August 2011 Archives

Quick: where was the first Thanksgiving held in America? If you answered Plymouth Plantation then either you remember your elementary school history very well, or you're probably a New Englander like me. If you answered Berkeley Plantation in the state of Virginia, however, then you've probably been to the Berkeley Plantation historical site, a site that seeks to set the record straight (as it sees it) on the real origins of Thanksgiving. In early August, I had occasion to visit this beautiful, sprawling site along the James River, and I was struck by its fixation with historical origin stories. The plantation grounds feature several examples of a 60 year campaign to claim that Thanksgiving was celebrated first at Berkeley, a full year before the Pilgrims recorded their Thanksgiving feast with their Native American allies. Berkeley literature points out that this thanksgiving was celebrated with a group prayer immediately upon settlers' disembarkation in the New World after their harrowing, months-long voyage to the Chesapeake region. This is altogether different than a Thanksgiving feast, of course, but the content and purpose of said Thanksgiving seems to matter less to Berkeley's operators than the simple claim of having been the originator of the tradition.

The first Thanksgiving......or is it?

Berkeley does not stop with that claim, though. Based on a 300 year old letter noting that plantation residents evinced an unusual affinity for the distillation of whiskey out of corn, the site claims to have housed the first distillery in the New World. It's hard to imagine that the rough-hewn settlers of the older Jamestown colony weren't producing whiskey long before Berkeley settlers made their way across the ocean, but Berkeley seems comfortable to rest its claim on this single document. Unfortunately, this preoccupation with origin stories and defending Berkeley's historical pride of place represents a lost opportunity to provide a much more meaningful historical education at the site. The staff at the plantation was unfailingly polite, patient, attentive, and gracious, but they also seemed unequipped to explain to visitors what life and labor was like at Berkeley and how it changed over the nearly 400 years of its existence for the diverse peoples who lived there: Native American, European, African, Caribbean; slave and free.

 

Re-enactment of colonial whiskey-making. A

proud Berkeley tradition?

Established in 1619, Berkeley Plantation has a long history, and a significant portion of that history involves slave labor. By the time Benjamin Harrison built his Georgian mansion on the site in 1726, he had begun accumulating slaves to work the land. Eventually, over 100 slaves tended tobacco on the sprawling plantation. By the time of the Civil War, only about 30 slaves worked the estate, which mostly produced wheat and corn by that point. Flanked on either side by two-story, brick outbuildings, the mansion clearly required a substantial staff of slaves to operate the household. Yet, beyond indicating that there was only one surviving inventory of slaves from the antebellum period, the guided tour offered no descriptions of slave labor or slave life at Berkeley. Sadly, there appeared to be plenty of evidence to offer a rather full account of slaves' activities there. A scale model of the plantation in the antebellum period showed half a dozen outbuildings fronting the mansion, which no longer exist. These buildings included a carpentry shop, smithy, laundry house, and other work buildings. These structures almost certainly would have been built through slave labor, and slaves would have performed the work in these buildings for much, if not all, of the structures' existence. The massive plantation clearly mixed industry and agriculture on a large scale in its heyday, and it very likely employed free as well as slave labor. Yet, the site's literature and tour offered little insight into the plantation as a major site of economic activity or its impact on the diverse communities along the James River. Nor did it shed light on the working relationships of free and enslaved, white and black laborers.

The front gate at Berkeley Plantation

Instead of taking on these controversial but potentially illuminating issues, the site engages in relatively meaningless and unavailing efforts to prove it originated certain long-lived cultural traditions. Would it change the cultural import of Thanksgiving if it were begun at Berkeley and not Plymouth? Would either place cease to have a meaningful or august history if it were found not to have originated this tradition? The value of historical sites is not attributable to their role in originating specific cultural or historical traditions. Rather, their value lay in what they can tell us about our shared past, which is a much more meaningful contribution to public history education.

