Articles de revues sur le sujet « National Museum of African-American History and Culture (Proposed) »

The National Museum of African American History and Culture Act authorized the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to establish grant programs for museums of African American history and culture. Through its Museum Grants for African American History and Culture program, IMLS helps these museums improve operations, enhance stewardship of collections, engage in professional development, and attract new professionals to the field. The Act has fostered a national ecosystem that leverages the collective resources of the National Museum and African American museums throughout the United States to preserve and share the strength and breadth of the African American experience.

The nearly fifty-year gap between the establishment of Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) created a difference in the museums’ central narratives about Blackness and the inclusion of Afro-Latinidad. The Anacostia emerged in 1967 as part of the Black museum movement. It has historically framed Blackness as DC-based African Americanness with periodic inclusion of Afro-Latinidad. The first object in the collection of the NMAAHC is from Ecuador, signaling an inclusive representation of Black identities that foundationally includes Afro-Latinidad.

This article examines the significance of home movies as tools of resistance and belonging, particularly for African American families during the Civil Rights era. Focusing on archival collections from the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP), African American Home Movie Archive (AAHMA), and the National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC), the study reveals how African American families, through their cinematic documentation of visits to national parks and other leisure activities, challenged prevailing narratives of national identity. Despite encountering rampant discrimination, these families captured moments of joy and relaxation, highlighting their resilience and assertion of their rightful place within the American narrative. These historical home movies are profound testimonials of Black identity, resilience, and belonging in the face of adversity. Examining these films enriches our understanding of cultural memory, national identity, and the role of African American home movies in presenting a more nuanced American history.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) recent report on the relationship between culture and urban sustainability proposes that museums contribute to the larger civic project by “representing multicultural societies and giving minorities space within national narratives.”1 If, as the report suggests, cities rely on their cultural institutions such as museums to enable integration through narrative, then it is vital to consider how, and how well, this is actually being achieved. The American urban homeless of the 1930s present a viable case study as to the integration—or lack thereof—of one particular historical minority. Examining the interpretation of this select group allows us to then assess the forces at play in museum-based cultural and civic inclusion to draw some conclusions about the realities of this goal.

Exhibition Review EssaysThe National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.After Darkness: Social Impact and Art InstitutionsExhibition ReviewsBehind the Red Door: A Vision of the Erotic in Costa Rican Art, The Museum of Costa Rican Art, San José“A Positive Future in Classical Antiquities”: Teece Museum, University of Canterbury, ChristchurchHeavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkAnche le Statue Muoiono: Conflitto e Patrimonio tra Antico e Contemporaneo, Museo Egizio, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Musei Reali, TurinRethinking Human Remains in Museum Collections: Curating Heads at UCLRitratti di Famiglia, the Archaeological Museum, Bologna100% Fight – The History of Sweden, the Swedish History Museum, Stockholm

Before opening, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture established a program to create digital collection records and surrogates, which play a critical role in collection care, collection accessibility, and enhancing the meaning of collections. The program is off to a good start because it supports the museum’s mission, the museum has established a dedicated “Digi Team,” the program has leadership buy-in and financial support, and other Smithsonian units have been generous with time and expertise. Also explored in this article are digitization program activities and results, the impact of digitization, and plans for the future.

It has been over forty years since the mostly successful conclusion of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. While some may have thought the election of an African-American president in 2008 heralded a “postracial” America, continued violence and oppression has brought about a rebirth of activism, embodied by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Now that nascent movement is preparing to be part of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Due to open in fall 2016, the NMAAHC will be located at 1400 Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington DC.

Abstract The National Museum, the Centre for Presenting Cultural Heritage in cooperation with the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures, held on the 24th and the 25th October 2017 a specialised seminar entitled “Museums and Their International Audiences” focusing on the work of the museum staff with foreigners who are living in the Czech Republic and foreign visitors. The seminar presented innovative projects from the environments of museums and galleries that present the culture and the history of foreigners and national minorities who are living in the Czech Republic, it dealt with the role of museums in the field of integration of foreigners and with possibilities of cooperation with the non-profit sector in this area. On the second day of the seminar a specific intercultural skills training was held.

This article offers a description and critical reflection upon two recent exhibits on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC): Spirit in the Dark: Religion in Black Music, Activism, and Popular Culture and Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures. The article explores the interplay of mutually reinforcing themes of faith, freedom, and futurity that emerge when examining the exhibits together. This article also demonstrates the public significance of the curation of religion and culture in museums and other cultural spaces beyond the academy and religious institutions. It further shows how religion becomes a site of critical meditation upon and creative manifestation or materialization of Black futures. As such, this article contributes to more expansive discourses on the interplay between Black studies and the study of religion.

