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BCLM: Forging Ahead: building a new urban history of the Black Country
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2020
Abstract
The recreation of urban historical space in museums is inevitably a complex, large-scale endeavour bridging the worlds of academic and public history. BCLM: Forging Ahead at the Black Country Living Museum is a £23m project recreating a typical Black Country town post-World War II. This article uses case-studies of three buildings – a Civic Restaurant, a record shop and a pub – to argue that urban-historical research methodology and community engagement can both create a vivid sense of the past, and challenge pervasive prejudices. It also argues that such a collaborative and public project reveals much about the urban and regional nature of industrial areas like the Black Country in this pivotal historical moment.
- Type
- Survey and Speculation
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
Footnotes
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I would like to thank my colleagues at the Black Country Living Museum, and the project's historical advisory panel for their support and advice throughout this project. I am also particularly grateful to Dr Oliver Betts, Prof. Matt Houlbrook, Dr Shane Ewen and Dr Tosh Warwick for their comments on this article.
References
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36 Although local community representatives have fed into the selection and research process since the earliest planning stages, the nature of interpretation within a living museum – involving translocated or replicated buildings, set at a specific point in time – means this project is not formally co-production in a strict museological sense.
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