Sunday, September 27, 2009

A French actor, speaking German, playing an indian...

...all to feel attached to history.


While standing at the front desk at work the other day, I witnessed something I had yet to see in my tenure at the park: visitors (not volunteers, not reenactors, not there for an event) dressed in revolutionary clothing to come visit the park. This is apparently a fairly common thing at Gettysburg, as relayed to a friend who worked at the Eisenhower NHS for a summer. The visitors come all decked out in their appropriate clothing, although they are mostly a little 'farby' and I'm sure the 'real' re-enactors look down upon them.
Now, as the girl who gets back into her civvies as fast as possible when done at days up at Muhlenberg, this desire to walk around in slightly ill fitting, seemingly never fully clean clothes for giggles evades me. However, as enlightened by Kim/Jamal, this apparently provides people with some sense of belonging or attachment. While vafo is probably (I hope) more tame than your average ren faire get together, I would imagine the feeling of camaraderie still applies. Wearing a tri-corn hat makes them feel like they are connected to or are participating in the time period or event they are clothed for. I don't think this understanding will ever make me want to go out in public like that without pay, but I at least have a slightly better understanding.

(I diss on living history a lot, but I must admit, I would have much much better posture if someone made me wear stays every day. Back support without suffocation? Count me in)

One issue that arises from this, and living history/reenacting in general, is something not addressed by Kim/Jamal is whether this is making a mockery of history. Are these people searching for authenticity or are they belittling a very serious issue? For rev war/civil reenacting people are almost always portraying soldiers. Is the interest a matter of honoring those that died or suffered for a cause or is it a matter of demeaning something so serious as war and death? Do Rev/Civil war re-enactors feel like they are honoring because the event is so far in the past (and so deep in myth/legend), while WWII re-enactors (oh yes, they exist) are trying to remember the not so distant, bitterly disasterous and still very influential part of the world's history (for which the US, arguably, payed the smallest toll)? Do we only start to reenact things that are pretty and shiny and so deeply entrenched in our nations myths? Is that why Germans insist on re-enacting ridiculous mishmashes of Native Americans (a concept for which German does not have a word), because their main narrative only involves the stories of Winnetou and the books of Karl May?

I don't necessarily have an answer to that. I am inclined to lean towards demeaning. We only seem to reenact the traumatic parts of history that have shiny presents. Is that honoring a memory or belittling those forgotten? I don't have answers to these questions, but they are good things to think about.
















(The few times I saw these guys at the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, they had a didgeridoo. As in the Austrialian aboriginal instrument. It was fascinating.)

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Readings: September 21 or undergrad stats class finally pays off

I will probably expend my entire posting for this week's readings (as well as possibly a couple other posts in the future) about the Rosenzweig and Thelen reading. The essays/chapters were also informative and sometimes fun, but I found the larger text perhaps the most fascinating and the most thought provoking.

The authors' use the argument that Americans do not care or do not know about history as their jumping off point for their research, a point they disprove. Despite the convincing data presented in support, I think their interpretation of the original concept is slightly off. Rosenzweig quotes an address from the AHA in 1989, regarding the ignorance of americans towards history. I think that the president of the AHA was not stressing so much the idea that Americans are devoid of general historical knowledge or interest thereof, which is what R/T argue, but that they are ignorant of or uninterested in the prescribed historical narrative which any publicly educated American would have been introduced to (An ignorance R/T explain through the disdain/disinterest in history as taught in schools). They demonstrate that people are interested in history, but the respondents do not necessarily exhibit knowledge of that prescribed narrative. This then begs the question of is the currently prescribed narrative something that should continue to be propagated? Does the narrative that is repeated in the school system need to be changed to be more accessible, possibly stressing more interesting/accessible individual and collective histories as apposed to the chronological narrative now presented? What are the goals of continuing this narrative, and what would be the disadvantages to changing it? I would be interested to see if there would be different responses to capital H History (read: the stuff in school) if this survey was given again, given the purposeful changes in school history pedagogy and curriculum over the last 20 or so years.

Thelen and Rosenweig support Becker's claim that everyone is a historian, but construct a more concrete outline than Becker. The answers and data derived from the respondents demonstrate that the public does function within standard historiography frame works that dominate the history profession. For instance, the public worry about bias, sources, trustworthiness, impact and collective vs. individual histories. All things that any academic historian worries themselves with. However, Thelen/Roswenzweig also provide some argument for why professional historians are necessary, but stress that they need to function somewhat within the framework in which the public is working.

and I still did do my readings at work this week, but I brought my camera along, and caught a surprise outside while working/reading at Washington's Headquarters. British Fusiliers come to Vafo once a year. It's a treat for both the visitors and the staff, and makes the day a little more fun. But not for any feelings of existential authenticity.



