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38-616: The Alexander Ramsey House is a historic house museum in Saint Paul, Minnesota , United States; the former residence of Alexander Ramsey , who served as the first governor of Minnesota Territory and the second governor of the state of Minnesota . It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. It is also a contributing property to the Irvine Park Historic District . It

76-417: A collective memory and that this memory is dependent upon the "cadre" or framework within which a group is situated in society. Thus, there is not only an individual memory but also a group memory that exists outside of and lives beyond the individual. An individual's understanding of the past is strongly linked to this group consciousness because every person can contribute a different memory or perspective to

114-677: A Law of Fragmentation, and a Law of Concentration. Halbwachs also wrote an important book on suicide, Les Causes du suicide , 1930 ("The Causes of Suicide"). In this book he followed the footsteps of his mentor Émile Durkheim (who was also a French Sociologist) expanding and elaborating upon the former's theories on suicide. Specifically, he focused on ideas such as, the ways in which rural and urban styles of life explain variations in suicide rates. Halbwachs also continued to further Durkheim's conceptualization of how specific family styles and religious backgrounds alter rates of suicide. Halbwachs included in his Les Cadres Sociaux de la Memoire (1952)

152-534: A historic house museum derives from a branch of history called social history that is solely based on people and their way of living. It became very popular in the mid-twentieth century among scholars who were interested in the history of people, as opposed to political and economical issues. Social history remains an influential branch of history. Philip J. Ethington, a professor of history and political science, further adds to social history and its relationship to locations by saying – Following this historical movement,

190-440: A look at the importance of collective memory and how it is embedded in culture and place. Thus, collective memory does not only reside in a house or building, but it also resonates in outdoor space – particularly when a monumental event has occurred, such as war. Problematic creation of collective memory occurs within historic house museums when the narrative of non-family members is dismissed, ignored, or completely rejected. Within

228-592: A major influence on his thinking. Halbwachs' early work on memory was in some measure pursued to coincide with Bergson's view on the subject of memory being a particularly personal and subjective experience. Bergson taught Halbwachs for three years. He then aggregated in Philosophy in 1901. He taught at various lycées before traveling to Germany in 1904, where he studied at the University of Göttingen and worked on cataloging Leibniz 's papers until 1907. He

266-632: Is located at 265 Exchange Street South in the Irvine Park area, which was one of the first trendy neighborhoods in Minnesota. Designed by noted early Minnesota architect Monroe Sheire, the house is one of the nation's best-preserved Victorian homes, featuring carved walnut woodwork, marble fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, and many original furnishings. The Ramsey family began building the house in 1868, including innovations like hot water radiators, gas lights and hot and cold running water, and when it

304-452: Is often made up of the inhabitants' belongings and objects – this approach is mostly concerned with authenticity . Some museums are organised around the person who lived there or the social role the house had. Other historic house museums may be partially or completely reconstructed in order to tell the story of a particular area, social-class or historical period. The " narrative " of the people who lived there guides this approach, and dictates

342-593: The Collège de France in Social Psychology . During this time, Halbwachs dedicated his time to in-depth research in the field where sociology and psychology overlap to provide a bit of a timeline. Towards the end of his life, Halbwachs was recognized for his contributions to sociology. He was elected into the Conservative Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He was also recognized as

380-596: The Ramsey family until the death of Alexander Ramsey's last surviving granddaughter Anita in 1964. The house and its contents were left to the Minnesota Historical Society , which now operates it as a museum with tours offered year-round. They offer special programs such as "A Victorian Christmas at the Ramsey House" in which the house is decorated for the holidays and visitors can discover how

418-486: The Ramseys would have prepared for and celebrated Christmas. Tours show the dining table set with the family's china and crystal , with a Christmas tree decorated with the family's own ornaments. Historic house museum Historic house museums are sometimes known as a "memory museum", which is a term used to suggest that the museum contains a collection of the traces of memory of the people who once lived there. It

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456-600: The Southern United States, plantation museums (the former homes of enslavers) constitute a significant portion of the museum community and contribute to the racialized collective memory of the United States. Because museums are responsible for "the building of identity, cultural memory and community", neglecting to include the narrative of all people who lived there is dangerous. While some plantation museum narratives have changed following an outcry from

