At the same time as the postmodern call to reexamine traditional notions of scholarship blazed new paths through many disciplines, art museum education was a field in transition. From the 1970s through the mid 1990s, the writings of art museum educators revealed changing and contested beliefs regarding their pedagogical purposes. This study focuses on how art museum educators wrote and rewrote theory and practice regarding the role of the museum visitor in meaning making. Theorists of visual literacy, museum literacy, and interactivity will serve as the guides to this intertextual historical examination. (Contains 6 footnotes.)