Today we’ll meet in Special Collections, where Erin Bell will demonstrate how to build an Omeka exhibit. It is critical that you attend this training session so that you are prepared to do your exhibit, which is due November 25.
November 6: Transforming Heritage Tourism: Plantation Tours
For today, read the following items:
Eichstedt & Small, Representations of Slavery, chapter 8 (available on ECR)
Brown, “New Signpost at Slavery’s Crossroads,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 2004
Stodghill, “Driving Back Into Louisiana’s History,” New York Times, May 25, 2008
Rutenberg, “Dueling Visions of the Old South,” New York Times, Sept. 13, 2009
In class we will examine some of the problems in the way slavery is handled in plantation house museum tours. We’ll consider the extent to which the patterns observed by Eichstedt and Small in their study of plantation tours in the 1990s hold true in today’s plantation tours.
November 4: Transforming Heritage Tourism: Gettysburg
For today, please read Jim Weeks, Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine. As directed in class, you should read your assigned section (either Phase One 1863-1884, Phase Two 1884-1920, or Phase Three 1920-1970) and Phase Four 1970-2000. Think about the ways in which the experience of the battle’s history in the earlier periods compared and contrasted with that in the most recent period.
October 30: The Preservationist’s Craft
Today Kara Hamley O’Donnell, preservation planner for the City of Cleveland Heights, will speak to us about her work in historic preservation. Come to class prepared to ask questions.
October 28: Historic Designation vs. Protection
The National Register is beginning to designate more and more suburban districts. Read my pending National Register nomination of Grant Deming’s Forest Hill Allotment Historic District, available on ECR. How did I make a case for the significance of the Forest Hill neighborhood in keeping with the National Register’s requirements? What kinds of evidence did I present to make the case? To help you in your assessment, also read http://www.nps.gov/nr/national_register_fundamentals.htm.
October 26: Case Studies in Historic Preservation
Read in Giving Preservation a History any FOUR chapters from chapters 4-10. In a comment to this blog post, you are invited to compare and contrast the nature of preservation in the four places about which you read. You must discuss all four places in your comment. Also, for class, be prepared to do an in-class writing exercise on the chapters you read.
October 23: The National Park Service
For today, read “The National Park Service: A Brief History” and “NPS Museums 1904-2004.” We will consider the changing role of the National Park Service as a public history institution with a particular focus on its roles as preserver and interpreter of the nation’s history.
October 21: The History of Historic Preservation
Read Giving Preservation a History, introduction and chapter 1. How did historic preservation change over time in the U.S.? Comment on the book’s treatment of this topic.
October 19: Sense of Place: Why Preservation Matters
Read Glassberg, Sense of History, Chapter 6 (Rethinking New England Town Character), and Howard, Buying Time for Heritage, Chapter 2 (Why Historic Preservation Matters) and Chapter 19 (The People of Preservation) (available on ECR). In class we will introduce the field of historic preservation by looking at how people form attachments to place and how these attachments shape attitudes toward what (or whether) to preserve. We’ll also think about the benefits of preservation and who can be a preservationist (and how). This introduction will set the stage for a series of class meetings that explore historic preservation historically and as a practice.
October 16: Digital Archives
Today the class will meet in CSU Special Collections, where Erin Bell (Project Coordinator for the Center for Public History and Digital Humanities) and Bill Barrow (Special Collections Librarian) will moderate a discussion of digital archives and digital humanities as emerging fields that connect historians, librarians, and archivists in ways that blur the boundaries between collecting and organizing archival materials and “doing” history. In preparation, read all of “Collecting History Online,” a section in Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web. (Note that this selection is different from the one originally assigned on the syllabus.)
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