Immediately looking at the websites for the Oak Alley Plantation and Whitney Plantation, there is a stark difference in the way the two are presented. The Oak Alley Plantation appears to marketed as a vacation spot: a restaurant and an inn. On the other hand, the Whitney Plantation is presented as a learning spot, referring to itself as a museum and openly stating its focus on slavery.

One of the first aspects visible on each site is the text overlaying the changing photos. The text on the site of the Oak Alley Plantation is either inviting guests or giving praise. The text also provides a continuous link to see the room rates for staying overnight at the plantation. Meanwhile, the text over the photos of the Whitney Plantation site appears to be quotes from various people who said that visiting the museum was a life-changing and eye-opening experience. Looking at just this aspect, the main goal of Oak Alley appears to be to make money off the plantation while that of Whitney is rather to inform its visitors about the history of the plantation and the slavery that is interwoven into it.

To further the idea that Whitney aims to inform, its site has a tab specifically labeled “Education,” while Oak Alley site doesn’t have any easily accessible educational information. Under the Education tab, the Whitney provides information regarding field trips and lesson plans, showing that the museum is making an effort to teach students in particular. It also has a lot of information about slavery at the plantation and in Louisiana directly on the site, as well as resources for further learning.

Another interesting difference is that there is a Google option directly available on the Whitney’s site to translate the text into several languages. I’m sure this option is also available on the Oak Alley site, but it’s intriguing that the Whitney Plantation chose to provide the option on their homepage. I think this also speaks to their willingness to inform by making their information accessible to non-English speaking visitors.

Based on the differences between the websites of the two locations, I would only classify the Whitney Plantation as a museum. While I think a museum should not be so limited as to not also be an inn and a restaurant, the main goal should be to inform, and that doesn’t appear to be the main intentions of Oak Alley.

The affordance of classifying plantations in general as museums is that it allows these places with dark histories to become places where learning can take place. As for limitations, I guess the museum classification would allow these dark pasts to stay out in the open, while likely stopping some of the other uses of an old plantation (like an event space for instance). I don’t particularly think the latter is necessary and I tend to believe that anything that can be turned into a positive educational experience is worth it so I’d say there’s more benefits to having these plantations act as museums.