PRCo. trivia

[DF Cramer]

Fred Schneider wrote:
    "This is going to be a real problem for museums in the future.  Can you
imagine finding people who are knowledgeable enough to even train the
docents and
operators in what it was all about?We're now three generations away from the
people who rode the cars!!!!"

    How true.  As a docent trainer at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, I
have been telling our operators for three years to be aware that our typical
visitor has probably never been on a streetcar.  To them a horsecar carries
horses, a cable car is what the guy drives who fixes your television and a
streetcar is something that is modified from an automobile.

    Young people today respond to history if it is made on a personal level.
As part of my job, I teach pop music history of the 20th century to 12 & 13
year olds.  I spend a lot of time relating things to their lives (what their
elders did not have) and using a lot of images and videotape.  Young people
today are visually oriented.

    At PTM, we had Carl Schultz of Transit Gloria Mundi put together a short
video history of the "Electric Era" and we use it regularly as an
introduction to our museum.  The photo displays by Ed Lybarger, Fred
Schneider, et al also have helped tell the story.  The new display is a
selection of Then & Now images of Pennsylvania and is very helpful in
telling the story.

    The role of a museum should be to present the material in a broad
context, focusing on how trolleys effected events and events effected
trolleys.

    On a side note, I hope to see some of you Saturday at PTM as we roll out
Philadelphia PCC 2711 at 1:00.  I will also be signing my book, The Trolleys
of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania from 2 to 4.





DFCramer--Teacher-Trombonist-Historian-Conductor

       www.geocities.com/armconband