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 always dislike when people feel bad for getting excited about their findings; I honestly think it makes a presentation more interesting when presenters are enthusiastic. I always want to say: You put in a lot of hard work to find all of that information and put it together, I am so glad that you enjoyed it and get to share your joy with us! 

I chose to research the Theodore Thomas memorial, also known as the Spirit of Music, located in Grant Park. Initially I knew nothing about Theodore Thomas and what he had done to deserve a statue in his honor. I was drawn to the monument through its title; “The Spirit of Music” sounded very mystical and I also just love music in general. However, what really got me interested was when I saw a photo of the monument. The statue was neither depicting Thomas himself nor was it all together not human in form. Looking through the pictures, I realized that there was a lot of deeper meaning to be found in the feminine, yet also masculine,  human figure. I had a lot of fun delving into its symbolism and history. 

This week marks the second to last week of the semester and the last ever blog post. This semester has been a whirlwind and required us to engage in the flexibility necessary for a career in public history. I am sad that this class is coming close to an end, as I have learned a lot from not only the class materials, but also from the intellect and discourse with my classmates. While I am not as interested in working in a public history setting as some of my classmates, the public history practices that I have learned in this class will be very practical if I go on to do work in a Public Library as I hope. Besides the way this class connects to my future career aspirations, I think it is generally good to understand how to be empathetic and sensitive to the history and backgrounds of others. I was really anxious about this class in the beginning, and I am so glad that I chose to stick with it!

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 to me in these readings and which I mentioned briefly in our class discussion, was the intersection between public history and collective action. I mentioned that I am taking a communications class on social movement theory and I wanted to use this week’s blog as an opportunity to apply some of those concepts more clearly to my particular reading on the Tenement Museum. 

Some concepts that I thought were really applicable were the idea of class consciousness, consciousness raising and network formation. Class consciousness is when a person or group of people begin to identify the privileges and disadvantages they are subjected to based on their class or social position, and work for one’s class interests. It is similar to consciousness raising in which a person obtains a growing awareness of how an aspect of their identity shapes their life. Consciousness raising is also the term used to describe when you attempt to bring attention to a particular cause or issue. Network formation is pretty self explanatory; it is the culmination and creation of relationships between individuals and institutions who each have a different skill, perspective, or resource to contribute to a movement. 

In choosing to bring awareness to the current plight of immigrants through the historical context of immigrants who lived in the Tenements in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Tenement Museum engaged in consciousness raising. In order to combat romanticization of the past and glorification of the struggles of early immigrants, the Tenement Museum began to hire recent immigrants to connect their immigration story with those who lived in the apartment building. Those who sympathized with early immigrants yet believed recent immigrants to be in the wrong hopefully were able to see that immigrants have similar experiences and endure similar conditions throughout history therefore broadening their empathy to include contemporary immigrants. This change in thinking was really fostered through their “Kitchen Conversations” which is a post-tour program for visitors to have dialogue. 

Their program “Shared Journeys” creates a space for new immigrants to explore “the connections between the stories of the residents of 97 Orchard Street and the challenges faced by immigrant communities today.” (pg 48) Participants are obviously well aware of the struggles and disadvantages they are subjected to, but seeing their struggles reflected in historical context alongside others with whom they share experiences could help to connect it directly with their social status as an immigrant and see themselves as part of a network. The program includes adult ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes in which they are given vocabulary lists containing words that will help them advocate for their community. Through this they can engage in class consciousness by working towards the interest of their “class” or community. They also create a network of immigrants who have in common knowledge from the class and can share their own personal knowledge of resources and skills. When they go into their community and talk about what they learned in the program, they are adding to a network of individuals who are equipped with resources to fight against inequality and unjust conditions.

Links to sources: Buechler – Understanding Social Movements and Castells – Networks of Outrage and Hope

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 the North Star, the age requirement states that you must be a minimum of twelves years old. While we talked about how we would theoretically alter the program to be more suitable for kids under twelve, Sarah brought up the point that children often have difficult experiences that we may wish to shield them from at young ages, yet they are capable in those moments to understand and process what they are dealing with.  

