Columnist Anne Applebaum had an interesting column critiquing the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. in the June 22nd Washington Post. It is a museum more focused on displays of Mickey Mouse than major American historical events. Among her comments:

Opinion polls bear out my suspicions. According to one poll, more U.S. teenagers can name the Three Stooges than the three branches of government. Even fewer can state the first three words of the Constitution. A San Francisco reporter once did an informal survey of teenagers watching Fourth of July fireworks in a park and found that only half could name the country from which the United States had won its independence. ("Japan or something, China," said one seventh-grader. "Somewhere out there on the other side of the world.") We're not talking about ignorance of semi-obscure facts here: We're talking about ignorance of basic information.

Given this yawning knowledge gap, the Museum of American History could perform a real service to its 3 million annual visitors just by telling them, in at least one or two permanent exhibitions, something about what actually happened. After all, museum visitors can see Mickey Mouse and his ilk any time. But many visitors, after their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Washington, won't go to another history museum again. Ever.

I'm sure chronology isn't the hottest thing in curatorial science. Read the whole article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101360.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Schools and teachers are often blamed for the lack of historical memory in the U.S., but it appears that this failure to deal with historical memory is more cultural. On the other hand, there are some cultures that get so caught up in historical memory that they cannot give up ancient hatreds or continue to perptuate misconceptions or untruth.