Branding public memory in the Walmart Museum.

This article critically examines the Walmart Museum as a case study of corporate museums and their impact on public memory within a neoliberal capitalist context. Corporate museums, such as the Walmart Museum, commemorate a company's history and leadership while repurposing public memory as a branding tool that promotes consumer citizenship and privatizes what are traditionally public goods. The Walmart Museum employs nostalgic imagery of the 1950s nuclear family, narratives of the American dream centered on founder Sam Walton's self-made success, and metaphors of corporate personhood to reinforce Walmart's brand identity and align it with neoliberal values of individualism and market-driven citizenship. This transformation challenges conventional understandings of museums as democratic spaces for civic engagement by subordinating public memory to corporate interests and market logics. The article calls for further scholarly attention to how corporate museums reshape collective memory and public life amid ongoing privatization.