Category: Reading Reflections

I had no idea that historic preservation efforts had to jump through so many hoops to get places of historic significance placed on a registry of some kind. I am continually surprised at the blase attitude the government seems to have toward preserving sites that are powerful reminders of our history. It seems to me that more emphasis should be placed on protecting these important landmarks. I was also not aware that being on a national registry for historic places did not offer protection from private or government projects that would impact the site in some way. It does not make much sense to force preservationists to go through months of paperwork only to have their registered site impacted negatively by someone else’s project.

I had not given much thought to why houses and other buildings tended to be described by their architectural style. Giving a historic building several layers of context is extremely important for understanding why it should be preserved. Knowing that a building is an original colonial style home helps to demonstrate the changes in architecture over time. I feel like the more important contextualization method is that of place. Regardless of what style each building in a particular neighborhood or city block happens to be, there is much to be learned from how those buildings interact with one another. How a city is planned and developed can tell you a lot about its people.

The threatened sites page on the Preservation Idaho site brought home some of these principles in a way that simply reading about them could not. Even if a building is not demolished for the sake of additional parking lots, covering it over with a facade or allowing it to simply fall apart though neglect does the same amount of damage to historic places. I imagine that it is difficult to provide the capital and man-power to maintain these sites when the city itself is actively working against a preservation effort.

 

During the reading of Historic Preservation, I found myself thinking about the ideal of Private efforts to preserve historical sites. Although I prefer the idea that our federal government would not allow our local history to be demolished, I believe that only the local people who actually know and care about it are likely to save a larger number of sites. That being said, I find that there are some companies and groups that are taking this preservation into their own hands. I recently ran into an article that proves this.In the article http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-mcdonalds-has-cool-design-element-ancient-roman-road-180962289/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=socialmedia, , Smithsonian Magazine shows that even businesses such as McDonald’s are taking some sense of historical responsibility. This idea fills me with a sense of relief. The “George Washington slept here” technique as the book calls it, is one of the few ways that we can actually work to save our history on a local level.(42) I wish that there were better avenues for this but unfortunately all too many people just really could not care less.

The other thing that really intrigued me was the talk about Seattle’s Pike Place Market. It did so because I found myself in awe of the idea that a historical area or landmark could become so popular that “its character would change into that of a boutique center and lose its original character as a somewhat scruffy everyday market run by local farmers and small entrepreneurs.” (23) Not only the fact that a historical site could be so popular but also the idea that someone actually recognized saving it for what it originally was took me back. I wonder how many times that this has actually happened throughout history. Do we truly remember historical sites as they were or simply as what we wanted them to be? Does history tell us more about the people who lived it or those of us that choose to look back at it?

Reading about historic preservation prompted me to think about how relevant the topic is in society today.  This chapter brought to mind many different articles and news stories that have popped up recently within the last few years and serves as a reminder that this topic is deeply important.  One such example is the Colosseum restoration project to clean the grime off the façade, that I saw on a 60 Minutes segment.

I agreed with many of the points brought up in the book, one of which is that by preserving different sites, we have the ability to go beyond static representation of artifacts and to present history as a complete environment (pg 18).  Context is a major player within the world of preservation.  I loved the discussion of Charleston’s implementation of historic district zoning ordinance policies in 1931 that made it illegal to build anything that would detract from the architectural and historical setting.  We can see that those same policies have been adopted in many varied places.

I also agreed with the notion that the local level is where historic preservation is the most powerful.  Communities are the driving force behind many efforts to protect historic sites and buildings.  I love the idea that communities deem what is significant, but as with our discussion on museums, I worry about that in the long run.  The pitfalls of relying on communities are in their failure to think long term and concerns about demographics, along with people in power.  Talking of demographics, it makes me think of communities with a small percentage of ethnic diversity.  The larger group could be gung-ho about preservation, but only so far as it applies to their own history, and not the sites of minorities.  Addressing my other concern of longevity, I was reminded of efforts in my hometown of Winnemucca, NV to save a crumbling building.  Last fall the Winnemucca Hotel was demolished and there was an outcry to save it.  Built in 1863, the hotel was a noted Basque landmark as a boarding house and restaurant.  It was left vacant for years to decay.  Only when it was slated for demolition, did people pay attention to it.  A group tried to raise money to buy the property and restore it, but their efforts fell short because they had no plan for the building after they bought the land.  While the demolition is unfortunate, I think that had their efforts been successful, they would have started restoring the hotel, ran out of money, and the building would continue to sit without a purpose.  Maybe I’m being cynical, but I fear that this scenario is an all too common one in other small towns that lack funding and sustained interest/effort in keeping these sites from deteriorating.

