According to the dictionary, house museums are called ‘Memory museums’ because it shows the ‘collection of the trace of the people who lived there.’ So, historic house museum is telling about the social history of certain people, and even the story of a certain region and historical period. If the people who stayed in the house were historical figures, the place would become more qualified as a house museum than others. I think this Powel House museum is the case.
As I was traveling around the Powel House Museum, it was interesting to look, touch, and listen to its own episodes of every single furniture and ornament. Also, this house museum seems to be meaningful by making sort of community bonds, judging from the fact that people who related to this house tried to keep the original one no to destroy. Especially, the carved words on a leaf of a door, saying ‘“Powel House 244 S 3rd Philadelphia Original Shutter - Please Save” was very impressive. Even during the transitional period the project for restoring was attempting, and those 'forward-thinking' museum professional people kept trying to do new educational programs and improve display methods.
Comparing to this way of putting meanings to the museum in terms of preserving, the way of engaging visitors’ interest (Ghost Tour) seems for me to be unrelated to the house museums except the concept of ‘old’ place. As one of the important living history places, is this the way of creating meanings and network connections? Making people come in with events, and then look into the museum? Even so, to tell the truth, I am still not able to figure out what kind of real significance that house museums are carrying other than just historical places. This might be the reason that there was the ‘parking lot revolution’ incident. I think that people who did not think the building was meaningful enough wanted to use more space to store their cars, destroying the houses.
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