Documentation of African traditions has become a major concern not only to the Afro-centric scholars but also to the teeming Africans home and abroad who have come face to face with the reality of the need for the revival of African cultural values. The general feeling and opinion is that even though western culture, intellectualism and economics have contributed immensely to the civilization of Africa, their shortcomings have had a far-reaching impact on African traditional life and values. Indeed, African countries including Nigeria have been affected especially in the area of nation building. They have lost a substantial number of their best brains to Europe and America which could have been harnessed for national development. This problem came up because nations all over the world are now getting increasingly unified in a network of relationships called globalization.it is against this background that this paper proposed the documentation of African traditions. Descriptive method was employed for this study. It was discovered that corruption, acts of savagery, new trends in science and technology, insincerity of our leaders, brain drain and brainwashing by foreign cultures are some of the major challenges facing nation building and documentation of African traditions and culture. The paper concludes with a suggestion that the practice of liberal democracy, African languages, fundamental human rights, documentation of African technological heritage, transparency, accountability, establishment of museums at grassroots and protection of archaeological sites should be entrenched in African polity for the revival of African culture and national development.

Immediately following the social unrest in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2015, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., began acquiring artifacts and archival materials associated with the city’s social protest and civic engagement activities. This article provides an overview of that collecting initiative, which involved coordination among curatorial staff to determine what, where, and how much to collect. Moreover, the acquisitions were informed by adherence to a guiding principle that connects objects to the human experience. Exploring the purpose and guiding principle of the Museum’s initiative and its collecting rationale and strategy, this article illustrates some practical considerations and reliable approaches to “rapid response” collecting. NMAAHC acquired contemporary objects in response to a crisis or current event involving extreme tension and strife. The bulk of these objects is intended for use in exhibitions in the distant, rather than the immediate, future. The article also includes a list of recommendations for acquiring materials associated with contemporary, sometimes intensely debated, social, and political issues. Information detailed in this article can contribute to the development of a sustained working model that rests on sound acquisition principles, policies, and practices among museums and museum organizations.

A seismic shift in the racial landscape of the United States occurred in 2016. The prevailing discourse about a “postracial America,” though always, in the words of Catherine Squires a “mystique,” was firmly and finally extinguished with the election of Donald J. Trump. Race, in the form of racial prejudice, erupted in Trump’s political rhetoric and in the rhetoric of his supporters. At the same time, the continued significance and consequences of racial division in America were also being asserted for politically progressive ends by the increasingly prominent #blacklivesmatter movement and by the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, DC, not far from the White House. This article tracks the resurgence of race in the US cultural landscape against the racially depoliticized myth of the “postracial” by focusing first on the HBO television series Westworld, which epitomizes that logic. The museum, which opened its doors against the backdrop of the presidential campaign, lodges a scathing critique of the very notion of the postracial; in fact, it signals the return of race as an urgent topic of national discussion. Part of the work of the museum is to materialize race, to move race and white supremacy to the center of the American national narrative. This article points to the way the museum creates what Jacques Rancière calls “dissensus,” and thus becomes a site of possibility for politics. The museum, in its very presence on the Mall, its provocative display strategies, and its narrative that highlights profound contradictions in the very meaning of America, intervenes in what Rancière calls “the distribution of the sensible” and thus creates the conditions for reconfiguring the social order. In part, it achieves this by racializing white visitors, forcing them to feel their own race in uncomfortable ways. The article suggests that this museum, and the broader emerging discourse about race in both film and television, offers new ways to think about the political work of culture.

Abstract “No ideas but in things!” William Carlos Williams’s leitmotif for the modernist epic Paterson seems to anticipate the current renewal of academic attention to the materialities of culture: When the Smithsonian Institution accounts for The History of America in 101 Objects (Kurin) or when Neil MacGregor, designated director of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, aims at telling The History of the World in 100 Objects (2011), they use specimens of material culture as register and archive of human activity. Individual exhibitions explore the role of objects in movements for social and political change (Disobedient Objects, Victoria and Albert Museum, London). Large-scale national museum projects like the new Humboldt Forum in Berlin or the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., draw attention to the long existence of collections in Western institutions of learning and reveal the inherently political character of material culture—be that by underscoring the importance of institutional recognition of particular identities or by debates about provenance and restitution of human remains and status objects. The plethora of objects assembled in systematic as well as idiosyncratic collections within and outside the university is just beginning to be systematically explored for their roles in learning and education, funded by national research organizations such as the German BMBF.1 In theatrical performances, things function as discussion prompts in biographical work (Aufstand der Dinge, Schauspielhaus Chemnitz) or unfold their potential to induce a bodily experience (The Force of Things: An Opera for Objects, GK Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY). Things are present: as heritage, as commodities, as sensation; they circulate in processes of cognition and mediation, they transcend temporal and spatial distantiations. Things figure in narration and performance, in our everyday life practices, in political activism. They build knowledge of ourselves and others, influence the ways in which we interact with our fellow human beings, and in which we express or control our feelings. They combine the apparently concrete and the fleetingly abstract. Overall, things make us do things.

Abstract Representations of Olympian Jesse Owens are on display in Le Musée Olympique (LMO), Switzerland, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), United States. At both museums, visitors learn about Owens's life through specific institutional lenses that intentionally diminish certain aspects of his life and legacy. LMO uses Owens to propagate Olympism, while the NMAAHC sidesteps some of his post-career stances to bolster support for athlete activism. The inclusions and exemptions of certain pieces of Owens's life at both museums are purposeful and part of their broader missions. Therefore, Owens's story at LMO and the NMAAHC is both partial and selective, demonstrating the constraints of cultural memory in museums.

