Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory

Critical Perspectives on the Past

by Mike Wallace

This is a book about why history matters. It shows how popularized historical images and narratives deeply influence Americans' understanding of their collective past. A leading public historian, Mike Wallace observes that we are a people who think of ourselves as having shed the past but also avid tourists who are on a 'heritage binge,' flocking by the thousands to Ellis Island, Colonial Williamsburg, or the Vietnam Memorial. Wallace probes into the trivialization of history that pervades American culture as well as the struggles over public memory that provoke stormy controversy. The recent imbroglio surrounding the National Air and Space Museum's proposed Enola Gay exhibit was reported as centering on why the U.S. government decided to use the A-Bomb against Japan. Wallace scrutinizes the actual plans for the exhibit and investigates the ways in which the controversy drew in historians, veterans, the media, and the general public. Whether his subject is multimillion dollar theme parks owned by powerful corporations, urban museums, or television docudramas, Mike Wallace shows how their depictions of history are shaped by assumptions about which pasts are worth saving, whose stories are worth telling, what gets left out, and who is authorized to make the decisions. Author note: Mike Wallace is Professor of History at John Jay College, City University of New York. He is the co-author, with Edwin G. Burrows, of "Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898", winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Essays, Museology, Grad School, School

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 1996

About the author

A graduate of Columbia University, Mike Wallace is Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, where he has taught since 1971, and director of the Gotham Center for New York City History. He won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and is the founder, co-publisher and editor of the Radical History Review.

Reviews

[Andrew]

A perfectly decent series of case studies in historiography and museology, and how it runs headlong into the American desire for entertainment, as well as (of course) the many established powers that be. Is it particularly enlightening? No, not really, this is stuff that I think most of us could figure out – would you really expect history as presented by Disney or Ford to NOT be inflected with ideology? Worth reading for the cartoon of Goofy dropped into the picture of the running napalmed Vietnamese children. Got my laff in for the day.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye-opening essay on how Disney, museums, parks, etc. not only display history, but interpret (define?) the culture in Americana. By their choices of what to display, how they display them, and the descriptions given, they emphasize certain aspects of society and culture while giving a rose-colored glasses or inspirational/what to strive for message. Using Disneyland's theme park, Henry Ford's park, and others, Wallace explains the image portrayed and how that image can warp perception and influence the viewer, both by what is there and what was left out.

[Jan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mike Wallace, in his book Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory has three basic themes:
1. History is best done by doing sociology.
2. Reagan is a poopy-head.
3. KARL MARX!!!1!1!!!!1

As you can see, I am having a terrible time taking anything that he says seriously. He isn’t saying anything that we have not read before, but he says it with such left-wing vehemence that his politics become the focus of the book rather than his ideas on how to interpret history. At least one reviewer, Daniel Rosenburg, supports this very politicized way of interpreting history by pointing out that the other guy does it: “At each point on this continuum, Wallace discloses the silver-spooned, formidably ultra-conservative project to narrow down the public’s history.” And he warns “[The book] serves as a useful reminder that public representation of the past cannot be left in the wrong hands…” Given Wallace’s preoccupation with capitalism, corporations, “right-wingers,” “Reaganauts” and Reagan himself, it is not left to the imagination whose are the “wrong hands.”

Let me start with what seems a commonplace in all the books I have read about the history of museums:
"...from the mid-nineteenth century on, most history museums were constructed by members of dominant classes and embodied interpretations that supported their sponsors privileged positions. I do not contend that those who established museums were Machiavellian plotters; the museum builders simply embedded in their efforts versions of history that were commonplaces of their class’s culture."

He says this with no awareness that what he is advocating is a version of history that is a commonplace of HIS OWN class’s culture – academia and its preoccupation with race, class and gender. Marxist and/or deconstructionist interpretations of history are only one backwater in the rich historiographical trajectory.

I found that I simply could not take him seriously after such assertions as these: “In a few years, the forces of reaction and the onset of war put an end to the New Deal and its public history initiatives.” “…the bourgeoisie set out to uproot ‘un-Americanism.’” “The 1980s and 1990s are a period of right-wing offensives. Those who seek to repeal the gains of the working class, women, and African Americans in the present are also working to reverse their gains in the field of history.”