494-753: The Vice President of the French Psychological Society, while also being called to chair at Sorbonne. He was married to Yvonne Basch, who introduced Halbwachs to her father, the president of the League for the Defense Human Rights and also influenced him to join the Jewish religion (he was born Catholic). He had a son, Pierre Halbwachs , who influenced Deleuzian theory in the 1940s. A longtime socialist , Halbwachs

532-540: The War Ministry. Beginning in 1919, shortly after the end of the war, he became professor of sociology and pedagogy at the University of Strasbourg (1919). He remained in this position for over a decade, taking leave for a year in 1930 as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago , when he was called to the Sorbonne in 1935. There he taught sociology and worked closely with Marcel Mauss and served as

570-419: The actual structure belongs to the museum collection as a historical object. While some historic home museums are fortunate to possess a collection containing many of the original furnishings once present in the home, many face the challenge of displaying a collection consistent with the historical structure. Some museums choose to collect pieces original to the period, while not original to the house. Others, fill

608-573: The collective group memory. Group memory is also different for every group that experiences a certain event, therefore "every group has its own collective memory and that collective memory differs from the collective memory of other groups. This idea of memory being pursued proves people's expression of commemoration in our culture. Commemoration offers collective memory ties to society and its conceptions where physical monuments and rituals fix and affirm collectivity. Halbwachs Collective Memory includes two laws governing how this form of memory will evolve:

646-401: The concept of " open-air museums " became prominent. These particular types of museums had interpreters in costume re-enact the lives of communities in earlier eras, which would then be performed to modern audiences. They often occupied large wooden architecture buildings or outdoor sites and landscapes, that were true to the era, adding to authenticity. Collective memory is sometimes used in

684-516: The editor of Annales de Sociologie , the successor journal to L'Année Sociologique . He taught as a professor of sociology in Sorbonne, Paris from 1935 to 1943 and a professor of social psychology at the College de France from 1943 until death. From 1935 until his death he also served as the secretary-general of Annales de Sociologie . In 1944 he received one of France's highest honors, a chair at

722-605: The editorial board of L'Année Sociologique , where he worked with François Simiand and Lévy-Bruhl editing the Economics and Statistics sections. In 1909 he returned to Germany to study Marxism and economics in Berlin . Durkheim gave Halbwachs the idea of societal movements and how the environment, people are influenced by Sociological research. This also goes into how different class systems function in broad networks of society. Throughout World War I , Halbwachs worked at

760-591: The establishment of the country's first historic site in 1850, Washington's Revolutionary headquarters in New York, Americans have found a penchant for preserving similar historical structures. The establishment of historic house museums increased in popularity through the 1970s and 1980s, as the Revolutionary War's bicentennial set off a wave of patriotism and alerted Americans to the destruction of their physical heritage. The tradition of restoring homes of

798-506: The home with replicas of the original pieces, reconstructed with the help of historic records. Still other museums adopt a more aesthetic approach and use the homes to display the architecture and artistic objects. Because historic homes have often existed through different generations and have been passed on from one family to another, volunteers and professionals also must decide which historical narrative to tell their visitors. Some museums grapple with this issue by displaying different eras in

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836-504: The home's history within different rooms or sections of the structure. Others choose one particular narrative, usually the one deemed most historically significant, and restore the home to that particular period. There are a number of organizations around the world that dedicate themselves to the preservation, restoration, or promotion of historic house museums. They include: Maurice Halbwachs Maurice Halbwachs ( French: [mɔˈʁis ˈalbvaks] ; 11 March 1877 – 16 March 1945)

874-518: The library of the Centre d'études sociologiques and are now held at the Human and Social Sciences Library Paris Descartes-CNRS . In 1950, his work on collective memory was published posthumously by his daughter. Halbwachs' most important contribution to the field of sociology came in his book La Mémoire collective , 1950 ("The Collective Memory"), in which he advanced the thesis that a society can have

912-470: The lives of everyday people. Historic house museums usually operate with small staffs and on limited budgets. Many are run entirely by volunteers and often do not meet the professional standards established by the museum industry. An independent survey conducted by Peggy Coats in 1990 revealed that sixty-five percent of historic house museums did not have a full-time staff, and 19 to 27 percent of historic homes employed only one full-time employee. Furthermore,

950-440: The majority of these museums operated on less than $ 50,000 annually. The survey also revealed a significant disparity in the number of visitors between local house museums and national sites. While museums like Mount Vernon and Colonial Williamsburg were visited by over one million tourists a year, more than fifty percent of historic house museums received fewer than 5,000 visitors per year. These museums are also unique in that

