Posts Tagged ‘history’
The Woodlands Historic Mansion, Cemetery and Landscape in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
On March 23, 2012, public history and museum studies graduate students, along with emerging professionals in these fields, participated in the second annual Public History Community Forum. Held at the Woodlands Historic Mansion, Cemetery and Landscape in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, PubComm12 featured a number of behind-the-scenes tours, a panel of professional public historians, and lively discussion.
Far left: Jim Mundy, Board President for the Woodlands Cemetery Company
Jim Mundy, Board President for the Woodlands Cemetery Company and Director of the Library and Historical Collections at The Union League, provided a brief history of the site, including its transformation from an expansive private estate and innovative garden to its current status as a National Historic Landmark and active cemetery. PubComm12 attendees broke off into four tours led by staff members; a house tour, a cemetery tour, a landscape tour, and a special “director’s tour” with Executive Director of The Woodlands, Jessica Baumert.
From Left: Robert Lukens, Sarah Rutman, Jessica Baumert, John Petit, Charles Hardy III, Ross Brakman, Sarah Hagarty
After the group reconvened, the panel discussion “Paths to Success” began. Seven professionals from the Mid-Atlantic region offered advice based on their experiences as students and emerging professionals; Jessica Baumert, Executive Director of the Woodlands; John Pettit, Assistant Archivist at the Urban Archives at Temple University; Ross Brakman, Field Study Coordinator for the American Institute for History Education; Sarah Hagarty, Coordinator of Educational Resources and Initiatives at the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation; Robert Lukens, President of the Chester County Historical Society; Sarah Rutman, Assistant Registrar and Conservator at the New Jersey State Museum; and Charles Hardy, III, History Professor at West Chester University, Oral and Public History Documentarian, Historical Consultant, and Supervising Historian for ExplorePAHistory.com. An eighth panelist, Lyndsey Brown-Frigm, Executive Director of the Jacobsburg Historical Society was unable to attend.
Approximately 40 students and professionals attended this year's event
The panel was followed by a question and answer period, during which the approximately forty attendees asked the panelists and each other about coursework, internships, and career goals. As the discussion continued, the importance of networks and willing sacrifice emerged, as did the sense that it pays to keep our eyes open, as opportunities may present themselves outside institutions or the academy.
Ideas for next year’s Public History Community Forum are already coming in. Suggestions include hands-on workshops for resume or grant writing, “speed mentoring,” and a ThatCamp inspired “wild card” session that attendees vote on the day of the event.
Part of PubComm’s goals is fostering a public history community and providing opportunities for graduate students and emerging professionals in the region. As such, PubComm12 was organized by a committee comprised of graduate students and recent graduates from La Salle University, Temple University, and Rutgers-Camden.
PubComm12 was made possible by the support of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities at Rutgers-Camden, and the guidance of Dr. Charlene Mires and Dr. Robert Kodosky.
Photo Credits: Adam Clements and Molly Dixon
On Monday, February 13, 2012, President Barack Obama awarded the 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal. National History Day, a year-long academic program that encourages 6th to 12th grade students to engage in hands-on historical research, was awarded the 2011 National Humanities Medal. The offices of National History Day are based at the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Cathy Gorn, executive director of NHD, accepted the award on behalf of the NHD staff, board and honorary advisory council.
National History Day had its beginnings at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, but now operates in all fifty states, Washington D.C., U.S. territories. There are international endeavors as well, with expansion into Europe, China, Indonesia, and South Korea. In all, the program serves more than half a million children each year.
NHD culminates each year in a national competition held each June at the University of Maryland at College Park.
Read more about the program at National History Day.
A full list of recipients and their achievements is available at whitehouse.gov.
The American Historical Association announced its 2011 awards, prices and honors at its 126th annual meeting. We extend our congratulations to all the recipients, noting especially winners from the Mid-Atlantic region:
Michael A. Reynolds, Princeton University: George Louis Beer Prize, for his book, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908–1918 (Cambridge University Press).
Established by a bequest from George Beer, a historian of the British colonial system before 1765, this prize is offered annually in recognition of outstanding historical writing in European international history since 1895. This year, two outstanding works are being honored.
Carol Benedict, Georgetown University: John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History, for her book, Golden-Silk Smoke: A History of Tobacco in China, 1550–2010(University of California Press).
Established in 1968 by friends of John K. Fairbank, the prize is an annual award offered for an outstanding book in the history of China proper, Vietnam, Chinese Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or Japan since the year 1800.
Alan M. Stahl, Princeton University, and Independent Scholars Pamela O. Long and David McGee, J. Franklin Jameson Prize for their volume, The Book of Michael of Rhodes: A Fifteenth-Century Maritime Manuscript, 3 vols. (MIT Press).
