JTR Museum

[Wyatt Earp]

A John Dillinger Museum recently opened in Indiana:

http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2015/...ing-new-museum

I thought this might be of interest, for comparison.

I haven't been there and don't know what they might be selling in their gift shop.

[Steadmund Brand]

I want to ask, honestly... and not trying to stir up "poop" as it were....

how many here can honestly say, that if they were there, they wouldn't go into the museum??? I'll be the first to admit I would go in.. in fact I would love to see it, it looks interesting to me.... I have an interest in the case, as we all do or we wouldn't be here, and I would want to see whatever it is they have, even if it turned out to be rubbish ( like most films about the case, yet we all see them don't we???)

Sure it's exploitation....but as I said, almost everything related to the case is...no matter the intention.. just the nature of the beast...granted there is a big difference between a scholarly book and selling jelly beans.. but it's all making money off a 120 plus year old tabloid murder case..

I am not defending anyone here... I think claiming to open a museum relating to 19th century women of Whitechapel then making it a Ripper attraction is downright sleazy....but...it is what it is... and let's be honest... I'm not sure too many folks would go out of their way for a "Women of 19th century Whitechapel" museum....1st off... it's more downright depressing then interesting..... I know some will say that I'm being sexist or whatever for saying that.. but it's the truth... I myself, being someone interested in Victorian London would probably go in that museum.. but as far as the general public goes...really you think they would?? Be honest, Now.. a Jack The Ripper one.. hey.. everyone knows that name, I mean.. MULTIPLE company’s exist doing walking tours... so it's not just folks like us who study the case interested.....

Wow , I feel like I am on a soap box, I really don't mean to, just I feel some of us (and I include myself in this) get a bit overly "moralistic" when it comes to things like this....sorry if I have offended anyone ( except GUT....I am so depressed by the Brisbane Lions this year I want all Aussies offended )

Steadmund Brand

[Dane_F]

To answer your question: no. I would have no interest in going to a JTR museum like this. Anyone who is going to use deceptive practices to even get the approval to make a museum is going to use those same practices on items in the museum.

Combine this with the fact that there is so little physical evidence to look at (maybe some letters? A few pictures?) and I would much much prefer to research the case here and do a Ripper Walk to look at the locations and hear some of the interesting history instead of going to an exploitive museum by dishonest people.

[Rosella]

What would they be able to show though, that would be of huge interest to people who have more than a passing interest in the case? I mean, most of us here, without being big headed, know a little more about these unsolved killings than 'it was a guy in a top hat who went around ripping up prostitutes with a knife in the London fog 100 years ago,' which is perhaps the image people have who don't take an interest in Jack and his doings. If I'm going to be exploited I might as well pay some more and go to Madame Tussaud's and see the 'London Street stalked by Jack' that they have there. At least it's a bit atmospheric!

As for sport, Richmond lost and I don't even want to know about the cricket!

[richardh]

Another article about this subject from the Guardian:

LINK

[Archaic]

My Two Cents (OK, Five Cents)

Here's another article, this one from The Standard: http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/e...-10423690.html

I have to say that I do see the point of the protesters.

If someone proposed opening a museum dedicated to 'The History of Women in Seattle and Washington State', I would expect it to include exhibits on the Pioneer women who made the brutal trip westward by Conestoga wagons on the Oregon Trail, Native American women, early settlers in log cabins, and Suffragettes who helped secure the rights of women to vote.
I'd certainly expect it to include the 'Rosie the Riveter" women who labored at Boeing in WWII helping to build 98,965 aircraft (28% of US total aircraft production in WWII). Production included the B-17 “Flying Fortress” bombers used by the Eighth Air Force to assist the RAF in bombing the hell out of Nazi industrial targets, which helped us win the war!

If I visited the 'History of Women In Seattle & Washington State Museum' only to find it consisted of an historically inaccurate "recreation" of the bedroom of one of the women slaughtered by Ted Bundy or The Green River Killer, displayed their horrific autopsy photos and sold t-shirts glassware & coffee mugs celebrating the murderer as if he were a rock star, I'd picket and protest too!

