Glassberg attributes the increase in historical activities to a couiple of factors. First, marginalized and overlooked groups in America have become organized enough to have each of their histories recognized. Since there are an almost unlimited number of possable groups that can now be chronicalled, the number of museuums has grown exponentially. Secoond, history is being seen as good for the economic health of an area. The economy being the way it is, towns, cities, and counties are promoting their history to attract tourist dollars. Finally, the scale of history has become smaller and more personal. Rather than one museum or program telling the story of the Great Depression, we want dozens of stories of the individuals who lived through it.
New technology is enabling all three of these trends. Social networking is creating national communities out of people who were just the town weirdo 20 years ago. My friend Angie is a good example. She rides a scooter and so do I. We met when she saw a Dayton scooter event on Facebook and came up to check it out. I started following he blog as she documents riding like a banshee on a little pink scooter. She relentlessly promotes riding, scooters and her beloved Genuine Buddy. After putting over 60,000 miles on her little scooter in just 2 years, the Genuine Scooter Company gave her a free new scooter and took hers for analysis and display in their Chicago museum. Thousand of scooter geeks view it every year, much to the delight of the City of Chicago. Technology helped create the community, economics created the museum and the personal story makes for good history.
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