After a week's vacation in my home region of New England, I returned to Penn State just in time for Tuesday's mild earthquake. Aside from a brief shimmy in the floor, I noticed no other signs of the quake here in Happy Valley. Of course, it was disappointing to learn of the damage that the quake caused along other parts of the East Coast, particularly to some of the national monuments and historic structures in Washington, D.C. You likely know by now that the National Cathedral sustained significant damage, and the Washington Monument sustained cracks in the blocks near its pinnacle. Now comes news that the monument will be closed indefinitely and might not reopen to the public, even when repairs have been completed.

 

This is not the first threat to the monument, which was a source of consistent controversy early in its construction. Upon Washington's death, there had been several calls for a permanent memorial to the nation's first president, but it was not until the centennial of his birth, 1833, that citizens formed the Washington National Monument Society and began to raise money for that purpose. The original memorial design called not only for an enormous, 600-foot-tall obelisk, but also a colonnade surrounding it that would contain statues of 30 Revolutionary War heroes. Prohibitive construction costs and sharp criticism of the plan's grandiosity as unbecoming a memorial to a republican leader soon forced the Society to focus solely on constructing the obelisk itself, however.

 

Construction began in 1848, but limited funds caused the Society to resort to innovative methods to subsidize the monument. They invited states, philanthropic organizations, individuals, and fraternal societies, among others to contribute blocks of granite (of standardized sizes) for the interior of the monument. Conceived as a novel way to raise funds and support from across the nation, this decision unwittingly ensured that the memorial would become mired in divisive political debates that contributed to the antebellum realignment of political parties that precipitated southern secession and Civil War. The donated blocks carried inscriptions from the providers, effectively turning the monument into a platform for promoting various, often opposing political views and social values. Stones advocating such disparate political issues as temperance and even Welsh nationality were donated to the construction. The territory of Deseret (now the state of Utah), whose leaders repeatedly defied federal authority in the territory and claimed an autonomy that seemed to separate it from the rest of the country, contributed a stone perhaps as a meager olive branch of sorts to the nation.

 

More important than these oddities, a stone contributed by Pope Pius IX, thrust the monument into the middle of violent, new political conflicts over the place of Catholicism and immigrants in American culture. As the political parties realigned in the North after 1854, virulently anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant Know Nothings briefly emerged as the main opposition to the Democratic Party. They seized upon the Washington Monument as a potent symbol of their national movement, and in 1854 Know Nothing devotees stole Pope Pius' stone (like many of the other inscribed stones, it had not yet been installed in the interior of the monument). They did not stop there, seizing control of the Washington Monument Society, and portraying their stewardship of the still-uncompleted obelisk as a means of "purifying" both the monument and the nation (Ironically, according to the NPS website for the monument, the construction that proceeded under the Know Nothings' stewardship was so shoddy that it had to be torn down and replaced).

 

The Know Nothings' politicization of the uncompleted memorial proved so controversial that it caused a Congress to rescind a $200,000 appropriation that it had made to the Society (after years of cajoling and lobbying by its previous officers). The monument thus came to reflect the increasingly sharp political divisions of the antebellum period. Know Nothing mismanagement of the Society and the party's sudden collapse dealt a serious blow to efforts to raise funds for the monument's completion. The intensifying sectionalism of the 1850s appeared to trump the hopes of the Washington Monument Society's original officers, that the monument itself would be a source of national pride and a symbol of national unity. Finally, the Civil War halted construction of the memorial. From the disastrous management of the monument by the Know Nothings through the Civil War and Reconstruction, little progress was made on building the obelisk for over 20 years.

 

This ultimately proved to be a temporary lull, and not the death knell of the monument itself. The national centennial in 1876 provided new impetus to finish the memorial to Washington. With the destruction of slavery and the reunification of the country, the monument gradually re-emerged as a symbol of national unity. As Reconstruction ended and fundraising improved, the Society conducted extensive inspections of the existing structure and base to ensure the viability of continuing the project. Construction on the obelisk resumed in 1879, and in 1884 it finally was completed at a height of 555 feet. As they did before construction resumed in the 1870s, today engineers are giving the obelisk a thorough inspection to assess needed repairs. It will be a shame if visitors no longer will be able to enter the monument after the repairs are completed, but at least we can rest assured knowing the structure will be repaired and likely strengthened. That was something Americans could not be sure of in the middle of the 19^th century, when it looked like the monument might never be completed.

