ABSTRACT
Boston’s “Freedom Trail” brings together public and private agencies, the taxpayer’s obligatory payment combined with the donor’s voluntary contribution—supplemented by the proceeds from what tourists buy and take home as mementos. Of course, for the Freedom Trail to work as intended, visitors from around the U.S. need to feel that they have come back to their roots, that no matter what part of the country they call home, they are connected to the past that is celebrated along this two-and-half-mile-long walk. It is, as one scholar put it, “one of the key public history venues in the country,” a “wonderfully confusing collection of public buildings, churches, museums and historic markers.” 127
