Tag Archive

exhibitions

Disturbing Justice: legacies of incarceration at the Old Idaho Penitentiary

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The Old Idaho Penitentiary was the site of seven riots and disturbances and some of the structural damage from these actions is still evident today. For years, the exhibits and signage on display at the Old Idaho Penitentiary Historic Site never discussed the riots, so in early 2019 it was determined that the site’s latest exhibit should explain the damage still visible to visitors, contextualize the actions of prisoners and administrators, and connect historical situations in corrections to current affairs. Read More

Community, Public History, and the Failure of the Whaling Ship Progress

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The importance of community undergirds nearly every corner and crevice of public history. From spatial communities bound by common geography to cultural communities of shared identity and lifeways, we almost instinctively understand that museums, archives, oral history projects, and other public history products require community engagement and engagement with communities. Read More

Let’s Go Shopping: Stories of Yesteryear Q&A

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Editor’s Note: Our digital media editor Nicole Belolan primarily grew up in rural Pennsylvania, about a 45-minute drive from Wilkes-Barre. As a child, she remembers going frequently to the Wilkes-Barre mall since shopping was limited in her smaller community. When she read about the programming and exhibition at the Luzerne County Historical Society about Wilkes-Barre’s history as a shopping destination, she wanted to learn more. Read More

Project Showcase: Playing with Innovation

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When most people think of computer games they imagine something electronic with far more sophistication than the cardboard and plastic games played around a kitchen table. An ongoing exhibit hosted by the Sarnoff Collection at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey takes visitors back to a time when computer games had far more in common with Monopoly than with Minecraft. Read More

Public history on Broadway (Part 2)

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My recent review of the Georgia Social Studies Standards, as part of my work at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education, galvanized my desire to reflect on the importance of the Broadway musical, Allegiance, which tells the story in fictionalized form of George Takei’s family’s experience in internment camps during World War II. Read More