Final Thoughts on HST 480!!!!!

This semester in HST 480, I have been able to have a very different seminar experience than most other 400 level history courses offer. The focus on public history this semester has allowed to me realize that there are so many ways in which history can be shared with the public instead of just academics. When coming into this course and being asked who history was written for or why it was written I would have never responded with "the public." I had a preconceived idea of history being very complex described in very wordy language making it so the general public would not be interested. I have learned that all presentations have an audience and that audience is important when sharing historical events or ideas because if you do not cater to your audience they will not be interested. For example, if a very intellectual academic writes a thesis on a significant historical event and his intentions are to share it with the public because the public should know about it, he is going to fail greatly. The public is not only not all highly educated to read a thesis and understand it but also it is something that would rarely be appealing to the general public. To reach the public you have to grasp and idea that is appealing to them such as a documentary, a novel, an oral presentation and such and then you have to make the language you use in these very simple and easy to understand so all walks of life can understand what you are telling them.

I think public history is more important than I ever thought it was at the beginning of the course. I had the idea in my head that not really many people cared if history was shared but then when finding out more about our own project I realized that I was interested in this type of thing, when it was easy to understand and shared properly. Then I almost felt bad that such things were not shared with more people in the city of Lansing. My parents did not even know that the construction of the highway had a bigger story to it than it just being constructed. I am sure that many of us who live within miles of this highway that we use everyday to commute do not know the underlying story and controversy that arose at its initial construction. It is sad to think that not a lot of photos were taken of this at the time since it was not thought of as a huge deal because things like that would have been great to share with people today!

The project we created as a class on the construction of highway I-496 was a great opportunity. It was very hard and challenging to work as a whole class on a single project but I do believe that we may have been able to bring to life a historical event that has gotten simply overlooked for years thinking that its occurrence was not very significant to Michigan history. We were able to dig deep and fnd information that exists right here within miles of campus and were able to compile a bunch of facts, documents and ideas to create an exhibit proposal. Now whether the actual proposal will ever be used is unknown but even if it is never used, it was still shared with people all around us including Maria from the MHC. This could give the museum ideas on how to construct some sort of exhibit on the construction of highway I-496 even if it is not our idea exactly that we presented to her.

I think overall history deserves more than it gets credit for. More students should be required to take history classes because I feel a lot of historical concepts and events are getting overlooked more and more as time goes by. Students know less about our history as a nation than they did years ago and this is because it is not a huge focus for anyone to study anymore. Even me being a history minor in the teaching field, I do not feel prepared to share vast amounts of knowledge with a classroom full of students. Also, it was not until I got to college that I felt I even learned in detail about significant events in our own history such as Columbus' voyage to the New World being something both positive and negative. It would not surprise me that teachers who teach this specific event to their class do not know the negative aspects of Columbus' voyage, having possibly never learned about it. Who knows!

Overall this class was a good one. People should take it, especially if they like projects rather than papers. I do think as a future idea, more time should be spent on the project to be able to form a more detailed and finished project than what we were able to create in our time frame given. I would have liked to have the chance to look for more item for the Omeka site and also to take more time exploring the MHC and seeing more details on exhibits. Even studying students in the MHC and seeing what most interested them would have been fun because then maybe we could have thought of more creative ideas for our site to attract children since the focus of the MHC is mostly school children.

Individual Project - Christopher Columbus - Hero or Villain?

For my individual prject, I am creating a series on lesson plans with a culminating project on Christopher Columbus. As known, we all learned about Columbus all though school but most of us probably only learned how great a man he was. I have created a 3 day lesson plan in which students will work as a class to find out who this man was. They will be reading and pulling information from various first hand documents such as Columbus' journals and his Letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Students will also use various other documents that talk about the positive and negative aspects of Columbus. Accompanied with this will be a teacher presentation on various facts about Columbus such as his birthday, when he sailed to the New World etc.

At the end of this 3 day lesson, students will work as a class to create a large display case about Columbus to be shown to parents, teachers and students on Open House night at the school. The audience is therefore students, teacher and parents and anyone who attends this school function. Other classes in the school will be doing the same thing for their own classes so there will be lots of display cases to be looked at that night. Students will have both group expectations as well as individual ones. Students will be divided into 4 groups and each group will complete a panel on a specific topic about Columbus for the display case. There will be specific things to be included listed on an assignment sheet. Students will also be required to complete two things individually which will be used in the display case as well.