I’ll leave off with a few last thoughts. I think it’s important to note that these restoration and preservation projects can even add previously unknown information to our understanding, for instance, the fact that by cleaning cathedral façades people realized that they used to be brightly painted.  This changes how people look at gothic architecture. I was also surprised at how short the list of Idaho Threatened Sites was.  I expected a higher number in different places around the state rather than only 6 sites, 4 of which are in Boise.

The opening pages to Historic Preservation really struck a cord with me. By calling historic preservation un-American because it is going against the American way of using up space and then moving on really intrigued me. By preserving these houses, these towns, and these buildings, we can breathe life into old spaces and make them live again. This idea on the surface really excites me. “This maturation is evident when we recognize that we must preserve our built heritage because it is part of what we are as a people and as a community.” (Historic Preservation, pg. 14) This to me, is extremely true. To get rid of our built heritage is like ripping up pieces of ourselves. It’s like erasing the past and history of the city. This book really made me think of Todd Shallat’s book, Ethnic Landmarks. In this book he describes the various ethnic landmarks throughout Boise and how a lot of them have been torn down. The histories of the founders of the city has been erased with those buildings. By writing this book, Shallat echoes the sentiment expressed in Historic Preservation about how the preservation of historic buildings should also include the history of the place. By writing his book about the significance of each building, he showcases the history surrounding the building. He provides a more active role for the historic buildings within our community through his book. As seen in the Threatened Sites page on the Preservation Idaho website, many buildings in Idaho have a rich history but are close to being torn down. With the destruction of those sites, we lose the full extent and power of the history surrounding them.

While preserving property can be precarious and hard to maintain, I think it is important because it really does preserve the physical history of towns and cities. Just having photographs or descriptions of the buildings isn’t enough. To truly get the full history and experience of a place, you have to be able to see it and feel it. As talked about in Historic Preservation, having artifacts in a museum is one experience, but seeing the artifact in it’s original home is a totally different experience.

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that has been preserved as a reminder of World War II- showing that historic preservation can be used as a warning and reminder of history:

This is an extremely sensitive topic for me, because the focus of my research (masonry fortifications dating from the colonial period) are something that serve no purpose today. Clem Levine was quoted as saying that preservation was un-American because “America was built on the concept of the frontier. Land was limitless. Resources were never ending. The pioneer way was to use it up, throw it away and move west”(12). This seems to be even worse out here in the West. That list of endangered places in Boise, Lewiston, and Minidoka was heart breaking.
The part of this reading that I found the most thought provoking concerned the different preservation philosophies. A close reading of the ideas of Viollet-de-Duc and Ruskin’s ideas shows problems with both ideas. For one, I like the idea of restoration. I’ve been to “Colonial Williamsburg” and I liked it. That being said, I don’t think it is a model that should be followed everywhere. On the other hand, I can see why Ruskin, writing in the 19th century thought that ruins were “romantic” and “sublime.” It’s how people thought back then, but if nothing’s done about them, ruins tend to stay ruins. And said ruins, by their ruinous nature, are dangerous. And to be fair, some ruins are beautiful and sublime, like mountain ghost towns, or Fort Stevens on the Oregon coast. But it is prohibitively expensive to repair, renovate, restore, or even stabilize some of these sites.
Personally the hardest part of this reading was the portion about urban renewal and historic districts. Urban renewal has a place. When I was younger my father used to call downtown Boise “downtown Beruit” because of how sketchy it was. Then they opened the 8th Street Market place, and I would challenge anyone to compare Boise to Beruit now. And I think Boise did a good job mixing façadomy with new construction, but I think some of the neighboring communities (mostly Nampa) in trying to follow Boise’s lead fell short of the mark.
This talk of Nampa leads to the title of this post. Nampa had a beautiful old city hall. They tore it down and put a fountain where it was. That fountain has since been torn out and there is a library very nearly on the spot of the old city hall. The city hall is very nearly the same size as the library building which begs the question, why not have just used the old building? The answer, it costs less to knock it down than it does to keep it up.