This article argues that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) deployed tourism as a key public relations strategy during preparations for Project Apollo. NASA appropriations hearings in 1963 catalysed a national debate over the tangible benefits and costs of sending Americans to the moon. American ambivalence towards the effort alarmed Democratic Representative Olin E. Teague of Texas, chairman of the powerful House Subcommittee on Manned Spaceflight, who understood the correlation between public opinion and congressional appropriations. Inspired by the crowds that congregated on the beaches outside Florida’s John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for each crewed space launch, Teague proposed a tourism programme to encourage public support for NASA’s objectives. Public affairs officers facilitated these programmes at KSC, beginning with a modest information trailer in 1964 and culminating in a Visitor Information Center in 1967 that included an exhibition hall, outdoor displays and depot facilitating escorted bus tours. The space centre quickly became a popular attraction: however, a culture of racial discrimination and intimidation in Brevard County deterred African Americans from participating in space centre tourism. Public programming at KSC – an important legacy of Project Apollo that continues today – was not the panacea Teague and NASA hoped it would be.

ABSTRACT The term ‘military geology’, translated from German after earlier use in French and Spanish publications, entered the English language via American publications from 1917 onwards, initially after the USA entered World War I. It was widely used in the USA and, in direct or indirect translation, in several European countries additional to Germany and Austria thereafter, but not in the United Kingdom—although military applications of geology had been perceived and utilized by the British Army for much of the previous century. However, the term was used and its scope defined on the basis of operational experience at a meeting in Brussels on 28 February to 1 March 1945 as World War II drew to an end, a meeting seemingly unique for the War in that it comprised five ‘British’ geologist officers of field rank: the South African Major Gordon Lyall Paver, English Major Frederick William Shotton, Australian-born but Canadian-educated English Major John Leonard Farrington, English Squadron Leader John Francis Kirkaldy, and Welsh Major David Ronald Arthur Ponsford. Their purpose was to review wartime use of ‘military geology’ in the British Army, and to make recommendations for a more efficient British military geological service in the future, especially in the Far East after the war in Europe entered its final phase. The meeting generated a four-page closely-typed unpublished ‘Memorandum: Military geology in the British services’ (now preserved in England in the Lapworth Museum at the University of Birmingham and in The National Archives, Kew, near London). This included a very brief summary of the British Army’s deployment of geologists within western Europe, East Africa, the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean region, and India. Those present brought together long experience from all these campaign areas except India (and the Far East in general). That deficiency was made good later in the year, on 7 December 1945, when Eric J. Bradshaw, Superintending Geologist of the Strategic Branch of the Geological Survey of India, completed an 81-page typed unpublished ‘Military geology: Memorandum of post-war policy’ (accessible in England at Birmingham, at Kew, and at the British Geological Survey, Keyworth). This with its 23 pages of appendices records details of wartime work in India and discussions held by the author there and in the United Kingdom following the end of hostilities in Europe on 8 May 1945. It re-defines the scope of ‘military geology’ for British armed forces in terms of water (resources, floods and drainage), stone and miscellaneous mineral resources, soils, engineering projects (reconnaissance, stability and excavations), terrain, ‘photo-geology’ and several miscellaneous applications. The memorandum proposed a grandiose organization of 151 geologist officers plus ancillary staff for British military geology postwar. That organizational scheme was not adopted—but by 1945 the term ‘military geology’ had clearly extended from American to significant British use.