This conversation reminded me of the experiment Jane Elliott, a former educator in the Iowa school system, developed and conducted first with her third-grade students and later with a variety of ages and organizations. In the experiment, students are divided by eye color, blue or brown, and whichever color is chosen to be the disadvantaged group has privileges taken away during the day. Both eye color groups got to experience either end of the privilege-discrimination spectrum while still being very aware that it was just an experiment. They fully felt the frustration, anger, and sadness of discrimination while being capable of understanding that their teacher and classmates still cared for them and would treat them nicely when the experiment reached its conclusion.  At the end of the experiment, all of the students had been taught an important lesson on racism and discrimination. In the documentary A Class Divided, students who had gone through the experiment in 1970 reconvened for a 15 year class reunion. All of them recall the feelings incited by experiencing discrimination based on something they could not help all of those years later. They discussed how the experience changed the way they treated others for the rest of their lives, and even how it has affected their child rearing methods. 

We have often tried to measure in class the impact a program might have had on the audience and whether that impact was long lasting or a fleeting feeling. In this case, I think that implementing something like Jane Elliott’s experiment into programs like Follow the North Star would be a good way to include a younger audience. The experiment obviously has a long lasting impact when experienced at a younger age. It’s success in various workplace training implies that the experiment does not lose its impact upon being adapted to suit a shorter period of time. With some creative thinking, the experiment could be tweaked to reflect the content of the public history program and allow for the inclusion of a younger audience who would benefit from perspective-building experiences just as much as older audiences.

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 event and the Library of Congress’ failed exhibit “Back of the Big House: The Cultural Landscape of the Plantation.” Out of the three readings we had for this week, I found the one on Natchez to be the most interesting. 

In reading about how history is handled in Natchez, I was baffled at the way Black and White history had been kept separate for so many years. I think that must speak to some sort of privilege that I have from growing up in a time where racial relations, while still not fantastic, have eased somewhat. I also found the discussion about women and gender roles within the essay to be very interesting as well. It talks about how one of the traditional roles of women in the household was to teach their children southern traditions and morals. This included a sense of white cultural superiority in which they injected into the public history of the town. 

The Natchez Garden Club, consisting of all women, were the ones who controlled the most important display of public history in the town — the Pilgrimage. The Pilgrimage includes pageants, displays of plantation homes, period costumes and other forms of public history meant to celebrate “the good old days” before the Civil War. The women of the garden club too their roles as gatekeeper’s of history one step further when they convinced the alderman to pass an ordinance requiring that all tour guides must have a license. The license could be obtained by passing a test written and evaluated by the garden club. Using deep seated racism and public history as building blocks, women of the garden club created something that would give them a sense of control that they may not usually have felt at home seeing as they strongly adhered to traditional gender roles.   

Another way in which gender roles and race relations intersect is in the education system. The majority of teachers in the grade schools were women and strongly believed in incorporating traditional values into their curriculum. The article mentions Pearl Guyton who was head of the Natchez’s high school history department between 1933 and 1953. She authored the textbook Our Mississippi did nothing to dispel myths of white cultural superiority. All of the young people who went through the school system were taught these values and would grow up to teach their own kids the same. In this way we can see how gender norms play a role in the perpetuation of racism.  

To bring some fun into these difficult times, I wanted to share with you something I saw on twitter earlier this week that pertains to public history. Museums were showing appreciation for one another through their accounts by tweeting photos and painting of flower bouquets to one another. It is nice to see how people are doing their best to brighten one another’s day in such a difficult time!

This is the link to the thread of tweets: #MuseumBouquet on Twitter

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 anxiety of global news, I was still able to find a time to complete the first steps of my memorial project. I have decided to do my project on the Theodore Thomas memorial, also known as The Spirit of Music. I chose this monument for its beauty, although I am saddened to say that I did not have the opportunity to see it in person at its location in Grant Park before leaving Chicago, as well as its connection to music which I am deeply fond of. Theodore Thomas was the first director and founder of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was a large contributor to Chicago’s long history of musicianship, theater and other art forms. I am very excited to dive deeper into the history of the monument itself as well as Chicago’s musical history and Theodore Thomas’ life.