Established in 1980, this prize is awarded every five years for outstanding achievement in the editing of historical sources. The prize is named in honor of J. Franklin Jameson, a founder of the Association and longtime managing editor of the American Historical Review.
Jonathon Glassman, Northwestern University, Martin A. Klein Prize for his book, War of Words, War of Stones: Racial Thought and Violence in Colonial Zanzibar (Indiana University Press).
Awarded for the second time, the Klein Prize recognizes the most distinguished work of scholarship on African history published in English during the previous year. Focusing primarily on continental Africa (including those islands usually treated as countries of Africa), books on any period of African history and from any disciplinary field that incorporates an historical perspective are eligible. The prize committee pays particular attention to methodological innovation, conceptual originality, literary excellence, and reinterpretation of old themes or development of new theoretical perspectives.
Michael Cook, Princeton University, Waldo G. Leland Prize, editor The New Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge University Press).
The Leland Prize is offered every five years for an outstanding reference tool in the field of history.
Michael R. Ebner, Syracuse University, Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History, for his book Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy (Cambridge University Press).
Established in 1973, the Marraro Prize is offered annually for the best work in any epoch of Italian history, Italian cultural history, or Italian-American relations.
Donald R. Kelley, Rutgers University—New Brunswick, AHA Award for Scholarly Distinction.
In 1984 the Council of the American Historical Association established a new award entitled the American Historical Association Award for Scholarly Distinction. Each year a nominating jury—composed of the president, president-elect, and immediate past president—recommends to the Council of the Association up to three names for the award. Nominees are senior historians of the highest distinction in the historical profession who have spent the bulk of their professional careers in the United States.
James Billington, Librarian of Congress, Troyer Steele Anderson Prize.
At its December 27, 1963, meeting, the AHA Council established this prize endowed by a bequest from Frank Maloy Anderson, a longtime AHA member. The prize was to be awarded every ten years beginning in 1970 to the person whom the Council of the Association considered to have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the purposes of the Association during the preceding ten years. In 1990, the Council and the Professional Division reviewed the history of the prize and approved several recommendations, including awarding the prize at least every five years to recognize service to the profession. More recently, the Professional Division agreed to award the prize on a regular basis to honor AHA members’ contributions to the Association.
Alfred Goldberg, former director of the Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Herbert Feis Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public History.
Established in 1984, this prize is offered annually to recognize distinguished contributions to public history during the previous ten years. The prize is named in memory of Herbert Feis (1893–1972), public servant and historian of recent American foreign policy, with an initial endowment from the Rockefeller Foundation. The prize was originally given for books produced by historians working outside of academe. From 2006, the scope of the award is widened to include other types of public history work.
The terms of the award now define both “contribution” and “public history” broadly. Contributions could, for example, include work as the administrator of a public history group or agency (such as a historical society, a historic site, or a community history project) or as the creator or producer of a public history product or products (such as a museum exhibit, radio script, website, oral history collection, or film).
Elizabeth Blackmar, Columbia University, Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award.
In recognition of her exceptional role as a teacher, scholar, and committed member of the historical profession, and on the occasion of her seventy-fifth birthday, friends, colleagues, and former students established the Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award to recognize and encourage mentoring in the historical profession. The special quality of mentorship is the human quality in teaching, revealed in commitment to the value of the study of history and the love of teaching it to students, regardless of age or career goals. It carries with it a personal commitment by the mentor to the student as a person. The award is operated on a three-year cycle: graduate, undergraduate, and precollegiate. The 2011 honor is awarded to an undergraduate mentor.
New York Public Library, Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History, for their digital archive What’s on the Menu?.
The Rosenzweig Prize is sponsored jointly by the AHA and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It was developed by friends and colleagues of Roy Rosenzweig (1950–2007), the Mark and Barbara Fried Professor of History and New Media at George Mason University, to honor his life and work as a pioneer in the field of digital history. The prize will be awarded annually to honor and support work on an innovative and freely available new media project, and in particular for work that reflects thoughtful, critical, and rigorous engagement with technology and the practice of history.
Visit the AHA website for complete descriptions of the awards and the entire list of winners.
Last month I pondered the inequity between the support art organizations receive as compared to public history ones. I hope it led some of you to check into what the numbers are in your own state. When I first found out not only was state funding so disparate in Maryland but that the offices overseeing the distribution of that funding were in such different parts of the government, I was surprised and puzzled. Why is the arts council under the auspices of the Department of Business and Economic Development, Division of Tourism, Film and the Arts, when the historical trust is placed in the Office of Planning?