Sunday, September 13, 2009

Readings for September 14th

So this week we tackled the intro to the Lowell Experiment, a speech to the AHA in 1931 and Ian Tyrrell's Historians in Public.

Stanton's text has the potential to be very intriguing. I am very interested if her frame of Lowell's mission and tours provides reasonable support for her arguments regarding the methods of doing public history and Lowell's performance therein. I am concerned that the frame may not be the best fit and may not allow for her argument to fully develop. Or that her theory is good, but Lowell NHS may not be the best place to implement it. One of my current co-workers worked at Lowell during Stanton's research there (Stanton even took a couple of her tours) and I am excited to compare Stanton's analysis to her experience at the park.

Becker and Tyrrel's pieces present a good starting place for our discussion of public history. Becker's argument that history as a discipline will 'disappear' unless academics realize how to integrate the academic into the public is an interesting one. Whether or not he intended it to be so dramatic an idea, or just trying to get historians thinking in a broader way (this was an address as the president of the AHA, after all), I'm not sure. In any case, Becker presented many observations that are central to both academic and public history,such as his discussion of the present interpretation of history being the facts that are currently considered truths, while that which has been discarded are those facts which have been deemed false or incorrect, and the constant fluidity of such defining ideas.

Tyrrell approaches history in public in a similar manner to Becker, in so much as history and its practice being fluid. Tyrrel frames his discussion of history in public and public history (a difference which probably requires a separate post to discuss) in the realm of the academic. He does this for a reason, noting that academics although hidden in the hallowed ivy covered halls, move in the same direction as public desires and pressures and that they are not intrinsically separate worlds with completely separate methods, practices and applications (pg 138). He also touches on the swing of American history from the super specialized to the all encompassing, and follows history's inclusion in the public realm through its trends of highly specialized to broad interpretations and research. He leaves us with the question of where these the public will take academic history (and vice versa) and where the pendulum of historical practice is going next.

If nothing else, this week's readings taught me that I should probably refrain from doing my public history reading while at work. It becomes far too overstimulating (I want to try to apply things I've read and see what works), and sometimes far too cooincidental. While reading Tyrrel's section on the incorporation of history cirriculum in schooling (particularly the arguments that between the world wars the american youth barely knew anything of their own nations history), an american student in university asked me "what is the american revolution?" (and not in the methaphorical sense, either). Such events are prime examples of why history education, both in its academic and public forms, is so very important to have and to investigate.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Introduction!

This blog will function as a sounding board for thoughts, ideas, projects and other such things for the Managing History/Public History course at Temple University (also possible are tangentially related, still appropriate but not official remarks regarding my related employment, depending what tickles my fancy).
My interest in public history stems from my work as a season ranger at Valley Forge National Historical Park, part of the NPS. Even though I am fairly low on the totem pole, I still am actively involved in the production and interpretation of history for the general park visiting public. I work within the Interpretive division meaning providing the visitor with information about what they are seeing in a meaningful and accessible way. Interpreting the park and the history of the American Revolution in an accessible way presents itself as a constant challenge. While the NPS has interpretive guidelines and the individual parks have missions within which to work, each ranger is responsible for developing individual programs tailored to and accessible to a wide range of audiences, knowledge bases and of course, interest levels. This needs to integrate the contemporary AND past academic historiography and interpretations with the goals of the NPS in a way that informs but also slightly challenges the public. I have grappled with this for every program I have written, which often are met with great appreciation and interest, but sometimes faced with the dreaded blank states. Despite being so engaged with practice of public history, I have no concrete definition, guidance or real idea of how what I do on a daily basis got to be what it is. Hopefully through this course work I can find those answers, as well as inform my own work through the varying interpretations, reading, projects and discussions we will engage.

NOTE: The opinions, statements, notes, etc mentioned in this blog regarding the NPS are NOT official NPS/Vafo policy unless noted through citation of the official NPS policy, either through direction to written documents or citation of electronic texts or websites. Discussion of policy will be extremely limited, but it will be objective, academic discussion which relates to my course work or which will positively enhance my academic or professional careers. This blog is written as a member of the public, not in any official capacity as an employee of the NPS.