While my final project members and I are unsure as to what our direction will be in light of not having full access to Loyola’s archives, I am confident in our ability to adapt and be innovative during this time of confusion and turmoil. My group will really have to work through any hindrances to communication such as altered academic schedules and differing living situations in order to be successful which I think will be the thing that causes me some difficulties. However, I think that the Loyola community’s reaction to the Corona virus and the willingness of students and professors to work together in order to still have a productive semester is a testament to our durability and our courage to face challenges head on.

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 places of notability throughout Virginia and Maryland. The chapter held a lot of informational and educational tidbits about the Civil War, but in between the historical aspects were the glimpses of the effects of commercialization and commentary on social class. During their trip, which lasted only a few days, they found that many of the battle grounds they sought to see had been covered by strip malls, golf courses, housing developments, and other signs of the modern era. 

I think it really goes back to what we have discussed in the archives; historians have to make decisions about what is worth preserving and what can be thrown away or, in this case, bulldozed over. The consideration of stakeholders is really important in these cases but sometimes it can be difficult to appease all stakeholders. Big businesses and the local community are equally important stakeholders. One could argue that the local community is actually more important because they could have emotional and familial connections to the historic events that occurred in the town. However, the sad fact is that big businesses have more money, power and sway when it comes to the buying of land. Readers see in the chapter how communities that once flourished had fallen into decay and poverty due to the takeover of big businesses.

For example, one of the people Horwitz and Hodge met during their trip was Jimmy Olgers, the owner of Olgers Store which was a general store turned museum. The store was built by his grandfather at the turn of the 19th century and was forced to close after eighty years of operation when stores like Walmart and Kmart began to be built in the town. After the store closed, Olgers reopened it as a museum containing everything from the supposed “largest pair of bloomers in the world, worn by Bertha Magoo” to a large statue of Robert E. Lee constructed out of junk scraps. (Horwitz p. 260) Olgers works multiple jobs besides being the “storekeeper”, including a job at a funeral parlor and serving as unofficial mayor, to make ends meet. His story is an interesting case of the birth of a public history site and the death of a generational business at the hands of corporate America. 

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 intention or expectation that I would encounter Public History during my visit, but I was pleasantly surprised when I happened to see theory we learned in class in action in this unexpected location. 

NACA is a conference with two aspects. The first is an education purpose where you learn through presentations given by experts in programming and event planning. The second aspect is that NACA serves as a space for vendors, artists, musicians, and people with all sorts of skills to display the things they have to offer in hopes that you will invite them to your campus or use their products in your programming. One of the tables being displayed was for a mobile museum whose title is Black History 101. The two folding tables held just a small portion of the 5,000 artifacts that comprise the full exhibit. The exhibit’s scope spans from slavery to the Civil Rights Movement to the development of hip hop.

The display was located just outside the area that was being used for registration and check in. You also had to pass by it on your way to one of the stages where presentations were being held. This was a good location to catch people’s attention as they walked between lectures as opposed to the main “marketplace” location where the rest of the vendors had their stations set up. The marketplace was on the third level of the convention center, away from where people would be milling about, and was very loud and crowded — two traits not conducive to processing and absorbing potentially difficult knowledge. 

I was at the conference for three days and had the unique opportunity to observe the miniature exhibits set-up, reception, and changes that were made. One of the main things that I noticed the first day it was set up, was that there was no sign indicating exactly what the table was for. I knew what the table was only because I had extensively looked through the booklet that listed the different vendors. However, other people passing by who may not have had the chance to browse the booklet did not seem to want to stop by the table because they were unsure as to what it was. I noticed on the following day that the table now had a small sign with the name of the company that sponsored the table. The company’s name is “Book a Muslim” which, at least for me, ignited feelings of hesitancy as it sounds a little disrespectful. The company’s name alone did not sound inviting and I was left with feelings of uncertainty. By the third day of the conference, there was a large poster that had “Black History 101” in big bold lettering, finally giving passersby an invitation to interact with the tables’ contents. This was an interesting example of remedial evaluation where those in charge of the sampling of artifacts worked to change their set up in order to maximize the amount of conference attendees that stopped by their table. 

Link to mobile museum website.

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 the border of Illinois and Iowa in an area that is dominated by agriculture, factories, and a United States Army Arsenal. In terms of racial makeup, the area is mostly white with a large black community and a smaller, but still significant Latino community.

