Both the Oak Alley Plantation and Whitney Plantation have held slaves in the past, as given in their websites. Both websites have information about the plantations and its former residents, but differ greatly in the presentation of the history and services of the houses, as seen in the design of their sites.

 

The Oak Alley Plantation website is laid out much like a hotel or theme park website would be, showcasing dining options and room accomodations on its home page. The website also advertises the prices for cottage housing rates, daily chef specials, and hosting events such as weddings in the venue. Although the plantation’s history of sugarcane farming and cruel treatment of slaves is mentioned on the website as well, it does not focus upon that issue heavily and seems to focus on advertising the plantation’s luxurious services. Overall, the Oak Alley Plantation website is designed to publicize and display the historic site as some type of tourist spot or vacation house because of its careful placement of pictures and pricing information on the page.

 

In contrast, the Whitney Plantation website is laid out more similarly to a museum’s website. It has a separate folder for the photo gallery instead of having numerous pictures of the plantation throughout the site. Compared to the Oak Alley Plantation website, the Whitney Plantation site is more educational and viewers are given more information about the site’s cruel history and about the horrors of slave labor and the slave trade in the past. The site contains several long pages of information about the history of slaves in Louisiana as a whole and also the Transatlantic Slave Trade, compared to the brief mention of sugar crops and slaves on Oak Alley Plantation website. Overall, the Whitney Plantation is not advertised as a resort like the Oak Alley plantation is, but as an educational historic site.

 

I would visit both of these museums if I had the opportunity to, but I would expect a contrast in the tours of the two sites. The Oak Alley Plantation is less like a museum, but instead is more like a tourist spot with comfortable rooms and fine dining, while the Whitney Plantation is more informational and I would expect to learn about slavery more accurately and more in-depth. Although both of these historic sites are considered ‘museums’, I mostly view the Oak Alley Plantation as a tourist attraction instead. The Whitney Plantation can be considered a museum because of its owner’s efforts to educate its visitors about the real history of slavery within the house and in the Americas.