Author Archives: Olivia Best

Public history this week was a lot of listening and learning from my classmates, something that I wholly enjoy doing. Even those who had chosen the same monument managed to add unique insights and observations to their presentations. I loved seeing everyone get excited about the information they had uncovered through their research. I alwaysContinue reading “Week Fourteen”

I found this week’s case studies on sites of conscience to be very moving and uplifting. We read articles about the Tenement Museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the Terezín Memorial, and the District Six Museum in South Africa. At some points the readings even had me crying! Another thing that really stuck out toContinue reading “Week Thirteen”

This week in Public History we discussed practices for interpreting and presenting history that may cause the audience to experience a difficult encounter. While we were talking about the program at Conner Prairie, Follow the North Star, we raised the question of age limits in programs that contain sensitive information. For the program, Follow theContinue reading “Week Twelve”

In public history this week, we returned to business as usual by discussing controversial history. We looked at examples surrounding the portrayal of wars through the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and the difficulty of approaching the topic of racism and slavery through Natchez, Mississippi’s yearly spring Pilgrimage eventContinue reading “Week 11”

It seems that much of the world has had to rethink their everyday life due to the Corona virus outbreak, and our Public History class, as well as the whole of Loyola, did not escape that. Through the stress of packing up my dorm, the sadness of saying goodbye to my friends, and the anxietyContinue reading “Week Ten”

This week’s reading of Confederates in the Attic brings up the issue of commercialization and preservation of historical sites. Chapter 10 of this book is titled “The Civil Wargasm” and chronicles the trip author Tony Horwitz makes with his friend and reenactor aficionado, Robert Lee Hodge, to various Civil War battle sites and other placesContinue reading “Week Nine”

Although I physically was not present in our usual Public History meeting space, I was still in the classroom of Public History that is the general public. I had the opportunity this week to travel to Denver, Colorado for the 60th NACA (National Association for Campus Activities) conference. I did not go with the intentionContinue reading “Week Seven”

This week’s discussion on Chapter 5 of Confederate’s in the Attic on the death of Michael Westerman really caused me to reflect on the racial and political climate in the area where I grew up — especially in terms of the use of and meaning attributed to the Confederate flag. I grew up on theContinue reading “Week Six”

In Intro to Public History this week, we submitted our exhibit reviews and began reading chapters from Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. The exhibit that I visited for my review was the Newberry Library’s exhibit on the life and work of Jun Fujita, a Japanese-American poet and photojournalist during the 19th century. AfterContinue reading “Week Five”

For Tuesday of this week, we were assigned readings that discussed how to ethically present exhibits containing knowledge that is difficult (usually emotionally) to process. I am not sure to what extent we will be dealing with difficult knowledge in our final projects, but nonetheless it is an appropriate and important lesson to learn asContinue reading “Week Four”