The Musée de l'Histoire Vivante is a historical museum located in Montreuil's Parc Montreau. It deals with labor and social history, social movements, colonization and decolonization, as well as the suburbs and industrial heritage of the city of Montreuil. As an exhibition center, archive and educational facility, the museum focuses on themes such as the French Revolution, the 1st Empire, the Dreyfus Affair, Louise Michel, the Paris Commune, the Resistance and deportation.
Inaugurated on March 26, 1939, the Living History Museum owes its foundation to three Communist personalities: Jacques Duclos, MP for the district, Fernand Soupé and Daniel Renoult, respectively Mayor and General Councillor of Montreuil. A political and cultural creation of the PCF, the museum's ambition from the outset was to disseminate the history of social struggles to the working classes, with historian and labor specialist Jean Bruhat at its helm. In the 1950s, resistance fighter and deportee Daniel Tamanini took over as head of the museum. After a difficult period of semi-closure in the 1960s and 1970s, the museum was renovated at the behest of the municipality, and celebrated its reopening in 1988 with an exhibition dedicated to Jean Jaurès for the bicentenary of the French Revolution. This was followed by an exhibition on Paris toys (1993) and a retrospective devoted to Russian cinema (1995). In 2015, the Association pour l'Histoire Vivante set itself two major objectives: to expand its museum activities and to build a museum of social and labor history on a national scale.
Unlike other European countries, France has no specific place to showcase documents and objects relating to the history of the workers' movement. To fill this gap, the Musée de l'Histoire Vivante is currently working on the creation of a larger, more modern museum with a national dimension.
It is open to public, searchers and schools for instructive workshops.
Opening days
Careful: In case of bad weather the parc can be closed to the public. You can telephone to get more information on the day of your visit.
Photo © Ville de Montreuil
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