Avenue of American History
Concept Statement
- The Avenue of American History (AAH) is a revolutionary new breed of virtual museum.
- The project calls for each generation to write its own history and for the collection of histories to be permanently recorded in a chain of individual buildings called "Halls of History."
- Every twenty-five years, a new Hall is added to the end of the chain, thereby creating an "avenue" of living accounts of American life created by those who lived it.
- The first contemporary Hall of History (our Hall of history) - covering the period January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2025 - will have exhibits of recent contemporary culture that reflect the findings of a national conversation.
- Choosing what to include, celebrate, hide or ignore will be the central challenge as each generation - starting with the present one - presents its own legacy.
- The mission of the Avenue of American History Development Group is to formally open the virtual AAH to the public in 2026, two hundred and fifty years after the birth of the United States of America. However, this website will be accessible for all those working on the project and for those interested in witnessing it formation. For more information on the specifics of the site, visit "Proposed Site".
Historical views of the Centennial Exhibition (1876)
- The computer-based simulated environment of the Avenue of American History is composed of three integrated and interdependent areas. Area One embodies the AAH's central reason for being, which is starting a tradition of creating generational legacies. That tradition will start with the current generation writing its history for the period January 2001 through December, 2025. That history will be preserved in a Hall of History that captures the zeitgeist of the preceding quarter century (as previously discussed).
- Area Two is an open landscaped zone immediately adjacent to the Hall of History, 2001-2025. It is set aside for future generations to build their respective Halls. Each reserved building plot (12 placeholders, so to speak) for the next three hundred years is marked out with the time period identified in contrasting plant materials. In this respect, the Avenue of American History is open-ended, both physically and conceptually. Its value increases as American society continues to evolve. It is presumed that each future generation will choose to build it own Hall of History in the designated placeholder but the future is unpredictable. In part, it is the very unpredictable nature of what will be left behind by each future American generation that adds to the excitement of the project.
- Area Three is the section of the AAH that provides a way of immediately introducing historical perspective into the complex. The idea is to build several Halls of History for the quarter-century periods before 2001. The retrospective section will contain the present generation's best guess as to what each past generation's view was of the most important events, personalities, social changes, cultural products and scientific advances that occurred at that time. These structures and the exhibits they contain are necessarily historical suppositions and will be so identified. How many retrospective Halls of History might be built will largely depend on funding for the resaerch and for the development of the virtual Halls of History.
- This virtual version of the AAH allows for no limit to the depth to which a visitor could investigate any aspect of history within each Hall.
- The Avenue of American History is a not-for-profit undertaking that is currently funded by individuals. Additonal funding may be sought from corporations, foundations, and contributions from site visitors.