June 2011 Archives

Having been a long-time resident of the great state of Maine, I can confidently assert that few colleges cling so tenaciously to their distant past as does Bowdoin College in the mid-coast town of Brunswick. Bowdoin graduates are quick to refer to illustrious alums like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and somewhat less quick to refer to more dubious graduates like Franklin Pierce. Regardless, the facility with which they recall the college's notable alumni suggests rote memorization of that honor roll. Harriet Beecher Stowe occupies an important place on that honor roll, for, while she was not a student or graduate of the college (which resolutely barred women until 1971), she did write Uncle Tom's Cabin in Brunswick from 1850-1851, while her husband Calvin taught theology at the college.

Appropriately enough, the college has been marking the bicentennial of Harriet Beecher Stowe's birth (June 14) all month, culminating this weekend with a conference that explores both the historical and literary impact of her famous novel. The conference is sponsored by the Stowe Society, which promotes the interdisciplinary study of Stowe's life and work. Scholars in history, literature, women's studies, Africana studies, and other fields have converged to discuss Stowe's signal contributions to antislavery, women's rights, conceptions of race, through her writings.

This serves as a powerful reminder of the broad impact of Stowe's life and work. Historians and researchers of the Civil War era are, of course, well aware of the importance of Uncle Tom's Cabin in encouraging antipathy to slavery among many northerners. Furthermore, many more recognize the novel as an excellent expression of the popular mode of sentimentality in the literature of the time as my colleague Sean Trainor discussed in a previous blog post.

Yet, Stowe's writing touches on far more than these popular issues. Her subtle, incisive, and remorseless critique of Calvinism, first noted by Edmund Wilson in Patriotic Gore, offered powerful insight into how religion was perceived, not just received, by the laity. Her attention to women's labor and women's roles in the household highlighted the challenges women faced in trying to maintain home and sustain family in a society that sharply circumscribed their political and economic opportunities. Indeed, some of the novel's most poignant scenes are ones in which female characters struggle to safeguard the moral purity of their families against the shortcomings (at best) and selfish venality (at worst) of men. The society that emerges from Stowe's novel is practically broken, for the continuance of slavery makes a mockery of Christian values and sex inequities hamper the ability to maintain the sanctity of the family and community.

Though antislavery (Stowe's racism aside) and Christian morality are the preponderant themes in this book, we ought to remember that Stowe was writing about far more than that. What emerges here is a comprehensive worldview of a crippled, patriarchal society, badly in need of rebirth in a whole new form.

Richards Center intern Nate Hess checks in with a blog post about "hands-on" teaching at the Gettysburg National Military Park.

Let's face it, for many people history can be a rather boring subject.  All of the dates, places, and names we associate with history can swirl together into an incurable case of boredom.  For those whose eyes glaze over at the thought of a lecture on history, a different method other than discussion might be needed in order to pique their interest. At Gettysburg National Military Park, I am learning to think of our interactions with visitors as interpretive opportunities where we can educate visitors and help them forge a visceral or emotional bond with the park as a tangible, historical resource.

An effective way to help those that might become quickly bored with discussion is to take a "hands on" approach.  In fact, Gettysburg rangers and interns employ what we call "Hands on History Carts" to bring visitors in contact with those artifacts that help to illustrate the historical lessons that we teach. The premise of these carts is very simple: a couple of rangers (or interns) will take a wooden cart on wheels, fill it with tangible objects (such as infantry gear, a reproduction musket, artillery projectiles, pictures, or even a small reproduction cannon!) and take these up into the lobby, spread the objects on top of the cart or beside it, and let the visitors touch the objects and ask questions.  This is practically the opposite of the typical museum experience where artifacts are "protected" from the customers.
Nate Hess (green shirt) gathers Gettysburg visitors around his "hands-on history" cart

Many visitors find the lure of handling the objects from the history carts irresistible. Depending on what objects are brought up with the cart, the possibilities are almost endless.  One might bring up some toy muskets and teach children how to drill and to load a musket.  Another day, one might bring up various projectiles and weapons, medical instruments, and pictures of wounded soldiers in order to show how medicine was practiced in the Civil War.  Hearing about how nasty an amputation was during the Civil War might be boring, but seeing a medical diagram of how to remove an arm might be something else entirely!  Encouraging patrons to handle these objects gives them a tangible and hopefully lasting impression of what the life of a soldier might have been like. For those disinterested in dry history lectures, the hands-on approach makes learning a bit more exciting, especially for children.

In fact, Gettysburg has designed an entire children's program around this hands-on method.  This might be one of the most entertaining programs we put on. Many children want to be active and have a good time while learning, not sit still listening to someone talk at them for an hour.  To create an interpretive opportunity for these children, we have them "Join the Army."  Before this program, children must sign up and receive "enlistment papers."  These papers are their ticket into the program, and they are modeled loosely on documents that would have been familiar to volunteers in the Civil War.  During the program, the park ranger "Captain" will lead the kids through basic aspects of induction into the army.  The kids will have to jump up and down, wave their arms and legs, and open their mouths during the "physical."  A few lucky children will be assigned officer's ranks, such as Lieutenant, Drummer boy, and Color Sergeant. 

