Faking prehistoryForgery and self-deception in archaeologyThe object of this essay is to explain the significance of archaeological frauds in the perception of prehistory. The motives and consequences of the frauds concerned are illustrated by a series of case stories. These case stories span from quite harmless banal frauds, through unscrupulous ideological falsification of history, to the borderland between forgery and self-deception. It turns out that only a few archaeological frauds have been produced in order to make money or for similar purposes, while the majority are side products of nationalistic and patriotic conceptions. This implies that archaeology in a societal context is a powerful science even though this is hardly ever reflected in the size of economic provision for the discipline.The Cardiff Giant (fig. 1) emerged in 1869 in the State of New York. It was claimed by the finder, together with the owner of the land where the Giant was found, to be a fossil man, or maybe a statue of an ancient deity. Although it was denounced by most scientists as a hoax, people flocked to the sight. And the finder made large quantities of money by selling tickets and snacks to the visitors. After three months of financial success he admitted that the Giant was made of gypsum, and that he had buried it himself at dead of night.In the case of the Davenport Conspiracy (Iowa, 1877) the successful amateur archaeologist Jacob Gass excavated a number of slates covered with mysterious engravings. At first the local scientists were impressed, but it soon turned out that the slates were a hoax. It was later revealed that the hoax had not been perpetrated by Gass himself. Envious amateur scientists seeking to give him an untrustworthy image had planted the slates.The tale of the notorious Piltdown hoax began in 1908-15 in Sussex, England, when amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson found what seemed to be human fossil remains – pieces of a human skull, an ape-like jawbone and a number of teeth. Due to geological circumstances the remains were dated as late Pliocene or early Pleistocene and were claimed to represent the “missing link” (figs. 2-3). But in 1954 fluorine, uranium and nitrogen dating exposed the human skull as of relatively recent age and the jawbone as being that of a recent orang-utan. Both had been treated with pigment to make them look old and alike. The forger has never been identified, though many speculations have circulated. Thus the motives for the hoax are still unclear. The original motive might have been a quest for personal glory within the scientific elite. But the timing of the hoax (in the same period as that when the human fossils of Java and Heidelberg were found) was perfect for the promotion of the British Isles. Prior to Piltdown Man almost all British archaeological finds on the isles were Neolithic, or even later. But now the evidence for human presence there was suddenly parallel to the Continent.Ever since the “discovery” of the Kensington rune stone, in Minnesota, USA, in 1898, it has been debated whether the stone is genuine or not. Most reputable scientists, however, think of the stone as a falsification produced by Scandinavian immigrants (fig. 4). This stone is just one example of several archaeological frauds in North America, concerning “Viking” artefacts in particular, but there are also frauds relating to Indian cultural and religious relics. A certain group of frauds relates to the geology and fauna of America, as well as early human presence, motivated by desire to construct a picture of this part of the world being older than Europe (fig. 5). The majority of the North American frauds seem to be an attempt to redress an inferiority complex in relation to Europe (The Old World). Furthermore these frauds often seem to feature a layman rising against the scientific elite. It was even at one stage proposed that the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone should be put to the vote (!).The anarchy which characterises the North American frauds was not at all at present in the historical falsifications of Nazi-Germany. Though the purpose was roughly the same: to promote the nation’s ancient glory. At the launch of The Third Reich in 1933 the young archaeologist Hans Reinerth (fig. 7) was appointed to lead Reichsbund für Deutsche Vorgeschichte (The National Federation for German Prehistory), which was established under Albert Rosenberg’s Amt Rosenberg – the cultural department of Nazi-Germany. The aim of the Reichsbund was to promote the prehistory of Germanic culture and the idea of its superiority. The means were – among others – the monthly popular journal Germanen-Erbe (The Germanic Legacy) and the creation of museums of local archaeology and folk-lore. The journal contained articles and essays on excavations, research etc., deeply pervaded by nationalism and racism. And the museums had reconstructions on display that were far distant from the archaeological truth (fig. 6). All archaeologists, not just those who personally believed in the national-socialistic ideology, found that it was a good bargain – and almost a necessity – to support Nazi archaeology. The public funding of prehistoric archaeology was multiplied after 1933. In the period 1933-35 eight professorships in the discipline were established; archaeological departments were established at 25 universities; huge amounts were used on excavations and increases in wages. Before that prehistoric archaeology (i. e. North European archaeology) had been a low-status discipline compared with Classical and Near Oriental archaeology.On the rock of Runamo in Blekinge, Sweden, strange characters in rows have been known for ages (figs. 8-9). They were first mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus. Since then many attempts have been made to uncover whether this phenomenon was caused by Nature or by Man and – if the latter was the case – what the message might be. In 1832 the antiquarian Finnur Magnússon led an expedition to Runamo to expose the secret once and for all. Magnússon’s romantic mind and almost blind faith in the Norse sagas, along with the influence of the expedition’s unreliable geologist, J. G. Forchhammer, led him (after months of research) to the conclusion that the characters were runes referring to the epic battle of Bråvalla. This resulted in publication of a 700-page paper in 1841. But as early as 1844 the young Danish pioneer archaeologist J.J.A. Worsaae systematically rejected the thesis: the “runes” were in fact a natural phenomenon and Magnússon’s faith in Norse sagas as a historical source was outdated; furthermore his naive confidence in the geologist’s conclusions was unprofessional. The hitherto honoured antiquarian was subjected to public ridicule, became sick and died in debt three years later. This case is of course not a traditional forgery. But an individual’s subjective, romantic conception of his “national” prehistory – leading to self-deception – takes on the same nature as the majority of the forgeries and frauds mentioned here.The majority of archaeological frauds have ideological or patriotic undertones even though the motives may be selfish. The persistent character of the frauds – e.g. the North American hoaxes and the prehistory propaganda of Nazi-Germany – shows that archaeology is a mighty societal and political force. It is part of an ongoing battle over what is the truth about our prehistory.But what about today – is archaeological forgery a thing of the past? Of course in some totalitarian states falsification of history occurs, but in our world traditional forgery is probably a rare occurrence, primarily because of the high level of documentation and verification of archaeological material and its context. The “truth” about our prehistory is today mostly determined by the large – and still growing – number of experimental centres, open air museums etc., which are more or less trustworthy. In this popular dissemination of prehistory – live – stereotyped prejudices are often promoted. Thus, for example, the countless number of “Viking re-enactment museums” display too many identical replicas of the Oseberg tent; too many Hedeby houses; too many Ribe lots – all populated by souvenir selling Vikings and upper-class Vikings, dressed as if no common people and slaves ever existed in the Viking Age.Producing and displaying stereotyped prehistory to please the masses and to make money. This is perhaps the fashionable form of faking prehistory today.Ole Thirup Kastholm HansenInstitute of Archaeology and EthnologyUniversity of Copenhagen

In October 2017, hundreds of faculty, friends, and former students gathered at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to remember James Oliver “Jim” Horton. It was a fitting gathering place. As the museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch, commented, Jim’s legacy is everywhere at the museum, from the fact that several of his former doctoral students are now curators to the foundational commitment of the museum itself: that African American history is not a local branch of US history but integral to its core. Jim always insisted in his lectures and classes and on his many TV appearances and public engagements that “American history is African American history.”