This indicates to me a couple of things. One, that the state recognizes the arts have a place in its overall efforts to encourage business, mostly I think through encouraging film makers to bring their productions to the state. The other is that there is some sort of disconnect between the value of history to tourism and the economy. Here in Maryland, and I wager in your states, we hear a lot about heritage tourism. Those in the tourism industry say people who are mainly interested in historical activities and in visiting historic sites and museums not only spend more money than average tourists, but also stay longer. So wouldn’t it make sense to place the agency representing those sites that are so attractive to tourists under the Division of Tourism as well?
But enough about state funding. What about public perception? After all, we non-profits get most of our money from donations by individuals, memberships and contributions from private foundations and businesses. I’ve brought up the topic of unequal monetary support with colleagues and friends to see what they had to say. In a very unscientific review of the issue, I found that among the general public (those who aren’t in “the business” ) there is little distinction between art museums and history museums – they consider both to belong under the heading “arts & culture.” Unfortunately, in reality the culture in arts & culture rarely includes history.
Among the general public, as well as among my artist friends and art-related non-profit counterparts, the fact that history isn’t at least funded the same as them, if not better, comes as a surprise. I still remember the incredulous look on the face of the executive director of one arts organization to whom I mentioned this disparity. We have all heard of the “starving artist” but “starving public historians” are real but not recognized.
I’ve heard a number of theories as to why the arts are funded, on the whole, at a much higher level than history. Some have said it is the prestige. Getting to go to glitzy galas, hobnobbing with wealthy art collectors, opera aficionados and symphony supporters, help to elevate one’s perception of one’s position in the community. Supporting the arts brings a civilizing effect to the community. I think that might be part of it, but I also think it has a lot to do with money and fame. After all, if you support a theater you never know if one of the actors will become a Hollywood star, if you support a film festival one of those film makers just might be another Steven Spielberg, that starving artist just might be the next Andy Warhol. When did you last hear of a millionaire historian?
On November 7, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis will designate Great Falls in Paterson, New Jersey as America’s 397th National Park. The city of Paterson has donated four tracts of land around the Great Falls for this purpose. The National Park Service will hold a series of public meetings this month to identify stakeholders and determine their vision for the park. The full press release is available by clicking here.
The process began in 2009, when President Obama signed legislation authorizing the NPS to establish a historic site in Paterson, NJ. The site is meant to celebrate Paterson as the nation’s first planned industrial city, and includes the ruins of a number of industrial ruins known as the Allied Textile Printing site. There is $450,000 in federal funds available to facilitate the planning process.
(www.northjersey.com)
I decided in high school that I wanted to study history and use it in the museum field. This was at a time when there were few museum studies programs around and, at least in my small high school in western Pennsylvania, little guidance to how to go about getting work in museums. I grew up around antiques, my mom called her decorating style “early attic,” and I understood in a general sense that objects connect us to history.
During my undergraduate years I started to investigate museums and who worked there and I discovered a diverse population. What puzzled me at the time was how few people had degrees in history, even though they worked in history museums. I was perplexed. How are you supposed to express accurate historical information to the public if you don’t know how to judge what comes from reliable sources or know how to do scholarly historical research? This is what concerned me in my early years.
Unidentified woman c.1910 in c.1850s clothing, photograph by Charles Byerly of Frederick Md. Collection of the Historical Society of Frederick County.
With the growth of museum studies programs within or associated with university history departments, my concerns over the application of proper historical methods have been, for the most part, relieved. But now I have another nagging issue. What about connoisseurship? In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was called being an antiquarian. It is the deep knowledge about the material culture of the past that comes from studying and collecting objects.
Talking to friends who’ve matriculated in museum studies and perusing the course offerings and requirements from a randomly selected sample of museum studies programs, I note the absence of anything resembling lessons in material culture. I also found it interesting that two of the most well known and noted museum studies programs, the Cooperstown Graduate Program and the University of Delaware/Winterthur program have extensive offerings of courses relating to the study of material culture.
I’m not saying that the courses in museum ethics, collections management, exhibition creation, etc. offered by museum studies programs are not needed. Indeed, they certainly are. However, I see the potential for these programs turning out people who may have a strong grasp of methodology, policy and theory but have no idea how to tell if the federal style side chair they just received as a donation is from an early 19th century craftsman’s workshop or from Ethan Allen .
You might say, not all museum studies students will become curators, some will go into registration, education, or management. I can argue that material culture knowledge is important in all of these positions regardless of whether you end up working at the Met or in a small local history museum. After all, the vast majority of history museums exist to collect, preserve and interpret the material culture of the past. When you get down to it, it is all about the stuff. If you don’t have the tools to identify and authenticate objects or to express why the objects are significant and valuable to our shared historical experience, what will visitors to your museum learn?