Nate Hess contributes his last blog post for the summer and wraps up his discussion of historical interpretation

Well, summer's almost over, and so is my internship here at Gettysburg. For my final blog posting before heading back to 'dear old state' in a couple of weeks, I'd like to touch on the primary way that interpretation is conducted: ranger programs. Every national park's interpretive staff conducts free ranger programs every day. At Gettysburg alone, there are usually about 15 free programs that happen every day during our peak operating summer season. They present fewer programs during the off-season, but still, there are programs going on every single day. These programs might well be the most important work the ranger staff conducts, because it is the main source for providing visitors with important historical interpretation.


Nate Hess conducting a ranger program at the Gettysburg battlefield

For example, let's take the program that I've been doing for most of the summer, the Day Three program. As you've probably guessed, this program is centered on the fighting on July 3rd, the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg. It is famous for Pickett's Charge, the Confederates' courageous but unsuccessful attempt to break through the center of the Union lines. One might think that for this program I would just talk for an hour on the tactics of the charge, who was where, when they were there, who fired at whom from what place, etc. That is not interpretation, however; it's simply the regurgitation of facts. While it is important to know the facts of the battle, merely telling what happened during the battle will not have much of an impact on the visitor. In order to inspire the visitor to a visceral reaction and a deeper link with our battlefield resource, the interpreter must go deeper. How I accomplish this through my third day program is by focusing on the theme of family. I give the visitors basic information on Pickett's Charge itself, but mostly I recite human interest stories about family members that fought together, either on the Confederate side making the charge, or the Union side repulsing it. These stories have a much greater emotional effect on the visitor than hearing a recitation of how many men were coming across the fields.


Nate relating the personal stories of individuals and families in battle at Gettysburg

Hopefully, discussing the experiences of individual soldiers and the effects of this battle on their families personalizes this immense battle for our visitors. I hope it makes members of my audience think of their own families, and perhaps spark a thought of how they would feel if one of their family members fell in combat right beside them. This allows me to shift my visitors' focus from large, impersonal armies to individuals and families whom they can relate to emotionally. That would surely evoke some sort of emotional attachment to our battlefield. Either way, hearing stories about the men (and in some cases women) that fought on the fields of Gettysburg is much more interesting than hearing a bunch of dry facts.  Interpretation is so much more than that, and I feel honored to have been able to have spent my summer doing what I love, making an impact on visitors, forwarding my own knowledge of the Battle of Gettysburg, and doing it all in the name of Penn State University. It has been an absolutely great summer, and I can't wait to see if I can come back next summer, possibly as a seasonal park ranger.  Till then, "For the Glory..."   

Well, at least on park ranger is on vacation. Isaac Wickenheiser gets a break from his duties at Harpers Ferry this week but not before he sent us his latest blog post.

Alas, my time here at Harpers Ferry is soon drawing to a close. I am on vacation this week, and afterward, I might work another week here before heading up to State College for the commencement of the fall semester. That week may not be my last one here however. As I mentioned previously, David Fox, my supervisor was soon due to attend my tour program. He did attend it on July 18th.  His feedback for my program was extremely positive, and he provided some very helpful critiques as to how I can make my program even more effective, mainly to stop pacing around in front of my tour groups. When I took speech class at PSU my sophomore year I was usually stiff and seemingly cemented to the ground. In an effort to loosen up as a Harpers Ferry guide, I ended up over-compensating, and now I move so much that it can be a bit distracting for my tour groups. My frenetic pacing makes me resemble a caged tiger. Improving that has been my goal the two times I have given my tour since David Fox's observation, and I believe I have made some strides in that area. I met a previous Harpers Ferry intern from Penn State over the weekend, Bob Spellman. It was a lot of fun to meet him and share stories about our experiences at the park. It was also nice to see how working at the park inspires loyalty among past rangers, like Bob. Former rangers frequently return to the park to catch up with old friends, meet new rangers and just to see what's new.  

