By Dan Johnson, University of York (@Dan_Johnson19)
While conducting research on public understandings of punishment in British prison museums, the public facing collections and exhibitions often act as the main primary sources that I engage with. One of the elements of the prison interpretation that I do rely on archival material for is the reconstruction of prisoner narratives through digital media on display. In almost every narrative of a specific prisoner and their experience, there are no first-hand accounts written by the prisoners, making sources like the British Newspaper Archive essential for creating a script for the videos in the exhibitions. Sometimes, the museums are transparent about where they find their information, and do not stray from the archival material in the digital narratives. Other times, the museums pick and choose which sources to include and manipulate them to fit into a sensational script to entertain their visitors. This then leads to questions about how much fiction is on display in our museum exhibitions.
Image: Author’s own.
Doing History in Public 