If the developers want to create a Jack the Ripper attraction as a for-profit commercial venture, fine, it's a free country. But please have the decency to drop the pretense that it's a 'History of Women in the East End Museum' and - Oops! you just haven't gotten around to adding that little detail in small print to your elaborate skull & cross-bones signage.

They should just drop the word 'Museum'. Calling it a "museum" implies it will be fact-based and historically accurate, which even from the video we can all see it's not.

- As if Mary Kelly had a lovely bright apartment with cheerful clean floral wallpaper & an iron bed! Any fool can see from the photos she had a wooden bed-frame. We know it was a tiny cold dark decrepit makeshift "room" in a crowded old slum building.

It seems to me this "museum" is just another Ye Olde Ripper Gift Shoppe to sell t-shirts covered in fake blood depicting a fantasy figure in tophat & cape, which only perpetuates historically inaccurate myths.
I expect the Ripper black jellybeans or maybe "designer chocolates" shaped like mutilated body parts are next.

And Steadmand, yes I WOULD go to a real museum that really depicted the life of women and families in the East End during the Victorian era & other periods! It would be amazing.

New York City has a fantastic museum called 'The Tenement Museum' that occupies an old slum dwelling. Each apartment recreates what tenement life was like for a particular immigrant family who lived there at a specific time in its history. People have evemn donated original items from their families. I would love to visit a museum that accurately recreated East End Life over the centuries, wouldn't you? Think of all the East Enders who could donate original family photographs, histories and heirlooms to make the AUTHENTIC past come alive.

NY's TENEMENT MUSEUM: http://www.tenement.org/

Best regards,
Archaic

[spyglass]

Hi all,
Little did I realise when starting this thread , what a s## storm it was going to turn out to be.
But is it now up and running for business? I notice that the website seems to be gone.

[Robert]

Bunny, I've sent you a PM.

[GUT]

A genuine museum yes I would go.

But it would need genuine artifacts and tell the real story ( or as close to as possible). And not just be a shop in disguise.

Two examples spring to mind he in Aus.

We have Port Arthur, which was a penal settlement (but also in 1996 the scene were 30+ people were massacred by an idiot with a gun).

Now as a penal settlement it could ales be described as hell on earth, but they go out oh their way to tell the TRUE story (I know because my wife had a major disagreement with them, they asked to see he PhD thesis and changed the information they were giving out, hen persuaded she was right). That is a true Museum, even though the sell souvenirs.

They have also dealt with the mass murder tastefully, so those who wish to pay their respects or even mourn are able to do so, but in an in obtrusive manner.


We visit Port Arthur every few years.

We also have a number of "Museums" to Ned Kelly,msome are great, others are just an excuse to sell junk.

Most of those I avoid.

[Rosemary]

Gut

I lurbs you, GUT..in an old woman crone way. You could be my chile, as we say in NOLA.

[GUT]

I lurbs you, GUT..in an old woman crone way. You could be my chile, as we say in NOLA.

Don't let HER hear you say that, she says I'm hers and no one else better even look at me.
[But then again I have eyes for her only].

[Wyatt Earp]

Thumbs-up to a women's history museum.

Thumbs-up to a Jack the Ripper museum (as long as Jack isn't glorified).

The history of crime is a sub-field of history, and I think it's appropriate to have museums devoted to it, provided they are genuinely educational and operated in a responsible manner.

That's my take.

[miss marple]

There is no question that Jack the ripper is being used to promote a museum dealing with Womens history. Suich a museum is needed[ there is a women's history library] but it is shameful to exploit women in this way by focussing on a murderer of women in order to attract publicity. It has not opened yet due to protests, If the museum wishes to be taken seriously the name will have to change. I am bloody pissed off about it. There is more to the eastend than jack the ripper.

Miss Marple

[Pcdunn]

I think it should be protested, and props to the community for doing so! A scholarly museum on the history of working- class women in the East End would be great, but not this thing.

Great articles, hope the papers keep it up. Let's KEEP it closed!

[GUT]

I think it should be protested, and props to the community for doing so! A scholarly museum on the history of working- class women in the East End would be great, but not this thing.

Great articles, hope the papers keep it up. Let's KEEP it closed!

Museum that honors those poor unfortunate women would be great, and by that I mean all those who found themselves on the street, (or close too) selling their bodies to survive, do sad.