"Rebuilding the Past We Wanted" - Matt Armstrong, Digital Preservation Curator - Government House

The historic preservation movement in America is mostly concerned with saving relics of the past to show what life and craftsmanship was like in previous times. But what about the times when we created brand new things to show what life was like in the past? Museum villages were massively popular in America in the middle of the 20th century, and St. Augustine was a great example. This is the interesting story of how these reconstructed villages came to occupy an important place in the preservation movement in the US, and how they fell from favor.