This is an example of a carefully collected, fascinating, but traditionally static museum exhibit - in this case, of old-time farm implements at the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. (Carol M. Highsmith)

There, characters in 18th-Century costumes fire off cannons, parade like British soldiers, farm gardens using massive plow horses, sing drinking songs, and even serve up tankards of beer to go with them.

And visitors get to put their heads and hands in the stocks for a photograph, help the tinsmith make spoons, or feed yarn to women in costume who are weaving.

But historical purists say all this fun stretches the truth of what life was really like which, in many cases, was hard, even brutal. They fuss that tourists come away enchanted but having learned very little.

The counter argument is that if visitors can discover even a few things about, say, America’s whaling tradition or the real First Thanksgiving - and have a good time doing it - that’s more than they’d get out of looking at a bunch of boring displays.