As a seasonal park ranger with the National Park Service at Fort Necessity National Battlefield and Friendship Hill National Historic Site in southwestern Pennsylvania, I’ve had the opportunity to interpret early American history for park visitors. Fort Necessity is the site of the opening battle of the French and Indian War and that is the primary focus of the park, but the park also covers western expansion because of the 1830s-1840s tavern located on the property. Friendship Hill was the home of Albert Gallatin, US Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Although Fort Necessity certainly has its challenges in remaining relevant to modern publics and could re-examine some of its practices, the park’s military focus, link to George Washington, and favorable location along a busy highway help keep visitors coming. High visitation, of course, does not mean that the story presented is accessible to 21st-century audiences, but the need to become more relevant, in some cases, becomes more pressing and important if visitation is low or if funding is in question. As a small park that is well off the beaten path, Friendship Hill sometimes needs to make more of a case for the significance of Gallatin and his story.
There are many administrative and interpretive challenges at Friendship Hill, but I find there to be an interesting conflict taking place between the different audiences that visit the park and their specific needs. For many of the visitors, specifically those from outside of the local area, the park helps them understand why Albert Gallatin, a little-known historical figure to many, was incredibly important in his period, but this often makes it difficult to break free from the the “great white man” story. As a public historian, I see the importance of pushing beyond this narrative, but, in practice, we need our visitors to leave the park knowing why Gallatin was so nationally significant that we need a national park devoted to him. For local visitors, the park is challenged to with the issue of helping visitors to look at Gallatin as more than just someone for whom the local school district is named and instead see how Gallatin represents how western Pennsylvania fits within the context of US history. While all visitors could benefit from a more inclusive telling of the past, local visitors could especially benefit from additional efforts to make Gallatin’s story more relevant to modern-day publics. They could see Gallatin’s story as the story of western Pennsylvania and then learn more about how the region was affected by happenings on a national level and also how the region shaped national events.
One advantage that Friendship Hill can claim from Gallatin’s relatively little-known status is that we have the opportunity to push the boundaries of the “great white man” narrative to tackle the issue of relevancy because we are not up against the perceptions and myths of Gallatin’s past that sometimes surround other historical figures and may prevent visitors from looking more at the individual and their time period. Another advantage enjoyed by Friendship Hill is that Gallatin left a sizeable correspondence record that not only allows us to learn more about his life, but can also to fill in the gaps to see what life was like in the late 18th and early 19th century in western Pennsylvania. The regional history can benefit from Gallatin’s significance in this way, so park staff must help to pull those stories out so the Friendship Hill story is a more inclusive story of Gallatin, his family, business partners, estate and business employees, and political constituents.
When, as public historians, we begin to think about how we can bring these other stories to life and how to make more explicit the connections between the past and present, we often want to use the newest available techniques. While we can use new technologies and techniques to build the relationship between the people and stories we interpret and the visitors today, we sometimes tend to neglect some of the most basic aspects of interpretation that call for public historians to look to simple intangible concepts and meanings to draw connections between resource and audience. Of course, we need to build more complex interpretive points and encourage thoughtful reflection, but we can’t forget to address those foundational concepts first. This seems like an incredibly easy technique and many sites do it well, but I find that I’m guilty of over complicating interpretation and would benefit from the reminder to keep referring to the basics. Friendship Hill, for example, has an interesting connection to immigration history as Gallatin was a native of Geneva, now part of Switzerland, and traveled to the US at a young age. As a starting point for interpretation, we could make connection between Gallatin’s immigrant story and concepts of opportunity, adventure, belonging, and community. From there, interpreters can draw connections to how people in western Pennsylvania could have felt when moving to the frontier and how they struggled with feeling like they were part of the new nation, evident in the Whiskey Rebellion, an event in which Gallatin played a large role in supporting the protests of western citizens. This, of course, is just one example, but demonstrates how going “back to basics” can be used to draw connections to relevancy and contemporary issues of immigration, trade, gender, racism, and more. While we need to make sure we utilize basic interpretive techniques, I also believe in new technologies to help with the application of our interpretation. Much has been said about new technologies, but more can be done on how augmented reality can be utilized at historic sites, especially early American sites, especially with the popularity of PokemonGo last summer. Can we find better ways for visitors of immerse themselves in early American history, perhaps with programs that allow them to use their phones to scan an area and “see” how the landscape may have looked centuries ago? Can they interact with people from the past like they interacted with Pokemon in the game (instead of trapping them in Pokeballs, they could “catch” them by “meeting” these figures and learning about their lives)? There are likely sites out there working on this technology, but how can we make this sort of program available to sites with budget and resource restrictions? Many sites also have interactive Q&A programs with digital versions of historical figures. These can be very effective as visitors can choose exactly how they want to interact with the past, but there are financial and technological challenges that accompany the utilization of such programs.
In conclusion, connections can be drawn to contemporary issues such as environmentalism, immigration, trade, gender, and racism, but interpreters, especially at early American sites, need to refer to intangible concepts to make the link more personal and the past more accessible and “real.” New technologies, such as augmented reality applications, can help carry this interpretation further and allow visitors to interact with sites in ways that are comfortable for them and in their control, but we need to be more creative in how we can develop apps and programs that can be utilized by sites facing technological and financial limitations.
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