Category: Uncategorized

Timothy W. Luke’s interpretation of museum politics in these chapters gave an inconclusive view on how a museum should be handled. As of yet I do not think he answered the question on what is the “right way” to manage museum politics. He makes several points that illustrate questions that curators and historians should ask about themselves. He states on page 3 “the curators pose as unseen seers, and then fuse their visions with authority.”  It is a “power” that, I believe, is being misused by historians and politicians to display an “Americaness” vision of U.S. history. He demonstrates the attempt to fix this misuse in the varying museum exhibitions that have been denied in major museums or quickly closed. I am troubled by the idea that there is a “right way” to display history. Luke explained that several of these exhibit’s scripts give attention to several different sides of the story but I have to ask is it possible to include every aspect available? I do not think so. After reading the grant proposal for the Boise wiki, I believe that if we can see continued success with local wikis it can be translated to museum wikis. Similar to the idea of the Historic Saranac Lake wiki, I would hope that we could create interconnected local museum wikis. This then would allow for those wishing to contribute or those that believe a certain aspect of an exhibit was missing to include their thoughts, memories, or research of the topic. Perhaps in the un-edited world of wiki we could overcome the politics that limit new and “offending” exhibits.

I found the Washington Post article to be very interesting. I especially enjoyed the short documentary that accompanied it explaining how the whole process of reconstructing Washington D.C. worked. Being interested in filmmaking, I found this to be my favorite part. Being able to see how they layered maps upon each other, then used the perspectives of different artworks to reconstruct buildings, and used historical evidence to verify was really interesting. It was so cool to see them highlight a point on the map, Q4 I think, and then show how it corresponds with a known piece of artwork. The reconstructed Washington D.C. that they show at the end of the clip is so lifelike that it feels as if you are watching a real-life movie rather than a computer graphic. Reconstructing the city must have been difficult but a lot of fun. I think it would be rewarding to reconstruct the capitol of our nation at a time before it was the capitol and then slowly add layers to see it build up to what it is today.

One of the things I think makes this project, and a lot of other public history projects, so interesting is that it combines a variety of academic disciplines that might not otherwise be used together, such as art history, geology, geography, and cartography, to create one singular work. I think that it is an interesting approach that could be used in a lot of different areas, provided they have been documented enough to create a wealth of information. Plus, the 3D model looks really cool.

The work that Stanford is doing for spacial history is truly remarkable. Their embrace of new, and foresight of developing technologies is going to revolutionize the way everyday Americans can study history, and the way Historians can interpret their findings. The most direct way you can teach someone about a certain topic is to show them first hand. Since both Washington D.C. and the Western railroads have seen significant change, if not demolition, over the last few hundred years, by showing the general public what ‘used to be’ gives them a first hand perspective that may not have been obtainable otherwise.

The challenge for a Historian is to ignite the imagination of the common public. By developing spacial history, Stanford is setting a visual standard so that even the most unimaginative person is able to enjoy the same immersion as one who is more practiced. The two topics Stanford has tackled are easily among the most important in U.S. History. The District of Columbia is the epicenter for all national matters, in addition to holding some of the most historically significant artifacts and museums in the world, and without Westward expansion by way of the railroads, our history could be drastically different than how we know it today.

Wow.  I am so excited after exploring The Spatial History Project and the Center for History and New Media.  I do wish, however, that I was more technologically savvy, and in the near future, I may look into taking some of these courses on java, linux, etc.  I have several computer geeks in my life, but it seems my free ride has come to an end.  After exploring the possibilities within the professional field, I have concluded that I should possess these skills myself.  Especially now that Omeka’s open-source coders have made it relatively simple for a girl like me to utilize such amazing technology.  These people are brilliant!

