The Lost Art of Local History

So while discussing my blog posts and the public history field in general with my husband, he raised a good point, and one that I thought warranted its own post.

Why do people know a lot more about national and global history than they do about their own communities and where they grew up? Why is it people can tell you what year World War II started, but they don't know when the Bradford fire was?

I had an easy answer for him: it's all based on what we're taught in school. The standard curriculum requires knowing about Ancient Greece, and the Founding Fathers, and the Battle of Gettysburg, and Pearl Harbor. The curriculum is created, distributed, and required by the state, so they have to reflect history that every school district is equally familiar with. People in Toledo aren't going to know, nor care, about what happened in a tiny railroad town in 1920. So it wouldn't make sense include it in statewide standards, right?

Well, I think that's part of the problem. Why can't local history be a part of the teaching curriculum? How did we end up at this place in education where we have such a narrow (but somehow global) focus on what is important in history? I know that this is a topic that can covered in 3 or 4 blog posts probably, but was one that I wanted to at least touch on.

So, what can we do? I don't know of any small towns that don't have some sort of local history organization, or a county records office somewhere near them. In my small town of 1800 people, we have the Railroad Museum, a library historian, and the Darke County Historical Society housed in Greenville, a short 12 minutes away. Is there not some way we can utilize such resources to teach high schoolers, and even elementary age students about their local history? The closest I think I ever got in school was Ohio history in fifth grade, maybe? My sense of certainty really shows how much that stuck. I think that a push for expanding the focus of history education and loosening the static standards we're bound to will benefit future generations. Part of making history interesting is personally connecting to it, and what better way than focusing on what is literally in your backyard?

Over Commercialization of Christmas

Christmas was one of my favorite holidays, but not for the gifts. After the Thanksgiving holiday, the stores, schools and homes would be transformed into a different world: a winter wonderland.  Even the radio stations would delight us in playing holiday songs mixed in with their regular tunes.  At home the barrel with the Christmas tree along with the boxes of decorations was brought up from the basement.   Then we had fun placing ornaments and lights on the tree, setting out the home made ceramic nativity scene on top of the console television set, and placing the Elf on the Shelf (yes, we had one in the 1970s).  We did our shopping in December; our parents would take us kids to the local Woolworth to shop for each other. 

Due to the over commercialization of Christmas, it is now off my list of holidays. The retail sector has now overrun Halloween and Thanksgiving by pushing out Christmas items in October. Even worse is the home shopping networks, they start in July with their Christmas in July show on the 25^th and they continue to have segments dedicated to the Christmas holiday up to December 24.  There are some radio stations that switch over from their normal programming to Christmas music 24/7 at the beginning of November. Shopping malls now have Santa arrive two weeks before Thanksgiving.  There are more and more television specials and movies being shown.  Does anyone need to spend money on a manufactured gift?

I miss getting homemade gifts. As a child I received several items knitted by relatives. As for the siblings, we kept those gifts simple.  These were the gifts which were chosen because the person truly thought about me.  Going into the public history field, I believe that those in the field should think about the presents they give to family and friends. We should end the overspending and donate the money one to historical societies that are underfunded.

The Disappearance of Thanksgiving – The Only True Family Holiday

I have found memories of this holiday during my childhood. School was in session the Wednesday before, but once I got home, I was the assistant to my paternal grandmother in the kitchen.  The first item on the list was to de-husk the corn on the cob, rinse the cobs, plate them and then into the refrigerator they go. The second item would be to flour and roll the dough she had made while in school. This roll of dough we cut together to create noodles. The last item that day would be to make up cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  On Thanksgiving Day we awoke to the smell of the cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven.  I would continue to help out in the kitchen during the day by pinching the edges of the crusts for the pumpkin pies, getting the lumps out of the mash potatoes and setting the table. Living the life of a military child, one tends to miss out on these special family gatherings, I was lucky enough to have my paternal grandmother living with us, so I did not miss out.  Looking back at all the Thanksgiving dinners from my past, I now know spending the time with her in the kitchen I was learning how she was taught how to cook from her mother.  This is what bothers me about how people are spending this holiday now.