Abstract Ginger Smock (1920–95), an African American jazz and classical violinist, was a popular Los Angeles entertainer and one of the first African American women bandleaders on television. This article traces her career from Los Angeles’ Central Avenue to Las Vegas showroom orchestras, drawing on archival materials from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Through a close reading of a 1951 DownBeat profile of Smock, I interrogate racialized constructions of gender in that magazine and frame mid-century jazz reporting on women instrumentalists via a “narrative of perpetual discovery” that positions these women as waiting for a career break that never comes. As an antidote to the effacement implicit in such narratives, I propose close documentation of sustained artistic practice: That is, the day-to-day facts of a working musician's life. This article reads Smock's professional trajectory through an intersectional lens to offer a critical perspective on the ways in which social identities, especially race and gender, may shape both musical careers and our historicization of those careers.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is an actively collecting museum, and collections stewardship preservation activities include treatment of objects affected by mold. Mold adversely impacts the physical stability and esthetic qualities of collection objects and creates unsafe conditions; providing a safe treatment environment is part of an overall risk-reduction strategy. Federal standards for working with moldy museum objects do not exist therefore disaster recovery-type practices are utilized, but it is unknown if basic isolation tents provide the safest environment for protecting those treating the objects. Prolonged use of a disaster-type isolation tent at NMAAHC proved unsatisfactory and unsafe; defining the optimal specifications and identifying applicable standards were key to designing a safer solution. Input from the museum industry and engineers, along with an examination of standards for similar hazards, impacted the overall design of an improved enclosure. Comparisons between the disaster-recovery isolation type enclosure and the new negative-pressure enclosure are compared for appropriate applications, context, and scale of different situations.