That being said, I was pretty excited to discover that what I envisioned for the fabulous history project is not so audacious that it would be impossible to complete.  After exploring history pin more thoroughly, I discovered that this is precisely the kind of spatial history project that the CHNM are talking about!  It is a little rough around the edges, and I wish it were easier to navigate, in fact, it was not quite what I was hoping for.  But since at the present moment I am not able to use Omeka’s platform, history pin will do the job.  All you have to do is create a user account and upload photos, “pin” them to a location on Google maps, and viola! You have made your historical mark. Each user has a page, a format similar to Picasa, where digital contributions are posted. You have the option to view these photos in their relative locations in Google street-view, which is cool, but it is hard to navigate from one photo to the next. Not quite a coherent tour, as much as it is a point-and-click, hunt-and-peck kind of situation. Here is my trial run, http://www.historypin.com/photos/view/phid/5759015/bground/:photos:feed:geo:42.7639,-108.79692:zoom:15

Beyond it’s navigation issues, I have discovered the potential in history pin to become an extensive digital archive that spans both time and space, and because it is a Google project, I have faith it will achieve this potential (it is in beta, after all).

So how does all of this apply to our fabulous public history project?  Well after browsing the world wide web, I decided to visit some local digital histories.  I discovered a connection to the main body of research, a completed master’s thesis by a graduate student at U of I in 2006, on the old black neighborhood on River and Ash streets. This former student is now a member of Preservation Idaho and contributes to their guided tours and digital histories. Here is their main site, if you feel like browsing http://www.preservationidaho.org/ (it is much more digitally inclined than the ISHS site, sadly enough) So it turns out that she lives and works here in Boise as a consultant. So we met for coffee.

She got her Master’s in Archaeology, and studied Anthropology at the University of Idaho in 2006, her thesis is titled “Boise’s River Street Neighborhood: Lee, Ash, Lover’s Lane/Pioneer Streets, the south side of the tracks.” I asked her what her interest in the River Street neighborhood was, why she chose it for her topic. Turns out it was assigned to her at random, something she was pretty apprehensive about. But she said she was happy to have something that hadn’t really been “done” before.

Demo’s primary sources for the people who lived in the neighborhood were the oral histories from the Preservation Archives and Research Library PARL (Osa, 1995). She is particularly interested in maps and physical traces of people. She said that she would love to conduct a field school on some of the River Street lots that remain vacant. I’m curious what they might find. After she graduated, Demo worked as an archaeologist for the Idaho Transportation Department, and she worked a few federal contracts. She said that working for federal money is nice, but it is a job-to-job type of experience. So today she is a consultant and volunteer. She volunteers her time organizing photo images that have evidence of canals and ditches in order to reconstruct archaeological organization of past farmers and irrigation. She is happy to compile them for later researchers to use.

And so she seemed quite excited for this history to be visualized, verbalized in a way that people will see.

Over my nearly three year tenure at the Idaho State Historical Society, I had the opportunity to work alongside some of the most passionate Historians in the state. I also had the opportunity to take part in other projects outside of my field, as well as perform projects of personal interest. Through this, I was able to witness others in their area of expertise and see first hand just how Idaho’s history was compiled.

I had met Ellen Haffner while a Historical Interpreter at the Old Idaho State Penitentiary. She had been employed at the archives as an Oral History Assistant, while also filling in at the Old Pen during my training and other staff changes. Currently, Ellen is a Research Assistant at the Idaho State Archives within the Idaho State Historical Society, a title which has broadened her work from Oral History into other archival based research methods.

Ellen’s path to work in public history started out as an internship in 2005 while seeking her undergraduate degree in History from Boise State. An internship is the most common path towards a position within a state agency, however there are still a few, myself included, who were able to gain a waged entry-level position. Originally attending Boise State to teach, her personal interest in audible history directed her down the career path she is currently on.

The day to day operations of a Research Assistant are broad, however strategically planned in order to assist the mission of the ISHS. While attending to the specific needs of the agency, Ellen is granted a certain level of freedom in how she pursues the goal. In the archives, there are paper documents, audio tapes, pictures, maps, architectural plans, and other forms of recorded history at her fingertips, and any combination of these can be used to acquire specific information requested of the ISHS.