Thanksgiving Day to me is meant to be a holiday spent with family at home.  This is the only holiday where the entire family gathers and the only expectations for the day are food, talking, naps and football.  The retail sector has gone completely overboard by being open on this day.  By being open, the employees that work that day miss out on time with family.  Take Wal-Mart for example; if you look at the average age of the workers there, some of them are the grandparents who miss out on telling the next generation about the past ones, or passing down cooking secrets for that specific day.  I am told that the workers have the ‘option’ to have the day off, but what would happen if they all want the day off? The executives spend this day with their families, so why make their employees work a day they will not. Public historians should petition the retail sector to go back to being closed on Thanksgiving Day, so that there is an opportunity for those who need to travel to see family on that day and to pass down family traditions.

Museum Hack

So Museum Hack is a company that I came across when searching for articles for the Museum Admin class. Basically, it's a company in New York City that does small group tours of the Met and the American Museum of Natural History. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, as they tout on their website, "it's not your grandma's museum tour". They advertise themselves as being tours for people who don't like tours basically. Instead of doing the basic tour, hitting all the expected collections and pieces, the guides share the stranger, wilder, and lesser known stories hidden in the collection.

One blogger wrote a review of a Museum Hack tour that she took. The tour started with a group huddle and a “hands-in-1-2-3-museums!” cheer, at one point each person demonstrated what the author called a “power move” that defined them in front of strangers in the middle of a gallery, and they were “molded” into a Rodin sculpture while thinking about the artist’s process, among other things. The tour took the Met, which is huge, and can be overwhelming, and made it accessible and gave visitors the best highlights.

I LOVE the sound of a tour like this. While it is geared towards people who don't like traditional tours, it's the kind of thing that the most seasoned of professionals will enjoy, particularly because they focus on telling the less commonly known stories. There are a slew of positive testimonials and reviews online for the company from people who love museums and had been to the Met a dozen times before their Museum Hack tour, and from people who are self-professed museum haters. The consensus seems to be that everyone loves it.

Because it's an independent company, I'm not sure how feasible it is for more institutions to offer similar tours. However, it's definitely a model that I think museums can benefit from. Public history relies on accessibility, and making yourself appealing to as many types of people as you can. Just like a traditional tour though, the Museum Hack model might not appeal to everyone either. The concept is a worthy one, but is one that needs to be considered alongside other existing options as well.

Links: http://www.museumhack.com/
https://museumminute.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/hacking-the-museum-experience/

Change in Perspective?

Being able to comprehend that people are different and have differing point of views on topics is an important idea to understand.  It can be quite difficult to put your self in some one else's shoes when they are considering your exhibits and topics in your museum for example.  But what about when you yourself have a change in perspective, how do you come to handle that shift?

To be clear, I am not asking about you change in an opinion you have on a topic.  I am thinking more along the lines of when you are no longer looking from a newcomers perspective.  Examples like:

• Rereading a book, or someone spoiling it for you
• Seeing a movie a second time and noticing what you missed
• Or learning about public history compared to your earlier visits to museums

Architecture and design or two examples that I must have pointed out to all of you at least a dozen times, but once more for good measure. With and addition to 4 years of technical drafting skills added to my design background, I look at it differently when it happens to cross my path again.  I do not just see a room or building with out also making mental note of what some of the hidden design reasons might have been.  When I looked at the work a friend of mine did in their first art class before I left undergrad I was making note of line work and color.  In short I was analyzing and critiquing elements I may not have noticed when I was just an innocent observer admiring a building or art work.

In a way we all did the same thing for this class and our museums class when we made trips to various museum locations and attempted to understand them.  Although we are still only single semester, some of us have a little extra background, how would you compare your visits to museums, archives, parks, or other historic places to before you jumped into public history?  Do you find yourself evaluating their performances, lighting, design, and text or do you just make a mental note?  Do you suspend your sense of disbelief and attempt to fully immerse yourself in the visit experience?

Your Own Skill Set

In doing my research for two papers focusing on outreach and education, I have found one theme that seems to reappear.  In planning for future development directors should look to hire staff members that can bring unique skill sets to the position.  There is a value to be found in looking to hire staff that bring public speaking skills, tech backgrounds, or design skills to the field. 

 

Earlier I was looking around the blogs that have been written and saw Mitchell's post about Dungeon and Dragons and the skills that you use as a Dungeon Master (story telling, quick thinking, and problem solving) can be applied to work in a museum.  how dungeons and dragons can help you.  I  played a lot of D&D through out high school and agree with his point.  It did however make me think a bit about the kind of experiences we each can bring to our future jobs that may or may not qualify as skills that would be regarded as being note worthy on a resume.