Introduction: Technology EnthusiasmEnthusiasts are people who have a passion, keenness, dedication or zeal for a particular activity or hobby. Today, there are enthusiasts for almost everything, from genealogy, costume dramas, and country houses, to metal detectors, coin collecting, and archaeology. But to be described as an enthusiast is not necessarily a compliment. Historically, the term “enthusiasm” was first used in England in the early seventeenth century to describe “religious or prophetic frenzy among the ancient Greeks” (Hanks, n.p.). This frenzy was ascribed to being possessed by spirits sent not only by God but also the devil. During this period, those who disobeyed the powers that be or claimed to have a message from God were considered to be enthusiasts (McLoughlin).Enthusiasm retained its religious connotations throughout the eighteenth century and was also used at this time to describe “the tendency within the population to be swept by crazes” (Mee 31). However, as part of the “rehabilitation of enthusiasm,” the emerging middle-classes adopted the word to characterise the intensity of Romantic poetry. The language of enthusiasm was then used to describe the “literary ideas of affect” and “a private feeling of religious warmth” (Mee 2 and 34). While the notion of enthusiasm was embraced here in a more optimistic sense, attempts to disassociate enthusiasm from crowd-inciting fanaticism were largely unsuccessful. As such enthusiasm has never quite managed to shake off its pejorative connotations.The 'enthusiasm' discussed in this paper is essentially a personal passion for technology. It forms part of a longer tradition of historical preservation in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the world. From preserved railways to Victorian pumping stations, people have long been fascinated by the history of technology and engineering; manifesting their enthusiasm through their nostalgic longings and emotional attachment to its enduring material culture. Moreover, enthusiasts have been central to the collection, conservation, and preservation of this particular material record. Technology enthusiasm in this instance is about having a passion for the history and material record of technological development, specifically here industrial archaeology. Despite being a pastime much participated in, technology enthusiasm is relatively under-explored within the academic literature. For the most part, scholarship has tended to focus on the intended users, formal spaces, and official narratives of science and technology (Adas, Latour, Mellström, Oldenziel). In recent years attempts have been made to remedy this imbalance, with researchers from across the social sciences examining the position of hobbyists, tinkerers and amateurs in scientific and technical culture (Ellis and Waterton, Haring, Saarikoski, Takahashi). Work from historians of technology has focussed on the computer enthusiast; for example, Saarikoski’s work on the Finnish personal computer hobby:The definition of the computer enthusiast varies historically. Personal interest, pleasure and entertainment are the most significant factors defining computing as a hobby. Despite this, the hobby may also lead to acquiring useful knowledge, skills or experience of information technology. Most often the activity takes place outside working hours but can still have links to the development of professional expertise or the pursuit of studies. In many cases it takes place in the home environment. On the other hand, it is characteristically social, and the importance of friends, clubs and other communities is greatly emphasised.In common with a number of other studies relating to technical hobbies, for example Takahashi who argues tinkerers were behind the advent of the radio and television receiver, Saarikoski’s work focuses on the role these users played in shaping the technology in question. The enthusiasts encountered in this paper are important here not for their role in shaping the technology, but keeping technological heritage alive. As historian of technology Haring reminds us, “there exist alternative ways of using and relating to technology” (18). Furthermore, the sociological literature on audiences (Abercrombie and Longhurst, Ang), fans (Hills, Jenkins, Lewis, Sandvoss) and subcultures (Hall, Hebdige, Schouten and McAlexander) has also been extended in order to account for the enthusiast. In Abercrombie and Longhurst’s Audiences, the authors locate ‘the enthusiast’ and ‘the fan’ at opposing ends of a continuum of consumption defined by questions of specialisation of interest, social organisation of interest and material productivity. Fans are described as:skilled or competent in different modes of production and consumption; active in their interactions with texts and in their production of new texts; and communal in that they construct different communities based on their links to the programmes they like. (127 emphasis in original) Based on this definition, Abercrombie and Longhurst argue that fans and enthusiasts differ in three ways: (1) enthusiasts’ activities are not based around media images and stars in the way that fans’ activities are; (2) enthusiasts can be hypothesized to be relatively light media users, particularly perhaps broadcast media, though they may be heavy users of the specialist publications which are directed towards the enthusiasm itself; (3) the enthusiasm would appear to be rather more organised than the fan activity. (132) What is striking about this attempt to differentiate between the fan and the enthusiast is that it is based on supposition rather than the actual experience and observation of enthusiasm. It is here that the ethnographic account of enthusiasm presented in this paper and elsewhere, for example works by Dannefer on vintage car culture, Moorhouse on American hot-rodding and Fuller on modified-car culture in Australia, can shed light on the subject. My own ethnographic study of groups with a passion for telecommunications heritage, early British computers and industrial archaeology takes the discussion of “technology enthusiasm” further still. Through in-depth interviews, observation and textual analysis, I have examined in detail the formation of enthusiast societies and their membership, the importance of the material record to enthusiasts (particularly at home) and the enthusiastic practices of collecting and hoarding, as well as the figure of the technology enthusiast in the public space of the museum, namely the Science Museum in London (Geoghegan). In this paper, I explore the culture of enthusiasm for the industrial past through the example of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society (GLIAS). Focusing on industrial sites around London, GLIAS meet five or six times a year for field visits, walks and a treasure hunt. The committee maintain a website and produce a quarterly newsletter. The title of my paper, “If you can walk down the street and recognise the difference between cast iron and wrought iron, the world is altogether a better place,” comes from an interview I conducted with the co-founder and present chairman of GLIAS. He was telling me about his fascination with the materials of industrialisation. In fact, he said even concrete is sexy. Some call it a hobby; others call it a disease. But enthusiasm for industrial archaeology is, as several respondents have themselves identified, “as insidious in its side effects as any debilitating germ. It dictates your lifestyle, organises your activity and decides who your friends are” (Frow and Frow 177, Gillespie et al.). Through the figure of the industrial archaeology enthusiast, I discuss in this paper what it means to be enthusiastic. I begin by reflecting on the development of this specialist subject area. I go on to detail the formation of the Society in the late 1960s, before exploring the Society’s fieldwork methods and some of the other activities they now engage in. I raise questions of enthusiast and professional knowledge and practice, as well as consider the future of this particular enthusiasm.Defining