I’m including this collage form my trip to old Fort Niagra because it represents a good compromise between the two discussed preservational styles. I hope you enjoy.

This week’s readings pointed out a sad reality to me– that inclusiveness in museums requires a directive,  that diversity is somehow frightening, and that those who have been forced to flee their homes in other places feel shut out from the few places that contain pieces of their heritage. It was not something I’ve ever had to consider, since the vast majority (7/8) of my own heritage comes from European immigrants, and I’m not arrogant enough to claim much knowledge of the Cherokee/Creek cultures that make up the rest of it. It just seems that something so common sense as “These people make up part of the population, therefore their stories should be told” shouldn’t have to be a mandate. I understand that it is this way, and why it is this way, but I’m still sad that it ever came to that.

It also bothers me that people would attend the Immigration Museum looking for a fight. The museum exists to celebrate the contributions that immigrants make, all of which were vital in the construction and achievement of America and its famous Dream. Looking to pick a fight with curators surrounded by the evidence of immigrant excellence is defeatist at best. It’s a shame that these people don’t take a hard look at their own logic before blindly acting on misdirected rage.

I do think it is important that the conversation about artifacts brought from war-torn places is being re-evaluated. The article about immigrants from Syria to Germany put this many-faceted issue into better context. Is it unfortunate that these artifacts were taken from their country of origin? Yes. Is it important that these artifacts are protected from malicious destruction? Also yes. With organizations like ISIS targeting ancient sites and ephemera I can’t help but be grateful for those early archaeologists (tomb raiders?) and their light fingers. It is good that these museums are seeking volunteers from these regions to better contextualize their collections; I had not considered that such exhibitions would aid in the integration process. Hopefully more aspects of American society begin to better understand why representation matters so much to under-represented groups.

 

Museums as relevant institutions of contemporary dialogue is a topic that really makes you think about how the role of museums has changed in the last few decades.  All of these articles concerning the Black Lives Matter movement or refugees call into question how to include these controversial topics into museum discussions.  It was interesting to read about how different museums around the world are doing just that. On a side note, I wonder about funding for these topics.  I know that here in Idaho, as Alisha discussed in her Public Historian post, funding is a major problem for the Idaho Black History Museum. Aside from that, I struggle with how these efforts would get implemented in places like a Idaho.  Certain people in this part of the country may benefit from education on African Americans that a museum could provide, but I know some would not even want to walk in the door.  Those that need it most, would protest the exhibits the most, and be resolute in keeping their views the same as they’ve always been.  Maybe I’m being cynical and unfair, but as we’ve already discussed, these tricky subjects can cause defensiveness.

All of the articles regarding the Black Lives Matter movement mentioned social media as a major component in keeping relevance. Throughout the previous week’s reading, social media and an online presence had been mentioned multiple times.  When reading this, I was struggling to visualize how museums would go about that. Personally, the most that I have been exposed to online associated with museums is following a certain institution on Facebook and reading some of their posts related to current exhibits.  So I had questioned what a museum online presence actually meant.  As a non-twitter user, I appreciated the sections devoted to how twitter has been the biggest connecting force.  In “Museums & #BlackLivesMatter” they described how a museum can facilitate a twitter conversation and store those conversations for later use.  While this is all very interesting, I can’t help but think about how many trolls are out there spewing insults and attacking people’s right to have an opinion.  Civilized, informed dialogues can be lacking when there’s online anonymity to hide behind.

Another point that I found worth discussing was the fact that the African American History Museum is collecting artifacts from the Black Lives Matter protests.  In my experience, I feel like some people don’t always recognize the significance of current events, and some length of time is needed to gain that perspective.  As a result, I found the collecting of protest artifacts very proactive.  The museum is recognizing that these protests are important, and thus, they won’t have to worry about gathering signs and gas-masks 20 or 30 years down the road.  While conversely, the opposite can be said.  Many feel as though contemporary happenings are the most significant events to ever happen in the history of the Earth, when later we see that that may not be the case.  To this argument I’d say that it would be better to have more than enough artifacts for any given time period, than not enough.