What most people may not know, is Ellen and other employees of the archives are largely there to cater to the citizens of Idaho. The inquiry an archivist could be researching may have originated by anyone from a judge or lawyer trying to find further evidence in a case, to a curious citizen who wants to know more about one of their relatives. In the past few years, the Idaho State Historical Society, especially the archives, has been relying more heavily on catering to the general public. This commitment to getting citizens to walk through their doors and become interested in the various sites throughout the State will only help the sustainability of the various sites as well as the agency as a whole. The service of a professional Historian at the archives is free of charge; the only time they’ll request money of you is for a photocopy of any item you desire (and they are legally able to give).

While an employee, I was fortunate enough to be asked to partake in an Oral History project for the Idaho State Historical Society. A few years ago, the Idaho History Museum developed a temporary exhibit about the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, or Freemasons, and their history in Idaho. I had been a recently initiated Mason, and was requested to be interviewed in order to get a young person’s perspective of Masonic membership. The process was a series of planned, as well as improvised questions which ended up feeling more like an inquisitive conversation than anything else. After my interview was completed, I was given a CD containing the recording of the interview, as well as the transcript that Ellen had typed; both of which were now to become a permanent part of the Archives of the Idaho State Archives.

Oral History is one of the oldest forms of storytelling, education, and preservation of the past. This field is unique in that it has developed and progressed alongside technological advances. From wax cylinders to tape recorders, the voices of the past have all been recorded so that future generations can not only hear history, but also in the voices that lived it. Digital technologies promise a strong future in the field, once the original cost hurdles are passed. Like any new, developing technology, original equipment cost can certainly overwhelm any state budget (especially in a economic downturn), however, the technology’s longevity and quality cannot be matched by any predecessor and will eventually be a necessity in the field.

As a former professional Historian, I can immediately recognize why Ellen pursued Oral History as a career path.No matter what aspect of history someone works in, their job boils down to storytelling. It’s Ellen’s job to compile the stories, and preserve them so that future generations can hear them.

I really enjoyed exploring this week’s assigned reading and exploration, especially the website for the Center for History and New Media. I was not entirely familiar with this project before checking out the site. I explored some of their hosted sites, including the website featuring sources on the May 1970 “Hard Hat Riots,” and the “Greek American Stories” project. Having looked at these projects and others included in our assignment this week has given me a new, improved perspective on the importance of new media and digital history. While I won’t deny that I and many (probably most) historians still view printed publication as the highest achievement in academia, I feel that the creation of digital public history has so many positives when compared to the standard textbook.

The main positives would be the ability for users to customize their experience with the publication, and opportunities for authors to constantly add information and material. Digital projects have a “choose your own adventure” aspect that is ideal for researchers, or the curious visitor. These projects can provide links to related material, documents and photographs that are much more accessible than footnotes or endnotes in a textbook. The ability for authors to add material goes hand in hand with the opportunity for readers to contribute new information. The future of the history field is promising, and I feel that exposure to projects like these can help emerging historians to be part of that future.