After dressing a kid up and showing the other kids how much a Civil War soldier would have worn and carried, every child is issued a kepi and toy musket.  Then the captain will teach the kids some rudimentary drilling, such as how to march.  The children will also learn to load and fire a musket by watching their 1st Sergeant (usually an intern) demonstrate on a reproduction musket.  Once this is done, the kids are sent into combat against "Confederate enemies."  This concludes the program, and the kids receive their "discharge papers." Afterward, hopefully the children have had a good time and a learning experience that they will remember for a long time. This interpretive method gives children the opportunity to really imagine, not just learn about, what it was like to be a soldier in the Civil War.


The hands-on approach typically is incorporated into other programs, too, particularly by passing around a specially chosen object during ranger presentations.  The power of passing around a minié ball while discussing Pickett's Charge can have a dramatic effect on the visitor.  Merely touching that heavy, lead slug might cause the visitor to have an "A-Ha!" moment, tangibly demonstrating the destructiveness of Civil War combat and the dangers that soldiers faced. Ultimately, we hope that these objects help visitors to appreciate the park as a unique resource, a place that can teach people about the Civil War in unique, eye-opening ways.  Allowing people to handle historical objects gives them a much stronger connection to our shared past. This, of course, is what interpretation and history at Gettysburg is all about.

This entry comes to us from Isaac Wickenheiser, a Richards Center intern at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. Like our other intern, Nate Hess, this is Isaac's first experience working for the Park Service, and in this blog he tell us about what his duties will be and what makes this job much more exciting than previous summer jobs.

This summer I am interning at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and so far I am getting used to a new schedule.  As of last week my days off are officially changed to Tuesday and Wednesday.  They had been Monday and Tuesday.  We all work five 8 hour days in a row and then have 2 days off.  Those 2 days off vary from person to person so that the park can be staffed year-round, 7 days a week, 363 days a year (closed Christmas and Thanksgiving).  Last week I was also told the tour programs I will be assigned to.  I am doing my first tour, called "Civil War to Civil Rights," on the 25th of this month.  It is an hour and a half program on the Murphy-Chambers Farm located near our Visitors Center.  The Chambers family lived on the farm through John Brown's raid and the Civil War.  Personal accounts from family members give us great insight in to the thoughts and feelings of the people of Harpers Ferry during these monumental events.  The farm was also very important in the 1862 Battle of Harpers Ferry.  Confederate General A. P. Hill under General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson flanked the union left on Bolivar Heights and occupied the Chambers farm, which is on a ridge called Cavalier Heights.  Occupying that farm was the final key to surrounding the Union forces and forced the Federals to capitulate.  This marked the largest surrender of troops in American history (12,500 men) until WWII.
















Harpers Ferry, 1865


The farm also served as the home to the John Brown Fort for about 15 years from 1895 - 1909.  The Niagara Movement, the precursor of the NAACP, made a pilgrimage to the site in 1906.  The program I am giving will cover all of this and will be a tour of the farm itself, stopping off at four locations dealing with each major episode in the farm's history. Using that history, I will interpret for the visitors Harpers Ferry's significance in the crusade against slavery, the Civil War, and as a potent, early symbol of the post-war Civil Rights movement.  In addition to this program, in the next couple of weeks I will also be giving our general orientation talk, a 20 minute program called: "Explore, Discover and Enjoy Harpers Ferry."  This orientation familiarizes people with the broader history of Harpers Ferry and explains why they should care about the town's role in shaping American history.  The orientation occurs right outside of our visitor center and is visitors' first formal introduction to the history of the community.  I am very excited to be giving both programs and have been working on the "Civil War to Civil Rights," program for the past week.  

Working for the National Park Service is not all about historical presentations, though. My regular duties mainly entail staffing either our Visitors Center or our Information Center in the Lower Town.  I work with a great group of people in the Visitor Services branch and I actually enjoy my job, which is quite the change from the job I had at a supermarket for the previous four summers.  I used to wake for that job and groan.  Now I am actually excited to go to work (after my morning coffee, of course).  Visitor Services mainly deals with giving tour programs and orienting visitors to our park.  We hand out maps of the park and the 20 miles of trails also contained within. We describe the trail to interested visitors and tell them a little about the landscape and interesting sites and vistas they will encounter on the trails. And, of course, we also have to tell many inquiring visitors where the restrooms are.  I've been enjoying these interactions with the visitors immensely, and I am sure that I will continue to do so. The Park Rangers and volunteers I work with here are a great group of people and I have already learned so much.  One Ranger I work with at the visitor center, John, is an older gentleman but he's like an encyclopedia, dictionary, and thesaurus all in one.  He's really great to work with because he always has something to ruminate on and elaborate on.  I believe between him and Jeff, another of the Rangers I work with, they know literally everything about the Civil War.  It's amazing.  If I develop half the knowledge of the war that Jeff and John have, I will be quite pleased with my life. That is another excellent aspect of this job. Visitors come to the park and see us as historical "experts," but interns like myself are learning just as much about the Civil War as they are, if not more, from our fellow rangers. That's all for now, tune in next time for the results on my first tour.

