Discovering Enola Gay; Discovering Why History Matters

I am just beginning to delve into the Enola Gay controversy--but I am fascinated already. The concept seems so simple--create an exhibit based on the facts--that is history right? (No offense intended towards my classmate Janine who is currently a Museum Studies student.)  I mean of course there are logistical things about exhibits like aesthetics and location in the museum etc--but no one really fights over content right?

WRONG.

Enola Gay demonstrates why history matters in the various view points that all fought over how this aspect of a significant (to say the least) historical event actually happened. In his article, "History after the Enola Gay Controversy: An Introduction about the Controversy," David Thelen presents at least seven different view points on the proposed exhibit: 

1) National Air and Space Museum (NASM) curators 

2) Air Force Academy (AFA)

3) veterans

4) US Senate

5) Organization of American Historians (OAH)

6) American Legion

7) public

And within these seven (on my count at least) viewpoints are several ways to characterize the history of the event:

*analysis

*emotion

*commemoration

*narrative

*scholarship

*authenticity

*accuracy

*observation

Really the list could go on an on.  But what I found most interesting about Thelen's article was the following quote:

“I wonder whether we might find greater understanding if we emphasized, not how historians differ from others in seeking firsthand accounts and evaluating them one against another, but how our methods parallel the ways people in everyday life prefer firsthand to secondary accounts and evaluate differing versions of the same events.”

This assertion seems reminiscent of (yes I am going to refer to it again) Ian Tyrell's Historians in Public.  The overarching problem is that there is a disconnect between the public and historians.  But according to Tyrell, when historians started to cater to the public, performing history from the bottom up, starting with the particular and moving to the general--history lost its ability to see the overarching themes that relate to heritage and patriotism and historians were blamed once again for not relating to their audiences.  According to Thelen, the curators of NASM tried to make sense of Enola Gay for the public but apparently failed.  He says:


"In my judgment, the first script for this exhibition did all these things-and many more. It is a tragedy for historians, veterans, and museum goers alike that we cannot see the exhibition. The only alternative to learning from this tragedy is to retreat into safe professional harbors where we talk only with ourselves."

Is this the solution? Should historians stop trying to relate to the public? Should historians abandon the quest for an audience? But then what purpose does history serve? Thelen in fact points out in the beginning of his article that ABC News did a similar project on the bombing of Hiroshima and though they did not even try to please the various audiences, their project was much more well-received.  What are historians to do?  This is how Enola Gay demonstrates the stakes and importance of history. If there is no agreement on what should be presented then nothing is presented at all as in the case of the NASM exhibit. If historians retreat into "safe professional harbors" and museums don't set up exhibits, then where will our history come from.  How will schools like Massachusetts achieve their goal of propagating a heritage? The example of Enola Gay seems to lead back to the question we were presented with on the first day of class...how does history gain an audience?