Now a liaison for the United States with Croatia monitoring the maintenance of donated vehicles, Chris Borders started out with a History degree and a career in the National Guard. After graduating and guard duty, and miscellaneous jobs in the history field (mostly museums), Chris got a job at the Museum of Military History at Gowan Field.
Not everyone who gets a museum job gets as lucky as he did with his oral history assignment. He was to interview and catalog as much detail from as many members of the Guard that had seen combat, past and present. What he ended up creating was the largest collection of oral histories of the National Guard in the States, and received recognition from the Department of Defense for the work he had done on the project. Though the project had been assigned to him, it was not seen as work to him half the time. He got to meet the most interesting people and hear war stories that were probably only told to wives or grandchildren, or not even spoken of at all. That is one of the best parts of oral history, it’s like hearing a story from the greatest story-teller in the world; it has a time travel effect on the listener when the teller has been there and remembered so much.
Working in the history field and getting moved around to different history related jobs in Boise due to budget issues (go figure in the history department), it became clear that the position he had at the museum was not going to last forever, which is a current issue as well. The funding for museums jobs comes from the government, having a huge impact of the amount of people who can work at a museum, directly affecting the quality of the historians they employ. Typically, museum employees need a Bachelors Degree in the field, unless of course it’s a gift shop or admissions gig. To get a job at a specialized museum you not only need a degree but a great deal of experience in the field. Chris’ work with the National Guard definitely gave him the edge in getting the job that he did at the Museum of Military History. In order to be a curator of a museum, the position is most always held by a person with a PhD and a lot of experience in the department of history. There are, however, always internships that can give you the opportunity to edge your way into a museum job as well, though since everyone in this class is getting their Masters (other than myself), I would say you have a good chance anyway.
As long as I have known Chris he has been an optimistic, happy person. Annoyingly joyous at times, though when I was 10 I didn’t much care. Once I got my act together and started taking school more seriously, I began talking to Chris about history and the job field. His optimism made the bad news that getting a job doing what you really want to do in your field is rare seem like it was ok; I see that he was right now, as, at least for myself, any job in the field would make me happy at this point. He always talked to me about history, and it helped encourage me to pursue it as a career to have someone to talk about history with when I was just annoying my family with fun facts. So, even if the jobs are scarce and the research low-paying, you still get to do what you love.
Chris is currently working in Croatia after traveling the United States for his current job, which he also loves. Military and history—how many people get to work in the two fields they love the most in their life? I know I’m jealous. I probably won’t join the Guard, but it does make me think about Graduate school even more; but don’t tell my mom she thinks I spent too much money on school already. The idea of getting student loans and being in debt is sometimes overpowered by a desire to do what I really want to do, though it may not happen even then. The best advice, I am told, is to do what you can with what people give you, and keep looking for what your want; all the experience is good for you.

Documentary Film Historical/ Research Consultant

I talked to two researchers who performed research for production companies, one for a smaller company focusing on documentary and commercial work and the other for a larger company working on small, independent films. From them I discovered there are two main options for being involved in the research aspect of documentary/ motion picture filmmaking.

The first is to be a freelance consultant. This allows you to specialize in a certain field of research, say chemistry or European history, and work with several production companies. This option values your expertise over your research skills. The downside to this option is that by working as a freelance researcher you constantly have to seek out clients in order to make your business profitable. This means that you could go months between jobs and it may take a long time to build up your reputation in the business. Additionally, once you specialize in your area of expertise, you are limited to working on films covering that subject. If only one film on the Black Death is filmed per year, and you are lucky enough to be hired, it may be the only income you get from films for the year. Most of the people in this profession work as authors, professors, and other full time jobs and do this a side hobby or passion.

The second option is to work as a full-time researcher for a production company. This option allows you to work on a wide variety of research topic and values your research skills over your specialized expertise. With this option, you typically work with one production company (or two if they are partnered production companies) and you work on whatever projects are currently under production. You may research the impact of red tides for one film and the Biblical basis for creation for another. The downside of this option is that you may have to work on projects you do not enjoy and do not develop an expertise on any one given subject. The upside is that you have a steady stream of income and work.

Some of the considerations for both of these jobs are that there is a lot of overtime, travel, and additional work involved. Often the job of researching is just one of the aspects of someone’s job. They may also be an associate producer, secretary, production coordinator, or even host. The smaller the team working on a given project, the more roles each person will have to fill. One of the things that both people I talked to agree upon is that in order to work in the documentary film business, you must have an educational background that includes some documentary production experience and education. This is a little less important for the freelancers than the contract researchers, but it makes both more attractive hires.

Both of their paths were pretty similar, so I’m going to talk about them as one general path. They started by working on student production in college, then did internships with production companies as gaffers (holding lights) and production assistants (helping with setting up equipment), and were finally hired. They agreed that to start in any position in this industry you have to be willing to work for free for a while. Their degrees were in communications but they thought that the MAHR might be an attractive option for researchers to look at. They work on a variety of projects from commercials, to short how-to style documentaries, to small, independent films. They said that on top of their jobs they often do a lot of volunteer work for other filmmakers. This is because most independent films are either paid for by the filmmakers or a donor, but never heavily financed. This also means that researchers who work on smaller projects are likely to get paid less, if at all, for their work than contract researchers.

