Well stated, Jon.  Actually, from my perspective, the Lewis and Clark
Bicentennial was a great success--at least from St. Louis westward.

Scholarship flourished (and some real crap, too); the reenacted Corps
of Discovery/Rediscovery met huge and enthusiastic crowds as it went
up the Missouri; and the signature events did well as both historical
learning opportunities and stimuli for tourism dollars.  More Native
Americans were involved than in any other national commemoration
I can recall.

Substantial financial support from the National Park Service, Corps of
Engineers, and well-heeled, established private organizations certainly
contributed to that success. But Lewis and Clark have always been more
NATIONAL in scope, with 12-15 states claiming L & C heritage
connections, and I don't think that Jamestown has that same appeal
going for it.  We all know that it should, but the "birthplace of America"
does not resonate with typical citizens west of Richmond because the
early 1600s represent such a "foreign country."  When I worked on the
Susan Constant about 1000 years ago, half the people I talked to
thought that it was one of Columbus's ships, and even native Virginians
didn't know what river flowed by Jamestown (even folks from Richmond,
honestly).

What are we "celebrating," exactly?  The Omohundro Institute of Early
American History and Culture sponsored a very DEEP scholarly confer-
ence in 2004, almost ignoring Jamestown itself by placing it in global
context with West African tribal traditions circa 1607, etc.  The only
conference on the Jamestown Commemoration website that I saw was
focused on modern democracy.  Better not go there.

Historians can still reach "lay people" by keying on anniversary buzz,
but my experience shows that they will be audiences of senior citizens,
not young adults, and rarely children.  I logged 12,000 miles in my Jeep,
taking show-and-tell Lewis and Clark programs to small rural communities
in Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.  The focus
was on the Corps, Indians, and their respective artifacts and contacts, but
the content was sufficiently deep and revisionist to bring my audiences up
to date on recent scholarship.  In some towns, I attracted more than 50%
of the town's entire population (even beating out Trump's "Apprentice").

But someone has to value scholarly presentations, put together programs
and conferences, and choose speakers (some who don't live in Virginia)
who can communicate excitement as well as information to interested
audiences of all backgrounds.

National Anniversaries give us a rare chance to stimulate and exploit (in
the best, non-tourism sense of that term) a heightened and broadened
curiosity among citizens who may be unreachable otherwise. But to miss
that opportunity by too little effort or by dumbing-down content is to give
up
on history altogether.  Will there even be an acknowledgment of a 500th
anniversary?  Do we want Disney and Terence Malick to produce the
curriculum materials?  Are we satisfied that films are now replacing books
as our sources of information about the past?

Let's remember what Santayana said and add some substance to the fluff.

Fred Fausz
St. Louis

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