And the crowning glory:
While it is important to connect the emergence of technological history to the ideological interests of American engineers, and to link the new museology to the intellectual universe of the community of scientific and technical workers in Washington, it is also important to note the degree to which both the ideological interests and intellectual constructs were themselves shaped in the process of conflict with rival (indeed antagonistic) ways of perceiving and interpreting contemporary life.

That is one sentence by the way. What does that even mean? My dad and my brothers are all engineers. I am quite sure they have absolutely no ideological interests or intellectual constructs that they defend against rival ways of interpreting contemporary life. They are just guys making a living.

All through the book he advocates presenting an extremely complex, sociological context for any museum interpretation. For example, he suggests that the Lowell story be told in terms of a huge list of questions regarding “struggle” and “power”:
"To thicken the Lowell story, for instance, it would be good to know: Who ran the town, who ran the state? What was the impact of the emerging Irish machine on the nature of work life? How did the struggle over social welfare and labor reforms affect workplace matters? Where did working–class voters stand on issues of labor or capital mobility, in the debates, for instance, over immigration restriction? What stance did workers and businessmen take on federal politics and the battles over the banking system. Most broadly, what difference did the possession of political liberty and the exercise of political power make to the people whose lives museums have taken to chronicling?"

And that is only one part of a 4 part program for interpreting the Lowell story. Wallace offers no notion on how do that given the constraints of a visit to a historical site. He is stuck in a text paradigm – all those questions are natural for a book or a monograph, not a visit to a history museum. Visitors are not very likely to stare at panels of text elucidating these complex issues.

By the time I got to the central essay “Mickey Mouse History: Portraying the Past at Disney World” I was disgusted with his entire approach. I am pretty sure that the enormous crowds that visit Disneyland and Disney World are not there to learn anything about history. Yes, the presentations take visitors on trips “through time” but to equate an amusement park ride with a serious presentation of history is ridiculous. If anything, Wallace’s insistence that people get any serious history from Disney exhibits shows a stereotypical academic disdain for the cultural level of hoi polloi.

I feel kind of sorry for him in a way. He is stuck in a historiographical backwater. History is not just about class struggle. I have to agree with Paul Croce when he says “Through all these [essays], he harbors the rare and optimistic view that the public, if only given the chance to express its views, actually sympathizes with the academic advocates of diversity and history from the bottom up. In fact, he is so committed to this view that one could follow this account of contemporary history debates and gain little sense about how anyone could possibly disagree with the Left’s perspective.”

There ARE in fact, many other perspectives. When I started a a graduate program in Public History I was only vaguely aware of historiography. In my head, there was “history” and “revisionist history.” To me, Revisionist history had to do with postmodern deconstruction, class conflict, and women’s studies. Part of the reason I chose the public history degree over the history degree was to avoid just talking to other historians who had drunk the race/class/gender/imperialism/man-made global warming kool-aid. Now I see that “New New” history has also infiltrated public history. But that is not the only way to tell the story. Each event, or place or object or person has multiple stories. And there are stories about how we tell those stories. The whole interplay between memory, history, and historiography fascinates me. There are so many connections to make and paths to follow that it’s almost overwhelming how much I don’t (and never will) know. One thing is for sure – I will never read a history without looking for other ways to tell the story ever again.

For example, Annette Gordon-Reed’s takedown of Henry Wiencek showed how easy it is for a historian to lead a reader to a false conclusion. If you didn’t know about the legal entanglements of Kosciusko’s will, then you would be led to believe that Jefferson passed up a golden opportunity to free his slaves, and is morally culpable for doing so. The ease with which he did that is kind of scary. It’s also irresponsible.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was published in the mid-90s so basically is history itself now. The essay on how technology will impact museums is laugh out loud funny at parts though I don't really mean that as a judgement. No one knew how quickly the Internet would change the way we interact with everything. I'd be interested to know how he thinks museums and cultural institutions have fared since. I imagine the landscape on how they deal with issues of representation is very different!

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting...but not riveting. Many of the topics covered like how historical sites deal with controversy, how they address interpretation, etc were interesting...but others were just the author getting up on his soapbox and streaming his displeasure at things.

[Jihemmin]

Compelling writing, great discussion of America's selective writing/popularizing of history. Totally worth a read.

[Emily Kidd]

Had to read for Carol Humphrey's Public History class.