I had the privilege of hosting the superintendent of Harpers Ferry, Rebecca Harriett, on my program on July 25th. The superintendent is the top National Park Service official at our park, responsible for overseeing every aspect of the park's operation. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous. On the way over to being my program I had this knot that was growing in my stomach. Once I launched in to my delivery though, the knot began to disappear, and the nervousness faded. All of the training, the practicing, and the experience of conducting tours and programs seemed to take over, and I felt confident in my own knowledge of the topic and my experience in presenting it to numerous people. Overall I felt like it was a good program and that I represented Penn State well for the superintendent.

Tomorrow is our trip to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. It promises to be an amazing experience. Lin Ezell, the museum's director, described it in 2010 as being "up close, personal and gripping." I am sure that is an accurate assessment and cannot wait to experience it for myself. I will definitely have some experiences from the museum to write about next time.


The National Museum of the Marine Corps

Finally, I also cross-trained with Living History today. What I had hoped to be a day of shadowing Living History people and experiencing what they do in a normal day, including their tour programs, turned out to be menial jobs like scraping rust out of tinware and painting a table. It was kind of a drag, but oh well, not the worst day I've ever had.  Well good day folks, until next time. I know my colleague, Nate Hess, already has blogged about living history as an effective teaching tool. Hopefully, I'll get to learn more about the techniques of conducting living history, if I cross-train with them again. All in all though, I've already learned a great deal about interpreting history for the public on this job.

Isaac Wickenheiser
"You are green, it is true but they are green, also; you are all green alike."
President Abraham Lincoln urging General Irvin McDowell of the Army of the Potomac to attack the Confederate army under P.G.T. Beauregard, leading to the battle of 1st Manassas/Bull Run, 07/20/1861

Gettysburg intern Nate Hess talks about the effectiveness of living history as a teaching tool for park rangers.

Over the course of my last few blog postings, I've been discussing both the concept of interpretation and the ways to protect our resources for future interpretation. For this posting I'd like to continue with this train of thought and discuss how a few of our interpreters literally bring history to life. By this, I'm referring to our living history interpretive programs.

 

Living history programs are fairly simple at first glance, but they are very effective interpretive tools. Essentially, a living history person will dress up in period costume and portray a historical figure, such as Lydia Leister, and conduct an interpretive program from that historical figures first person perspective. Leister was a widow who owned a small farm that was commandeered by General George Gordon Meade during the Battle of Gettysburg. Leister and her six children found shelter with family along the Baltimore Pike.

The Leister Farm

When she returned to the farm after the conclusion of the battle, she found artillery damage to the house and fences, and much of her furniture scattered in the yard. Moreover, her livestock had been driven off in the battle and her food stores were depleted by Meade's staff. Dead soldiers, horses, and mules still littered the yard. Leister had to assess the damage and figure out how to recoup at least some of her losses to keep supporting her children. According to the blog Civil War Women, she burned the bones of the dead horses and sold the ash as fertilizer. Done correctly, a living history program can really make an impact on a visitor. In this case, it can recreate the fear, anguish, and perseverance of Leister during the battle. This basically is what interpretation is all about: making a significant, even emotional, impact on our visitor. When working the information desk at Gettysburg, I've often had visitors come up and comment on how much they love our living history programs.

The Leister Farm today and monument commemorating

Meade's headquarters

Another way in which living history programs are conducted is through living history demonstrations that are conducted every weekend during the summer months at the park. These demonstrations are small-scale reenactments conducted by small groups of living historians sanctioned by the National Park Service. These living historians go out on the battlefield, and depending on what unit that they are representing, will march, drill, fire their muskets, or even fire a period cannon! Once again, visitors really appear to enjoy these demonstrations. Many people coming into Gettysburg expect to see a reenactment or something along those lines, and these programs are the closest thing that we have to battle reenactments. Even these small-scale demonstrations teach our visitors much about how soldiers maneuvered and behaved in drill and battle. Either way, living history provides a fun and immersive way for visitors to learn and interpret the actions and experiences of soldiers and civilians on the battlefield

@Civil War Women, @My Year of Living Rangerously