Creating Old World Wisconsin: The Struggle to Build an Outdoor History Museum of Ethnic Architecture

Epilogue

193 h Epi­logue In his analysis of American outdoor museums and living history sites, Sten Rentzhog concentrated his analysis on Vesterheim (a Norwegian American Museum in Decorah, Iowa), Greenfield Village, Colonial Williamsburg, Old Sturbridge Village, the Farmer’s Museum in Cooperstown, Upper Canada Village, Plimoth Plantation, Mystic Seaport, Old World Wisconsin, and Living History Farms (in Urbandale , Iowa). While OWW shares many characteristics with these museums, it remains an anomaly. No other institution took the path that the Society did to create its museum. Its closest matches as open-air museums with relocated buildings are Greenfield Village, Old Sturbridge Village, and Conner Prairie. Rich patrons dominated their creation stories, and their fortunes sustained them through the difficult first years. The Wisconsin story of a state-sponsored museum on such a grand scale is unique. OWW’s most analogous state-sponsored open-air museum might be Upper Canada Village. This 60-acre site situated on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River in eastern Ontario also consists of relocated buildings. It is, however, 500 acres smaller than OWW.1 The Society’s vision was unique among American open-air museums to this extent: the size of the site, the magnitude of the plan, the attempt to integrate relocated buildings on similar landscapes, and the lack of any reliable source for funding the expensive project. Society leaders and 194 H epilogue its staff and volunteers struggled to give shape to Dick Perrin’s vision, but their museum fell far short of his mark. Simply put, the Society could not afford its “dreamed-of-outdoor museum.” In moving to create Perrin’s vision, the three directors (Les Fishel, Dick Erney, and Jim Smith) and the Board of Curators gambled that they could pay for a project that proved to be too encompassing and too expensive for the Society. The answer to the question as to whether the Society should have taken on a project beyond its means was a relevant question in the 1960s and 1970s. The Society confronted this question at every juncture. Erney bluntly stated his concern in October 1969 when he concluded OWW was not economically feasible for the Society. He forced the project to be mothballed but did not derail it. His move showed that he was less willing than his predecessor to commit the Society to a course he considered dangerous. Did Fishel make the best decision for the Society when he committed to the museum? Was it a rational decision informed by a careful analysis of the data? Bernard Shaw addressed the issue of rational behavior and its consequences in his 1903 drama Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” If Fishel had made a reasonable business decision in 1960, Perrin’s proposal for a centrally located site to preserve examples of vernacular architecture would have been brushed aside. Fishel’s incremental strategy (brilliant or imprudent depending on perspective) was the only feasible method for approaching the project. He refused to look too far down the road and to ask the most important question: how would the Society pay for the museum? This question he answered more on a hope than a realistic estimate. When he resigned in 1969, the only matter resolved was the acquisition (at minimal cost) of a daring and ambitious master plan whose economic feasibility data projected a misleading future. Fishel had funded the project internally. He did not seek budget increases or special appropriations from the Budget Finance Committee. Nor did he put in place needed fund-raising mechanisms. Fishel was comfortable letting events unfold and making hard decisions only as the need arose. Erney was a more cautious leader. He looked down the road and saw impending calamity. He asked the hard questions and found no one ready or able to answer them. He did create considerable resentment among OWWC members, who could not answer his questions but were unwilling to abandon the vision. epilogue h 195 The Society had other opportunities to abort the museum project. Permission to move forward was a curatorial decision. Why the governing board did not exercise its responsibility by asking probing financial questions is more difficult to explain. The curators could have turned deaf ears to Perrin’s heartfelt plea in 1964, but...