Inclusive Stories, Layered Narratives

By Michael Bouman

In the Summer 2006 edition of History News, Tim Grove of the Smithsonian Institution reviews the 2006 "Museums on the Web" conference. With Tim's permission I'm going to quote from his article for the benefit of local history organizations that are looking for a way to make their web sites a zillion times more interesting. The indented passages are excerpted from Tim's article.

Any event can be seen from multiple perspectives, and a historical presentation is richer when it encourages its audience to consider several perspectives. This approach can get tedious in other mediums, like books or exhibitions, especially if many perspectives are presented. Multiple perspectives can also be a challenge online, but the Web format is especially suited to layering. A good site that illustrates this is the award-winning Raid on Deerfield at http://1704.deerfield.history.museum

More than other disciplines, history is about story and narrative is at its core. And we all know that a good story told well can be a captivating force. This narrative does not always need to be linear. Web sites are full of nonlinear stories of people, objects, and places. The Web medium can magnify features of stories, offer sidebars, and pose questions with links that subtly guide the user along. When a story is told through layering, a user can uncover it at his own pace and go as deep as he wants.

How many Missouri stories can be told in which there is competition for a "homeland?" In southeastern Missouri in the 1790s, the Shawnees and Delawares arrive in search of a better life away from the incessant conflicts in present-day Ohio. They are given a land grant by the Spanish, who have not yet ceded "Louisiana" to France and who need to expand a population on the west bank of the Mississippi River to thwart American expansion. Just imagine that area south of Ste. Genevieve: French settlement in the area; a westward-looking American population, African-American slaves included; Shawnee families making a new life and in the same vicinity their long-time friends, the Delawares. Five cultures, many perspectives on human hope and strategy in the 1790s. This is a story that the Web can help us see better.

The Hiram Young Health and Heritage Center in Independence might also have a long-term interest in the kind of layered storytelling that belongs on the Web. The story of Hiram Young is woven through the distinctive features of the story of Independence and its connections with a wider world: a trade route to Santa Fe and wagon trains heading west to California and Oregon. How is the remarkable story of Hiram Young a part of these other stories, and of the stories of race in the United States. How do his opportunities compare with African Americans in Columbia, Fulton, St. Louis?

Even a simple story like the murder of Jesse James can be told from a variety of vantage points, including the one of the assassin/bounty-hunter/turncoat who the song about Jesse James refers to as "that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard."

Take a look at the Raid on Deerfield and imagine what you can do with that technique in Missouri!