Industrial ArchaeologyThe practice of 'industrial archaeology' is much contested. For a long time, enthusiasts and professional archaeologists have debated the meaning and use of the term (Palmer). On the one hand, there are those interested in the history, preservation, and recording of industrial sites. For example the grandfather figures of the subject, namely Kenneth Hudson and Angus Buchanan, who both published widely in the 1960s and 1970s in order to encourage publics to get involved in recording. Many members of GLIAS refer to the books of Hudson Industrial Archaeology: an Introduction and Buchanan Industrial Archaeology in Britain with their fine descriptions and photographs as integral to their early interest in the subject. On the other hand, there are those within the academic discipline of archaeology who consider the study of remains produced by the Industrial Revolution as too modern. Moreover, they find the activities of those calling themselves industrial archaeologists as lacking sufficient attention to the understanding of past human activity to justify the name. As a result, the definition of 'industrial archaeology' is problematic for both enthusiasts and professionals. Even the early advocates of professional industrial archaeology felt uneasy about the subject’s methods and practices. In 1973, Philip Riden (described by one GLIAS member as the angry young man of industrial archaeology), the then president of the Oxford University Archaeology Society, wrote a damning article in Antiquity, calling for the subject to “shed the amateur train drivers and others who are not part of archaeology” (215-216). He decried the “appallingly low standard of some of the work done under the name of ‘industrial archaeology’” (211). He felt that if enthusiasts did not attempt to maintain high technical standards, publish their work in journals or back up their fieldwork with documentary investigation or join their county archaeological societies then there was no value in the efforts of these amateurs. During this period, enthusiasts, academics, and professionals were divided. What was wrong with doing something for the pleasure it provides the participant?Although relations today between the so-called amateur (enthusiast) and professional archaeologies are less potent, some prejudice remains. Describing them as “barrow boys”, some enthusiasts suggest that what was once their much-loved pastime has been “hijacked” by professional archaeologists who, according to one respondent,are desperate to find subjects to get degrees in. So the whole thing has been hijacked by academia as it were. Traditional professional archaeologists in London at least are running head on into things that we have been doing for decades and they still don’t appreciate that this is what we do. A lot of assessments are handed out to professional archaeology teams who don’t necessarily have any knowledge of industrial archaeology. (James, GLIAS committee member)James went on to reveal that GLIAS receives numerous enquiries from professional archaeologists, developers and town planners asking what they know about particular sites across the city. Although the Society has compiled a detailed database covering some areas of London, it is by no means comprehensive. In addition, many active members often record and monitor sites in London for their own personal enjoyment. This leaves many questioning the need to publish their results for the gain of third parties. Canadian sociologist Stebbins discusses this situation in his research on “serious leisure”. He has worked extensively with amateur archaeologists in order to understand their approach to their leisure activity. He argues that amateurs are “neither dabblers who approach the activity with little commitment or seriousness, nor professionals who make a living from that activity” (55). Rather they pursue their chosen leisure activity to professional standards. A point echoed by Fine in his study of the cultures of mushrooming. But this is to get ahead of myself. How did GLIAS begin?GLIAS: The GroupThe 1960s have been described by respondents as a frantic period of “running around like headless chickens.” Enthusiasts of London’s industrial archaeology were witnessing incredible changes to the city’s industrial landscape. Individuals and groups like the Thames Basin Archaeology Observers Group were recording what they could. Dashing around London taking photos to capture London’s industrial legacy before it was lost forever. However the final straw for many, in London at least, was the proposed and subsequent demolition of the “Euston Arch”. The Doric portico at Euston Station was completed in 1838 and stood as a symbol to the glory of railway travel. Despite strong protests from amenity societies, this Victorian symbol of progress was finally pulled down by British Railways in 1962 in order to make way for what enthusiasts have called a “monstrous concrete box”.In response to these changes, GLIAS was founded in 1968 by two engineers and a locomotive driver over afternoon tea in a suburban living room in Woodford, North-East London. They held their first meeting one Sunday afternoon in December at the Science Museum in London and attracted over 130 people. Firing the imagination of potential members with an exhibition of photographs of the industrial landscape taken by Eric de Maré, GLIAS’s first meeting was a success. Bringing together like-minded people who are motivated and enthusiastic about the subject, GLIAS currently has over 600 members in the London area and beyond. This makes it the largest industrial archaeology society in the UK and perhaps Europe. Drawing some of its membership from a series of evening classes hosted by various members of the Society’s committee, GLIAS initially had a quasi-academic approach. Although some preferred the hands-on practical element and were more, as has been described by one respondent, “your free-range enthusiast”. The society has an active committee, produces a newsletter and journal, as well as runs regular events for members. However the Society is not simply about the study of London’s industrial heritage, over time the interest in industrial archaeology has developed for some members into long-term friendships. Sociability is central to organised leisure activities. It underpins and supports the performance of enthusiasm in groups and societies. For Fine, sociability does not always equal friendship, but it is the state from which people might become friends. Some GLIAS members have taken this one step further: there have even been a couple of marriages. Although not the subject of my paper, technical culture is heavily gendered. Industrial archaeology is a rare exception attracting a mixture of male and female participants, usually retired husband and wife teams.Doing Industrial Archaeology: GLIAS’s Method and PracticeIn what has been described as GLIAS’s heyday, namely the 1970s to early 1980s, fieldwork was fundamental to the Society’s activities. The Society’s approach to fieldwork during this period was much the same as the one described by champion of industrial archaeology Arthur Raistrick in 1973:photographing, measuring, describing, and so far as possible documenting buildings, engines, machinery, lines of communication, still or recently in use, providing a satisfactory record for the future before the object may become obsolete or be demolished. (13)In the early years of GLIAS and thanks to the committed efforts of two active Society members, recording parties were organised for extended lunch hours and weekends. The majority of this early fieldwork took place at the St Katherine Docks. The Docks were constructed in the 1820s by Thomas Telford. They became home to the world’s greatest concentration of portable wealth. Here GLIAS members learnt and employed practical (also professional) skills, such as measuring, triangulations and use of a “dumpy level”. For many members this was an incredibly exciting time. It was a chance to gain hands-on experience of industrial archaeology. Having been left derelict for many years, the Docks