For tomorrow's class we were asked to watch an episode currently airing on the History Channel. Now, surprising as this may sound, though I am a history major who truly loves what I study, I didn't even know what channel to find History on, or even what shows they feature. So after skimming the History Channel's website to browse my options, I decided to watch American Pickers. When told about the assignment, I was expecting to watch some sort of documentary type episode giving me information about an important person, place, or event--and I may have actually found something like that to be more valuable and educational than the show I chose.
I was able to figure out the presmise of the show pretty quickly. Two guys go around and try to buy other people's junk/antiques off of them and then they sell it in their shop. They are looking primarily for anything of historical importance, or anything that will sell for a profit. One of the main characters (I never did catch their names) said that they cater to a wide audience--"not just those who love antiques, but art directors, decorators, a whole clientele." This comment reminded me of one of the goals of class this semester--trying to discover/be conscious of our audience. What good is history if you can't sell it? This question loomed large for our American Pickers--They only purchase items that they think will bring them a profit $.
Though the show was not what I was expecting, it was interesting to see what they ended up picking versus what they had to choose from. The pickers traveled to locations based on "leads." It was pretty unclear where these leads were coming from, but one of my favorites was the trip they made to visit an old Carne (spelling?). He had all kinds of old rides, all the parts intact, just a little rusted over. They bought a bumper-car like ride and once they got it cleaned up it was pretty cool. The pickers wanted to sell it to one of their brothers--point being, they are always conscious of their audience.
Some of the other items picked--an old sign advertising cigarettes from the Phillip Morris Company, featuring Johnny Roventini, an old motor bike that belonged to an 88 year-old man who had been part of one of the first platoons on the ground after the bombing of Hiroshima, and a Japanese Samurai Sword which had lost some of its value because the maker's inscription had been cut off of the end so the sword could be used in warfare. As these items demonstrate--and the pickers made a huge effort to point out--part of why they enjoy pickin' is who they come across in the process. Originally, the Carne was unwilling to sell and they commented: "I was really disappointed that we couldn't buy anything. It was a really cool lead...it was really cool to meet somebody like that." The pickers seemed to be just as interested in people's stories as their stuff.
I had a hard time realizing why this show was important to the History Channel's mission, but then a commercial came on with their motto: "History made every day" and I began to see how the American Picker's mission and what they ultimately ended up finding was a little like what we are trying to do in public history. They found a way to learn history from various audiences and convey it to various audiences through the interesting items they picked.
American Pickers seemed very different from the perspective on the History Channel offered by Simon Schama in his article "Fine-Cutting Clio" regarding his documentary on Britain. He seemed more interested in trusting that his audience would be interested in a more traditional way of telling the story of history--chronologically. So confident in fact, that he convinced the network to air his show during prime time.
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