Isaac Wickenheiser

"I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day, nor
a storm so furious or dreadful as to prevent the return of warm sunshine
and a cloudless sky."
John Brown

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has compiled a list of what it calls America's 11 most endangered historic sites. Included on that list are at least three significant landmarks from the Civil War era: Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island on Alabama's Gulf coast; the Milwaukee Soldiers Home, part of the system of National Soldiers Homes signed into law by Abraham Lincoln; and Belmead-on-the-James, a Virginia plantation that was converted into a school for African American and Native American students after the Civil War.


Belmead-on-theJames


As the release of this list suggests, the sesquicentennial of the war likely will encourage public awareness of the preservation challenges these sites face, which perhaps will lead to increased public donations to the Trust. Indeed, the press release contains a link to a page that shows how you can make a $10 donation through a simple text message (the ultimate in convenient philanthropy). One hopes that the Trust will be successful in these efforts, for these sites do tell important stories about the American past. Still, I find historic preservation of this kind a fascinating and complex puzzle. After all, preservation involves the paradoxical purpose of trying to secure the perpetual existence of structures that were constructed for specific purposes and were presumed by their builders to have a finite life when they no longer adequately served those purposes. For instance, while the Soldiers Home in Milwaukee is a breathtaking example of Victorian era, Gothic-inspired architecture, it has long since been replaced by successive veterans homes organizations that better met the housing needs of the country's former soldiers.


National Soldiers Home, Milwaukee


Obviously these sites still serve an important purpose, as tangible relics of our nation's past. Yet, that adds to the preservation challenge, too. Not only does it require significant funds to maintain and refurbish these sites, it often takes tremendous work to make them as functional as sites of historic education as they once were in their original capacities. Preservation is just the first step. How do we make use of these preserved sites to inform society about our shared past?

Several of the historic sites on this list come with unique and complex preservation issues, too. Fort Gaines is not merely threatened by disrepair. Rather, it and Dauphin Island itself are menaced by rapid erosion of the shoreline. The magnitude of this environmental threat extends far beyond the preservation of the fort itself and would entail the cooperative work of preservationists and environmentalists to find a solution as the island is inexorably being reclaimed by the sea.



These and similar issues always bring me back to the intriguing question of how we determine the feasibility and utility of historic preservation efforts. What are the most important factors to consider in deciding which sites should be preserved? How should we determine the sustainability of preservation efforts? And what should be the ultimate end of preservation: education, heritage tourism (with the hope of turning a profit, perhaps)?

Nate Hess is a Penn State History major, and this summer he is a Richards Center intern at the Gettysburg National Military Park. Nate will be blogging occasionally about his experiences as a newly minted park ranger at one of the most popular Civil War parks.

    Hello. My name is Nate Hess, and I've just finished my first week of training as a National Park Service intern at Gettysburg National Military Park. The week has been fairly hectic, almost overwhelming. Even so, I've been learning an awful lot. Not only have I been totally immersed in a pool of knowledge surrounding the names, dates, and other gritty details of the battle; I have also been learning about a very new concept, known as interpretation. Interpretation is the key to what the Interpretive Park Rangers do every single day, and now to what I'll be doing almost every day this summer. Conceived by the Park Ranger Freeman Tilden in 1957, interpretation, in its simplest form, is the art of causing a visitor to connect intellectually and viscerally with the resources of the park, particularly its hallowed landscape.

This is accomplished through programs in which a ranger takes the resources of the park and verbally transforms the "tangible" aspects, such as a tree or a stone wall, into an "intangible" idea, such as strength, vitality, or loss. As visitors begin to ponder and relate to these ideas, they begin to understand the "story" of Gettysburg in tangible ways, developing a deep connection with the park's resources. There are a couple of ideas at work here. On one level, the park uses interpretation to educate visitors. On another level, park rangers hope the visceral connection visitors feel for the physical landscape will encourage them to care for the resource and wish to protect it. This protection can take many forms, such as merely taking care to stay on paths, donating their time as volunteers, or going as far as taking steps to become a Park Ranger.



During the early part of my training, then, I've been learning just how important interpretation is to the Park Service. Through the Interpretive Rangers, not only is the public educated about the resources that they are enjoying, but they gain a deeper appreciation for those resources. And interpretation encourages visitors to become supporters or stewards of the park, aiding the Park Service in their ongoing mission to preserve this historical resource and continue educating the public. That is what interpretation is all about, and as I begin to learn interpretive techniques I can't think of a cooler way to spend a summer.