Thirteenth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The webpage for the American Museum and Gardens in Bath, UK, has a whole section answering the clickable question “Why Have an American Museum in Britain?” This question is actually answered in several different places on the webpage, indicating its pervasiveness, and the Museum boasts it’s “the only museum outside the United States to showcase the decorative arts of America.” The history of Bath drew me to its museums and monuments, but my love for museums and the interest in how they curate the past drew me to enter a museum not actually designed for me. Would they mention the American Revolution? How would they handle a discussion of our civil war? This paper explores my journey as a postcolonial American scholar in a museum created to teach my British cousins about their former colony.