Over the past few decades, attendance at many historic sites and house museums has declined steadily.  It is arguable that cultural institutions and practices undergo lifecycles and eventually die out, and that history museums may be about to do the same.  The Virginia Historical Society (VHS) faces the same challenging environment.  Cary Carson discusses the culprits for this trend and attempts to offer solutions in his article “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B?”  Carson, the vice president for research at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, has much first-hand knowledge of the effectiveness of marketing and immersion with respects to generating revenue for historic sites.  The VHS has compiled a list of strategic objectives, its plan B, in order to escape the attendance troubles that have plagued the field.  Can history museums, like the VHS, survive, develop their educational missions, and remain financially viable?

The preservation of historically significant sites is slowly losing priority in today’s agenda.  They are becoming too expensive to maintain and are losing income due to decreased attendance.  In fact, history museums rank last in family attendance out of eight types of museums surveyed, particularly for paid attendance.  Often, these museums need to solicit for donations from private individuals or charitable contributes in order to stay afloat.  According to Carson, “competition” seems to be the biggest issue including alternative activities such as shopping malls, video games, amusement parks, and movie theaters.  Competition within the same history-oriented market is also a factor.  There is an excessive number of house museums that are too similar to each other with respects to market offerings.  Meanwhile, these institutions continue to see net losses since they have to pay for fixed costs for maintenance. The VHS’s location puts it in direct competition with nearby museums such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which attracts crowds with its world-class art collections and nationally-profiled special exhibitions.  In addition, the main audience for the VHS currently is school groups.  The experience at historical museums was often mundane and “disconnected both from current issues and from their own communities.”  Adding new galleries does not solve the embedded issues since the buzz eventually dies down and the maintenance will only increase.

Through Carson’s experience at Colonial Williamsburg, he has seen that interactions that immerse one’s senses tend to receive better reviews from museum patrons.  During my visit, I learned of the VHS’s plans to incorporate this immersive experience into its exhibition.  Certainly the museum has an impressive catalog and collection of items I have never seen elsewhere, including a vast Native American collection, but the fashion the items are displayed is the most critical issue.  The curators had a large collection of unique items from the American Revolution, but the most difficult part is always deciding which pairing or display of particular items best tells the Virginian story.  Certain artifacts needed special display cases and paper documents were rotated periodically to maintain their longevity.  Studies have shown a tendency for visitors to favor active learning rather than passive learning.  Carson’s Plan B aims to refresh the historic museum field by examining modern learning styles and implementing them into the experience.  Active audience participation in learning has become prevalent in other aspects of daily life including schools, reality television series, religious institutions, and radio programming. Interactive storytelling provides a realistic and immersive experience rather than being virtual participants while watching televisions or computers.  Active audience participation in learning has become prevalent in other aspects of daily life including schools, reality television series, religious institutions, and radio stations. In addition, social media is creating an increasingly popular role in attendance, particularly because of online reviews and ratings.

The VHS has developed an agenda to address the aforementioned problems by creating a more immersive environment and incorporating interactive technology.  These changes seek to inform, inspire, and attract visitors to understand the significance of Virginia’s history. The VHS seeks to fulfill its first objective, telling the story of Virginia, by launching the Story of Virginia exhibition, allowing visitors to record their own oral history to add to Virginia’s story, and developing a slave name database for the public.  These additions create an immersive and interactive environment both on site and online.  The second objective, connect people to America’s past, involves the development of a new genealogical website and the creation of educational radio/podcast programs with other institutions.  Understanding their past and America’s past, will allow people to better address problems facing America today.  The last objective, prepare the next generation to participate in a successful democracy, seeks to increase the educational tools available for families, in the classroom, and online.

Although history museums have been diminishing in attendance for decades, Carson suggests that it is not too late.  The greatest challenge for museums is to keep creating new methods of teaching that correspond to the everlasting changes in learning.  The VHS, however, has done just that.  In an aggressive strategic plan to be implemented over the next few years, the VHS seeks to boost attendance by making the experience more interactive and by adding immersive and innovative technological additions.  The slave database and genealogical website, in particular, will actively involve the audience.  When people are immersed in the experience, they feel important as if they were actively involved in a historic event.  I will be looking forward to the opening of the Story of Virginia exhibit in Fall 2015.  It seems that the VHS is in tune with the dynamic wants of the people; however, only time will tell whether this gambit will pay off.