My last thought is that I love the idea that Berlin’s Museum of the Ancient Near East has implemented by employing refugees as guides.  I think its immensely important that people own their history and this is one way to do that.  Even though the artifacts are in Germany instead of Syria, Syrians are still the ones telling people about it and informing other Syrians about their heritage.  While having these artifacts in Germany is not ideal, they are kept safe and away from groups like ISIS who recognize that destroying art and history is part of how you destroy your enemy’s existence.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150901-isis-destruction-looting-ancient-sites-iraq-syria-archaeology/

On a tangent, here is a list from 2015 of some sites that ISIS has destroyed, which just infuriates me.

The type of work that the National Museum of African American History and Culture is doing surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement and the political and racial unrest surrounding police brutality is exactly how I picture a museum exhibit and how they do work. The fact that they are collecting signs from protesters, gas masks from Ferguson, and even a broom and rake used for protest debris, makes me extremely excited. I had always wondered how people collected things like buttons and pins from Nazi Germany or signage from the Civil Rights Movement. It’s very intuitive of museum curators and collectors to be able to recognize a moment in history that will be important for years/decades to come. That is really where all of the magic in museums is for me.

While this may be my ideal museum world, I am really excited about museums that are fully engaging in social activism. While I don’t think this is the right step for all museums, I appreciate the museums that are turning towards this. Challenging peoples’ ideas and misconceptions is very important. Making people think about and engage in their history (or even just America’s history) is extremely important right now. I can see how museums can be on the front lines of changing harmful attitudes or misconceptions.

The Medium article that addressed Museums and #BlackLivesMatter was very interesting to me. Throughout this class I have wondered about how museums can best have an online presence and reading this article opened my eyes to possibilities. I never thought that simply engaging with the community and even other museums on Twitter could be so rewarding for museums and its participants. The most challenging part of online conversations as mentioned in the article, is the active participation outside of the internet. Museums need to be able to dismantle their own racist and/or oppressive past first before being able to tackle these kind of issues. Then they must turn to galleries, programming, and community outreach to continue their activism or simply the conversations. As outlined in the NEMO examples of refugee and immigrant participation in museums, there are ways for museums to reach a wider variety of people and to be more inclusive. Allowing immigrants and refugees to lead tours in their own language can help new citizens adapt and feel included in their new country. This is extremely valuable for new citizens.

The topic of slavery is a difficult one regardless of background and personal experiences.  I agreed whole-heartedly that Americans know little about history, slavery in particular.  My own experiences attest to that.  I attended K-12 grades in California and Nevada, much removed from issues concerning the Civil War, segregation, and slavery.  I received the standard glossed over narrative of the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement.  Last semester, taking the History of Race and Rights class, I was embarrassed by the amount of information that was unknown to me.  I left that class with a much deeper understanding of contemporary issues that others are clueless about.  I know I’m not the only one with this experience, and I think it shows the holes in public education.  I also agree with the statement that history must be taught in various non-academic settings.  Many of the examples shown in the book represent exhibitions appearing on the eastern side of the country.  That is problematic because it further distances the information from people like me, who have never traveled east of Utah (besides Florida, but it was only for a day so I don’t count it).  It’s important for these exhibits to tour the country to reach people who otherwise would only receive the national educational standard version of the South, supplemented by Gone With the Wind.  Although I wonder if it is futile to try to reach the Southerners who so deeply believe that the war isn’t over and that slavery did not cause the Civil War.

Within the reading I was interested in how the power of places was presented.  This was profoundly present in the Williamsburg slave auction and with “Back of the Big House”.  By removing Williamsburg from the slave auction, and replacing it with a mall, the power of the dramatization is completely lost and becomes a farce.  It amazes me that when planning such an event, people were blind to the lost context that came from the site itself.

I’m curious how the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture last fall has presented the difficult topic of slavery and subsequent Jim Crow oppression.  I have not heard much outcry, which makes me wonder if it’s not as “shocking” as it should be.  Like the book suggests, race and slavery within American memory risks provoking defensiveness and confrontation.  I’m also curious if the museum utilizes any participation elements that we’ve previously discussed.  I would hope that whites take advantage of the opportunity to visit the museum and hopefully fill in some of the gaps in their understanding of history.  It is so important to continue to find ways of discussing race and slavery.

I think it’s also noteworthy that the museum is on the National Mall down the road from monuments and buildings honoring the very men who owned slaves.