have since been redeveloped as part of the Docklands regeneration project.At this time the Society was also compiling data for what has become known to members as “The GLIAS Book”. The book was to have separate chapters on the various industrial histories of London with contributions from Society members about specific sites. Sadly the book’s editor died and the project lost impetus. Several years ago, the committee managed to digitise the data collected for the book and began to compile a database. However, the GLIAS database has been beset by problems. Firstly, there are often questions of consistency and coherence. There is a standard datasheet for recording industrial buildings – the Index Record for Industrial Sites. However, the quality of each record is different because of the experience level of the different authors. Some authors are automatically identified as good or expert record keepers. Secondly, getting access to the database in order to upload the information has proved difficult. As one of the respondents put it: “like all computer babies [the creator of the database], is finding it hard to give birth” (Sally, GLIAS member). As we have learnt enthusiasm is integral to movements such as industrial archaeology – public historian Raphael Samuel described them as the “invisible hands” of historical enquiry. Yet, it is this very enthusiasm that has the potential to jeopardise projects such as the GLIAS book. Although active in their recording practices, the GLIAS book saga reflects one of the challenges encountered by enthusiast groups and societies. In common with other researchers studying amenity societies, such as Ellis and Waterton’s work with amateur naturalists, unlike the world of work where people are paid to complete a task and are therefore meant to have a singular sense of purpose, the activities of an enthusiast group like GLIAS rely on the goodwill of their members to volunteer their time, energy and expertise. When this is lost for whatever reason, there is no requirement for any other member to take up that position. As such, levels of commitment vary between enthusiasts and can lead to the aforementioned difficulties, such as disputes between group members, the occasional miscommunication of ideas and an over-enthusiasm for some parts of the task in hand. On top of this, GLIAS and societies like it are confronted with changing health and safety policies and tightened security surrounding industrial sites. This has made the practical side of industrial archaeology increasingly difficult. As GLIAS member Bob explains:For me to go on site now I have to wear site boots and borrow a hard hat and a high visibility jacket. Now we used to do incredibly dangerous things in the seventies and nobody batted an eyelid. You know we were exploring derelict buildings, which you are virtually not allowed in now because the floor might give way. Again the world has changed a lot there. GLIAS: TodayGLIAS members continue to record sites across London. Some members are currently surveying the site chosen as the location of the Olympic Games in London in 2012 – the Lower Lea Valley. They describe their activities at this site as “rescue archaeology”. GLIAS members are working against the clock and some important structures have already been demolished. They only have time to complete a quick flash survey. Armed with the information they collated in previous years, GLIAS is currently in discussions with the developer to orchestrate a detailed recording of the site. It is important to note here that GLIAS members are less interested in campaigning for the preservation of a site or building, they appreciate that sites must change. Instead they want to ensure that large swathes of industrial London are not lost without a trace. Some members regard this as their public duty.Restricted by health and safety mandates and access disputes, GLIAS has had to adapt. The majority of practical recording sessions have given way to guided walks in the summer and public lectures in the winter. Some respondents have identified a difference between those members who call themselves “industrial archaeologists” and those who are just “ordinary members” of GLIAS. The walks are for those with a general interest, not serious members, and the talks are public lectures. Some audience researchers have used Bourdieu’s metaphor of “capital” to describe the experience, knowledge and skill required to be a fan, clubber or enthusiast. For Hills, fan status is built up through the demonstration of cultural capital: “where fans share a common interest while also competing over fan knowledge, access to the object of fandom, and status” (46). A clear membership hierarchy can be seen within GLIAS based on levels of experience, knowledge and practical skill.With a membership of over 600 and rising annually, the Society’s future is secure at present. However some of the more serious members, although retaining their membership, are pursuing their enthusiasm elsewhere: through break-away recording groups in London; active membership of other groups and societies, for example the national Association for Industrial Archaeology; as well as heading off to North Wales in the summer for practical, hands-on industrial archaeology in Snowdonia’s slate quarries – described in the Ffestiniog Railway Journal as the “annual convention of slate nutters.” ConclusionsGLIAS has changed since its foundation in the late 1960s. Its operation has been complicated by questions of health and safety, site access, an ageing membership, and the constant changes to London’s industrial archaeology. Previously rejected by professional industrial archaeology as “limited in skill and resources” (Riden), enthusiasts are now approached by professional archaeologists, developers, planners and even museums that are interested in engaging in knowledge exchange programmes. As a recent report from the British think-tank Demos has argued, enthusiasts or pro-ams – “amateurs who work to professional standards” (Leadbeater and Miller 12) – are integral to future innovation and creativity; for example computer pro-ams developed an operating system to rival Microsoft Windows. As such the specialist knowledge, skill and practice of these communities is of increasing interest to policymakers, practitioners, and business. So, the subject once described as “the ugly offspring of two parents that shouldn’t have been allowed to breed” (Hudson), the so-called “amateur” industrial archaeology offers enthusiasts and professionals alike alternative ways of knowing, seeing and being in the recent and contemporary past.Through the case study of GLIAS, I have described what it means to be enthusiastic about industrial archaeology. I have introduced a culture of collective and individual participation and friendship based on a mutual interest in and emotional attachment to industrial sites. As we have learnt in this paper, enthusiasm is about fun, pleasure and joy. The enthusiastic culture presented here advances themes such as passion in relation to less obvious communities of knowing, skilled practices, material artefacts and spaces of knowledge. Moreover, this paper has been about the affective narratives that are sometimes missing from academic accounts; overlooked for fear of sniggers at the back of a conference hall. Laughter and humour are a large part of what enthusiasm is. Enthusiastic cultures then are about the pleasure and joy experienced in doing things. Enthusiasm is clearly a potent force for active participation. I will leave the last word to GLIAS member John:One meaning of enthusiasm is as a form of possession, madness. Obsession perhaps rather than possession, which I think is entirely true. It is a pejorative term probably. The railway enthusiast. But an awful lot of energy goes into what they do and achieve. Enthusiasm to my mind is an essential ingredient. If you are not a person who can muster enthusiasm, it is very difficult, I think, to get anything out of it. On the basis of the more you put in the more you get out. 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