ABSTRACT
We use the term “fabricate” not to suggest that Bedford’s history is somehow false, but rather that history isn’t simply a telling of the facts. History is a “making,” a “doing,” and an interpreting of those facts with performative or causative power. We also use the term “fabricate” to refer to the fact that history for people in Bedford is quite literally built into the physical fabric of the village. In a brochure for a recent membership drive, the president of the Bedford Historical Society wrote, “Realize that you really do take pride in your village and that Bedford is unique among towns, because it has made its history a part of our everyday life” (Bedford Historical Society 1993, 1). Living in history is a powerful nostalgic desire that suggests that the essence of the past can in some sense be recaptured through the landscape. Feelings of historical authenticity are, in the words of Dydia DeLyser (1999, 602), “triggered by landscape.” Bedford is a self-consciously historical place. In this chapter, we explore the social practices of history, and how it is made visible and enacted in the museum and the historic village tour.1 A few residents read the volumes of the history of Bedford produced by the Bedford Historical Society. Many more have read the society’s pamphlets giving a short account of the town’s history, and most are familiar with the central foundation story of the town, that it was purchased by twenty-two settlers from native Americans in 1680. It is safe to say that for most residents, Bedford’s history is the story of a democratic New England village surrounding a large village green that symbolizes community and continuity with its rural, republican past. As we pointed out in Chapter Three, this archetypal New England village had in fact been reconstructed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by wealthy New Yorkers to more closely resemble their romantic ideal. The village is the principal site in which residents encounter and reproduce their history. This landscape has been “museumized” since the early 1970s as an historic district, which is seen by some residents in reverential terms and by others as somewhat hyperreal-as beautiful, but perhaps overly precious and museum-like. Some complain, for example, that there are too many antique shops and real estate offices. They bemoan the loss of what they term more “real” or “useful” stores. We then examine the way in which people are encouraged by the Historical Society to experience the village through the historic tour and finally we focus on a telling controversy over the placement of a traffic light near the village green.