988-461: The manner in which it is completed. Another alternative approach, deployed by nonprofit organization House Museum , includes contemporary art integration, where artists are invited to respond to the physical and conceptual history of a site, thus injecting contemporary perspectives and value into historic places. In each kind of museum, visitors learn about the previous inhabitants through an explanation and exploration of social history . The idea of

1026-403: The moment but what they also need in the future, which forces them to put into perspective what is necessary in the moment. His research is a modification of Durkheim's theory of collective representation. Halbwachs showed how memory can not exist without society influencing the mind, embracing how collective consciousness impacts us each and every day. This taught us that social structure shapes

1064-478: The past and designating them as museums draws on the English custom of preserving ancient buildings and monuments. Initially homes were considered worthy of saving because of their associations with important individuals, usually of the elite classes, like former presidents, authors, or businessmen. Increasingly, Americans have fought to preserve structures characteristic of a more typical American past that represents

1102-587: The past. Whereas historians analyze history from a completely unbiased perspective, analyzing it in a critical way from a distance. Halbwachs contributed to the world of social psychology as well with his thesis on La Classe ouvrière et les niveaux de vie which translates to, "The Working Class and the Standards of Living". This work allowed Halbwachs to analyze and observe how working-class families managed their budgets. He discovered that families and individuals not only plan out their budget for what they need in

1140-399: The public and the academy, "plantation museums reflect, create, and contribute to racialized ways of understanding and organizing the world" by limiting or eliminating the narrative of the enslaved inhabitants. A degree of authenticity is also to be considered in the restoration and creation of a historic house museum. The space must be authentic in terms of truly replicating and representing

1178-434: The resurrection of historic house museums; however, not all historic house museums use this approach. The notion of collective memory originated from philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs , in "La Memoire Collective" ("On Collective Memory", 1950). This extended thesis examines the role of people and place, and how collective memory is not only associated with the individual but is a shared experience. It also focused on

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1216-408: The significance of the collective memory operating on the systems of family, religion and social communities. Halbwachs takes an interesting perspective regarding the relationship between memory and history. He believed that memory and history oppose each other when it comes to reliability. Memory can be transformed based on perspective, which makes it a questionable form of scholarly appreciation for

1254-557: The way individual memory is influenced by social structures, as a way of continuing socialisation by producing memory as collective experience. An example of a site that utilizes collective memory is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan. It was restored and is based on the dialectics of memory, however it also has the inclusion of joyous festivals to mask the turmoil. The Hiroshima Traces (1999) text takes

1292-413: The way it once stood in its original form and appear to be untouched and left in time. There are three steps when declaring if a space is authentic: The earliest projects for preserving historic homes began in the 1850s under the direction of individuals concerned with the public good and the preservation of American history, especially centered on the first U.S. president, General George Washington. Since

1330-607: Was a French philosopher and sociologist known for developing the concept of collective memory . Halbwachs also contributed to the sociology of knowledge with his La Topographie Legendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte ; study of the spatial infrastructure of the New Testament. (1951) Born in Reims , France , Halbwachs attended the École Normale Supérieure in Paris . There he studied philosophy with Henri Bergson , who had

1368-402: Was completed in 1872, the total cost of construction was nearly $ 41,000. To furnish the house, Ramsey's wife Anna filled two boxcars with fashionable and expensive Renaissance-revival furniture from the A.T. Stewart Company Store in New York to bring home to Minnesota. The Ramseys' daughter Marion married Charles Furness in a lavish wedding in the parlor in 1875. The 15-room house remained in

1406-648: Was detained by the Gestapo in Paris in July, 1944 after protesting the arrest of his Jewish father-in-law. He was deported to the concentration camp, Buchenwald , where he died of dysentery in February 1945. In 1940, Halbwachs' brother in-law, Georges Basch committed suicide. His parents in-law Victor and Mme Basch aged 84 years old at the time were murdered by Germans. Part of his books were offered by his widow to

1444-428: Was nominated to co-edit an edition of Leibniz's work which never came to fruition. He returned to France in 1905 and met Émile Durkheim , who sparked his interest in sociology. Initially, when meeting Durkheim, Halbwachs was looking for advice on how to move from his previous focus on Philosophy to Sociology. Halbwachs also began to focus on scientific objectivism rather than his Bergsonian Individualism. He soon joined

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