This talk will examine the manner in which history has been “constructed” by collectors, curators, designers, and by the fiscal exigencies that make preserving the past increasingly expensive.

Responses to a national academically sponsored survey in the 1990s indicated that Americans viewed history museums as the most trustworthy source for history. Several years ago, in a separate survey CWRU students ranked museums and “original sources” as their most trusted sources. That’s essentially good news for history museums and archives, yet both have complexities that compromise their objectivity. In his presentation John Grabowski, Krieger-Mueller Joint Professor in History at CWRU and Historian and Senior Vice President for Research and Publications at Western Reserve Historical Society, will examine the manner in which history has been “constructed” by collectors, curators, designers, and by the fiscal exigencies that make preserving the past increasingly expensive.

This event is part of the 2020 Cleveland Humanities Festival: Truth.