Americans have a complicated relationship with authenticity. While celebrating the national ability to reinvent our lives, we bemoan the absence of an authentic American culture. Miles Orvell, an American studies professor at Temple, says that our hunger for authenticity is a reaction against our constant striving for what's new and improved. He cites the social and technological changes at the turn of the 20th century that led to "widespread middle-class enthusiasm for imitation Colonial furniture and architecture" — a time when museums designed to preserve "genuine artifacts" also proliferated.