 

What kind of skills might you be able to develop or discover when doing activities at leisure?  Maybe you understood the value of teamwork and cooperation in sports, learning to think several steps ahead in a board game, quick thinking skills in a videogame, or became tech savvy from managing your own website or forum.  I think a few skills I picked up came from my art background.

 

I took all kinds of art classes growing up  in school and even took up the hobby of building and painting models to play a strategy board game called Warhammer.  In college I built up a design background also before I dropped out of architecture.  Some skills:

 

• Hand eye coordination and dexterity in handling small delicate items and tools
• Learned the importance of caring for and preserving my models
• A general knowledge of tools and how to use them in crafting
• Money Management!!!  Models, paint, and tools are expensive
• Design classes emphasized discussion, presentation, and the perspective of multiple viewers

 Skills and experience can be found and developed from a possible multitude of sources.  What skills have you found that have helped you to this point in becoming public historians that maybe can not be truly measured from just an academic standpoint?

HGTV's Take on Historic Preservation

"Hi, my name is Jackie, and I'm addicted to 'Rehab Addict'", she stammered out, looking into the eyes of the others in the room. "Hi Jackie", her compatriots replied in unison.

This is how I imagine an HGTV Anonymous meeting would begin. And I would 100% be on the list of attendees. House Hunters, Love It or List It, Property Brothers. You name it, I watch it if it's on HGTV or the DIY network. However, I stumbled across my all time favorite in the last couple months. Nicole Curtis's "Rehab Addict".

Nicole is not your average flipper. She restores old homes to their former glory (her words, not mine, but a completely accurate description). Working in Detroit and the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, Nicole takes condemned, abandoned, and just plain forgotten old homes and breathes life back into them. I can watch her show for hours. And I have. Shamelessly.

She's worked on a 1904 mansion, a 1920s bungalow, and 1880s farm house, and 1890s Victorian, and on and on. There's no house that she can't save if given the opportunity. After buying one house for a dollar, she literally raised the entire thing 4 feet into the air to rebuild a crumbling foundation. She can do anything.

She isn't always given the chance to save every house though. One episode, we watched as she stood powerlessly by as a home she had been trying to save was torn down. Another, she attended a hearing on a decision being made by the city to demolish two adjacent 1920s homes (they were constructed by a famous architect of the era, but I don't remember who), and the city approved demolition in favor of a new condo development. It can be heartbreaking to watch. I might have cried. (Spoiler alert: I did. Both times. And when she finally sold a house she'd worked on for 2 years. You should all know by now that I have a lot of feelings).

Her passion is something that I can really relate to though, and makes me respect her and what she's doing so much more. She isn't just sitting around waiting for her paychecks from HGTV. She truly cares about preserving the history of these cities; we are just lucky enough they decided to film her efforts. She always makes the challenges and rewards of historic preservation known.

On the one hand, it's expensive. The house she bought for a dollar? Repairing the foundation alone cost around $100k, but it was required by the city so it had to be done. It's not something that everyone can afford to do, regardless of how important they think preservation is. There are also always people trolling her on her Facebook posts and Twitter telling her how much more efficient new construction is, and that they're better off tearing down the old stuff for new. She's always quick to defend what she does though, and challenges "the haters", if you will, to really examine the carbon footprint of new construction and the quality of materials being used in comparison to homes built 100+ years ago.

The sense of community that she is building is as important, if not more so, than the individual homes she restores. Her philosophy is that revitalizing entire neighborhoods has to start with one house. A lot of times she is able to get volunteers out of the community to help, which helps achieve this. By teaching those around how important preservation is and showing them it's not impossible, she's hopefully prepping a future generation to continue continue fighting for these old homes. If you've never seen her show, stop reading this right now and set your DVR to record every single episode. You won't regret it. Plus, there are episodes on Netflix!

The Dollar House Exterior, Before & After

Rehabbed Dining Room. Gotta love pocket doors.

Sitting area. I don't recall which house this was in.

Before...

...and After.

Before: No Porch

After: Amazing Porch! All made from the outline of the removed original porch.

My hands down, ultimate favorite exterior transformation I've seen her do.