Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Corporate History

After WWI the corporate world became increasingly involved in history. In the 1920, business leaders decided to preserve history and present it to the mass. As an example, according Mike Wallace, New York lawyerand financiers decided to save Thomas Jefferson's house (Monticello) in 1923. Four years earlier (1919) Henry Ford, started building his own museum. This museum was inaugurated ten years later (1929) as Greenfield Village.
The purpose of Greenfield Village was to portray a utopian past of the "common man." There was no bank, no trace of upper class citizens, and politics. However, one part of the museum was dedicated to industrial advances praising inventors and their contribution to the advancement of the world. By putting these two world together, Henry Ford's message was that America was a good place and that industrial innovations have made it an even better place or world. This is praising the corporate world's contribution to humanity. This type of history is highly subjective.

Source: Mike Wallace, Mickey Mouse History and other Essays on American Memory.

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