son to a lot of museums that, honestly, made my life easier by giving him quality distractions. But those were museums for children! I would never have taken him to a history museum as a distraction. If I had taken him to a museum like the American Civil War Museum it would have made my life harder, as I would have had so many difficult things to explain.
I took my kid to a lot of history museums because I was interested in history and it was something we could do together. I went to the Museum of the Confederacy when it was in Richmond, and don't recall programming for kids, but nearly every museum worth its salt has events and exhibits designed for children, so I'm not surprised by this question.
 
I received the same questionnaire and had the same response as many others here, and simply deleted rather than answering it. I actually DID fill out last year's questionnaire, with lots of notes concerning the ostensible purpose of a history museum dedicated to telling the story of the Civil War; it was somewhat cathartic for me to do so, but I harbored then (and still harbor) no hope that it would make any difference.
Thanks for your reply, Kate. Would you be willing to try to un- delete the survey? Im not asking you to complete it. Just wondering if you would check the order of potential responses for Question #3 to see if it is the same as it was for my survey and the one @Neagle2VR received? See @lupaglupa 's comments above about survey design --- specifically varying the order of the potential responses. Thanks!
 
it looked like lots of artsy fluff with huge empty spaces filled with giant pictures and little in the way of display cases with actual artifacts.
I thought the same thing after watching the video ... more like an 'art gallery' in terms of design and display, but in some ways with very little to 'chew on'. The artifacts are the 'meat' of a museum. This looks like a 'minamalist' meal of CW memorabilia and is not to my liking at all. If I wanted to view images on giant boards, I wouldn't go to a museum. I would go to a gallery. Both provide exhibitions, but of different kinds.
 
Which means either two people linked by this website happened to get the same order of questions or the question sequence is fixed - which is a very bad survey design.

Or, maybe, 'they' designed the questions so as to get the answer they want so they can justify what they've already decided they want to do. Just playing devil's advocate. It wouldn't be the first time.
 
Thanks for your reply, Kate. Would you be willing to try to un- delete the survey? Im not asking you to complete it. Just wondering if you would check the order of potential responses for Question #3 to see if it is the same as it was for my survey and the one @Neagle2VR received? See @lupaglupa 's comments above about survey design --- specifically varying the order of the potential responses. Thanks!
I apparently deep-sixed it rather effectively as well as immediately. I still have the invitation to the one-year celebration, but not the questionnaire (which just seemed disingenuous). Sorry I can't help with your specific question.
 
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