Another consideration of these jobs is that depending on whether you are working on a documentary or a feature film, your role and the production’s adherence to the research may vary. For a documentary, most filmmakers want to maintain credibility and therefore stick close to the research. Though they do have the problem that faces many historians: how do they edit the material without sacrificing the voice and meaning of the original subject? Many interviews can go for an hour and only sixty seconds will be used for the film. How do you maintain the meaning and intent of the person while getting the most interesting of their comments?

For feature films, your role may be more of guidance than an authority. If you discover that the union army used a certain type of gun powder that produced a small puff of smoke but the director wants to use a type of gunpowder that produces a large plume of smoke, chances are he will go with his choice. For movies, historical research may take second consideration to the visual or storytelling aspects of the film.

I think the post titled “But I Want You to Think!” by Jeremy Boggs is an excellent starting point when thinking about our mobile public history projects. Often academics can get caught up in the “informational” aspect of a project, but with any public history project the historian needs to keep their audience in mind first and foremost, and think about what degree to which the audience will be involved.

With Sarah Kessler’s “7 Ways Mobile Apps are Enriching Historical Tourism,” I took the next step in thinking about the app project and looked at a few examples of mobile apps created for historic sites and museums. It is interesting how these applications capitalize on aspects of a city or area that will be most engaging for tourists or those using the apps (i.e. Chicago’s mobsters, Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, murders and crime, etc.) I think it is going to be important to start small when building these apps, focusing on one aspect rather than trying to cover all of Boise. With any luck it could grow into something on the scale of the London Time Travel Explorer app. In the case of the Walk of Fame, which is such a large and meandering tourist attraction, a mobile app seems necessary to have when visiting.

From the “Augmenting Archaeology” article I went on to check out “The Civil War Augmented Reality Project” at http://acwarproject.wordpress.com/. I love this project because the creators have taken a strong interest in making the app truly interactive. While we’ve seen quite a few augmented reality apps, this one places an emphasis on stories, people and allowing the reader to choose their path in the app itself. While we can hope to add another dimension to historic places in our apps via pictures, audio, etc., this app takes it a step further and uses that information as a starting point for interactive stories behind the sites.

When asked during class the first week to think about public history projects, the first thing that came to my mind was, of course, interpretive signage. While that can still be very effective, looking at what historians are trying to do through these mobile apps should inspire everyone to think about the possibilities the public history field holds.

I did not own a car when I first moved to Boise in 2001.  Every aspect of my life was limited by the reality of the automobile landscape.  Where I lived, where I shopped, where I worked, and where I played were all necessarily accessible by foot, by bicycle, or by public transportation (unfortunately, the bicycle was for the most part the most efficient means of travel, depending on how far I needed to go, and what I needed to carry with me).  These limitations were my immediate motivations for acquiring a vehicle, any vehicle I could get my hands on, in the attempt to broaden my horizons so to speak.

Buying a vehicle did not lessen my concern for the problem of alternative transportation, however.  Even now, as party to a two-car household, I lament the poor state of Boise’s public transportation.  I live no more than four miles from campus and yet I drive to class, I drive to the library, and sometimes I even pay for parking (ugh!).  Why?  Because it is far more convenient than leaving twenty minutes earlier, braving the elements, or the bus.  But after reading the chapter on “auto-vernacular” I am even more aware of the bigger impact of a “perceived diminished sense of community” that the automobile has almost invisibly set upon us.

Ironically, my community has been limited by my mobility.  I can drive all over town, running errands and completing chores.  In a sense, my community is piecemeal.  I interact and know my immediate neighbors, but not many beyond my property boundaries.  I am limited to artificial associations with my bank tellers, grocery checkers, waitresses, and because of my own occupation, my customers.  Is the vehicle responsible for the superficiality of my daily interactions?  Hardly.  But it does contribute, no doubt, to my approach to such daily interactions.  Will public transportation fix this superficiality?  Doubtful.  Maybe we should focus on bringing our community goods and services closer to our actual living spaces?  I wonder if that would re-build a community network of shared interests and relationships.  It couldn’t hurt.