While I never experienced overt violence due to being Mexican, the undercurrents of tension were always felt in casual conversations and within classrooms. Interestingly enough, this subconscious racial tension did not prevent people from becoming friends and having good working relationships. I never quite understood how so many people in my town could be friends with someone they knew was racist. I think it may have something to do with the economic aspects of my town’s dynamic, which is also where the meaning of the Confederate flag comes into play.

To a certain extent we did form friend groups and communities based on who had similar ethnic backgrounds, however it was more so that community development was based on economic background. It was the working class and lower middle class kids at my highschool who had confederate flags attached to their rusted trucks or in the background of photos they took in their room. 

I remember having a conversation with someone I met through a friend in highschool about the Confederate flag, racism, and what white privilege meant. He believed that white privilege did not exist because his family was working class and struggled to make ends meet. He could not overlook his economic background in order to grasp the concept that his race allowed him other kinds of privilege. The Confederate flag to him represented the struggle of the underdogs, and a middle finger to the government and economy that allows him, his family, and his friends to live a financially difficult life, and he claimed it had nothing to do with race. While I don’t believe that this take on the Confederate flag can override the racist undercurrents behind it’s meaning especially in light of the racial tension I mentioned earlier in my town, it helped me to understand how complex and complicated of a topic this is. 

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.

After our in-class discussion, it seems like I had a better exhibit going experience than most. The Newberry’s exhibit was successful in describing the personal life of Fujita in conjunction with his professional life. I appreciated the little insights that showcased his relationships with his wife, family, and colleagues as well as his relationship with America as a Japanese immigrant. It gave context to the work being shown and helped me have a deeper understanding as to why he wrote and photographed certain subjects. This connection between his personal and professional life kept me engaged, as I felt like I was connecting with a real person instead of someone shrouded in myth as can often happen with people of the past. 

Mystification of the past is a theme that was mentioned in our readings of Confederates in the Attic for this week as well. The way the past turns into myth plays a role in romanticizing the time period and removing it from today’s context. As a class, we talked about the removal of context being an issue in the reenactment community. When Horwitz was at the reenactment in Chapter 6,  he asked different people about their opinions on how the historical background of slavery in the Civil War plays a role in reenactments and in reenactors’ choice to portray Confederate soldiers. Many of them sidestepped the question, avoided it, or refuted the relevance of it. Reenactment is framed as a hobby which allows for this refutation. If it were to be perceived as events with primarily educational purposes, the lack of context would be unthinkable. So I guess the question that I am left with is: do reenactors themselves have any moral obligation to think about the context and statement they are making with their hobby or are they exempt from any ethical reflection because it is technically “just” a hobby?   

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 as students of public history. There are five aspects of learner engagement with difficult knowledge that the article written by Julia Rose discusses. The “steps” in this nonlinear process, called the 5Rs,  are receive, resist, repeat, reflect, and reconsider. 

The first step “receive” occurs when a visitor arrives at the exhibit. He or she should be informed that the exhibit contains difficult knowledge so that he or she can enter with a sense of emotional preparedness. The second one, “resist,” references when a learner rejects the information that he or she is learning about. Difficult knowledge can be met with disbelief when it challenges the worldview of a learner or affects their sense of humanity. The third step, “repeat,” is when a learner goes back to information within the exhibit and rereads what he or she has just covered. It can also occur once the patron has left a museum when he or she does further independent reading and research of the topic. The fourth, “reflect,” occurs when curators provide an opportunity for learners to discuss difficult knowledge, ask questions that would further their understanding of the topic or give them space to process the knowledge. The final one, “reconsider,” is when learners begin to relate the difficult knowledge to other points in history or to experiences in their own life as well. 

On Thursday of this week, we went as a class to the archives in order to kick-start our final project research. Last time we visited the archives, the archivists warned us that doing research in the archives will always take us twice the time we think it will. After Thursday, I can definitely see how this will be true for the remainder of this process. I can foresee myself having a difficult time really narrowing down the scope of our project and honing in on particular documents due to the sheer quantity that is available for review. Hopefully with the guidance being in a group provides, it will become easier to focus on a smaller amount of boxes to look through. Although this will be a slow and tedious process, I am excited for all the little unexpected and interesting tidbits of history we will come across in our research.