Tag Archive
01 June 2017 – Will Walker
As I made my way through the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s five floors of exhibitions, it was the museum’s effective use of objects to convey both individual and collective narratives and big ideas about history that most impressed me. Read More
30 May 2017 – Will Walker 4
The first time I tried to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture, my friends and I got only as far as the grassy area on the Constitution Ave. side of the building. Less than a month after the museum’s grand opening in September 2016, the feeling around the David Adjaye-designed masterpiece that Sunday was electric. Read More
25 May 2017 – David Rotenstein 1
In the 1990s, Silver Spring, Maryland, was desperate for economic investment and an image makeover. Next door to Washington, D.C., the Montgomery County suburb had suffered from two decades of disinvestment and white flight. Once a thriving community with a booming commercial district and sprawling inner-ring suburban neighborhoods, Silver Spring had become blighted by vacant storefronts and empty parking lots. Read More
18 May 2017 – Betsy Newman 1
For the last five years, South Carolina ETV, the state’s public television network, has been experimenting with ways to tell the story of a 16,000-acre undeveloped property called Hobcaw Barony. Hobcaw, from a Native American word meaning “between the waters,” has a long history of human occupation that stretches from Native American settlement through slavery and Reconstruction to the twentieth century, when it became the winter hunting retreat of financier Bernard Baruch. Read More
08 March 2017 – Judith Jennings 2
“If you just pussy foot around and try to be safe, you won’t get anything done, and they’ll still fire you. Might as well accomplish all you can.”
Sentiments like these earned Helen Matthews Lewis the title of an unruly woman. Read More
22 February 2017 – Elizabeth Belanger
Over the past weeks my project colleagues have provided glimpses into public history’s “Radical Roots.” In these posts, key figures and sites have emerged: Gene Weltfish at the American Civilization Institute of Morristown, the campers and counselors at Camp Woodland , and Louis Jones at Cooperstown Graduate Program. Read More
17 February 2017 – Melissa Marietta
On November 9th, I put my kids on the bus and cried in the shower. I was embarrassed by my own visceral reaction to the news of the election and tried to recover for my day in the office. What I soon discovered, however, was that I was not alone in my shock, grief and anger. Read More
15 February 2017 – Rachel Donaldson 6
How closely is public history tied to academic history? Judging by the historiography of public history, it would seem that the answer to that is “very”; after all, the generally accepted view is that the field came into its own in the 1970s directed by formally trained academic historians. Read More
12 December 2016 – Levi Fox 2
Public historians are occasionally presented with opportunities to engage in projects relevant not just to our local communities, but of immediate importance to the entire country. Last summer, Donald J. Trump’s nomination as the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, combined with the decision to close Atlantic City’s Trump Taj Mahal in the midst of a labor strike, offered me just such an opportunity. Read More
01 November 2016 – Adina Langer
Last Sunday, October 23, 2016, marked the opening of Georgia Journeys: Legacies of World War II , a new permanent exhibit at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University. The opening reception brought together educators and the interested public with nine of the twelve veterans, home front workers, and Holocaust survivors featured in the exhibit. Read More