Residential Cards Finally Arrived!

Okay so, I have received the copies of the residential cards that David Votta from the Capital Area District Library. I have loaded them onto the OMEKA site for our use in the exhibit plans. When Rachel, Erica and I went down there we were told that there are thousands of these cards, only they are very unorganized and not loaded onto their computers as digital images yet. So therefore I am sure that there are more useful cards there if the MHC wanted to actually use this in the future. The resources ARE THERE!!!! Anyway, you should check out the images.... some are nothing too exciting but others are rather interesting to look at.

YAY FOR MORE USEFUL PICS/DOCS

OKAY!!!!!!! So we encountered new documents at the library downtown this week. Rachel, Erica and I went to the library to talk with David who is one of the people in charge of the local history room. We intended to just go down and get copies of some residential cards similar to the one Dr. K showed us in class. We were able to get a bunch of these right in the 700 block of all the streets in the area that we wanted and David will be scanning these into the computer for us and sending them to me as JPG files to upload on the OMEKA site in the next few days or so. He was very helpful while we were there and was also able to show us a folder full of Lansing State Journal Articles from the period of construction that had a lot of great photos. These I have uploaded onto the Omeka site for anyone to look at. Rachel, Erica and I pretty much copied a whole bunch of possibly useful photos to use to show the construction process from a bunch of different angles. In addition to that we did come across one article that had a photo of a store front on it as well which was really exciting since one of out exhibit ideas was to re-create store fronts. I am personally not familiar with the little mom and pop store that we found but it seems pretty cool. Some of the thing loaded on the OMEKA site are not labeled with a lot of detail due to the timing that I had to put them up. Either I or the other two ladies who I worked with will add more information to this as we need it. Hopefully these items are useful for us and if we want anything else David Votta from the library will be around all this week until early next week to help out.

Library update!

OK so after getting in contact with the David from the downtown library, we have a time to go next Tuesday night the 13th. It was the only time that he was available and not busy. We should bring a tentative area/neighborhood to look at because he said there were zillions of cards to look through but that they are organized. I am not sure of the time yet I am waiting for his response to that. If anyone else is interested in going it would be great. More people the better!!!!

Residential Cards

Today, I went to the Capital Area District Library downtown to check into getting a hold of a compilation of residential cards similar to what we were shown in class last week. We on the design team thought this could be a small visual part in the actual exhibit design to show the integration caused from the construction of the highway. I am not sure if we will for sure use these if we are able to to get them but it was a tangible item that is possible. Sadly, this portion of materials in the library is only accessible Tuesday nights like Brandon had mentioned or by appointment. I have emailed/called the guy who heads this section of the library and Rachel and I will be meeting there either next Tuesday night or by appointment if we need to! Hopefully we can find something good and usable for the exhibit! The information assistant that I talked to mentioned that he may be able to find other useful things for us as well. I will update that when I hear from him!

MHC A Second Time Around!

This week, we took our second trip to the Michigan Historical Museum and I felt it to be much more productive than the first time. I had visited this museum once in grade school but I remembered absolutely nothing about it and so being able to take a quick walk through was great!

One of the things that I really liked was being able to see all of the different exhibit designs. This helped me gather some ideas of what a good/bad exhibit looked like in order to postulate ideas for our exhibit that we do not have yet. I realized, as assumed that the exhibits that I enjoyed the most were the ones that had actual objects in them such as cars, clothing, animals, etc. The ones that I found least interesting were ones that were filled with only writing on the walls. While taking our walk-through I tried to put myself in the shoes of a young child, trying to imagine what he/she might be attracted to in the museum since that is who we SHOULD cater our exhibit to, although it is not required. In the same fashion, I realized that I think they would be attracted to the same things: color, tangible objects to touch and look at, videos and music. Another thing I realized was that some of the exhibits with writing on them were a little detailed and used somewhat large words. Can 4^th and 5^th graders read this well yet? Maybe yes, maybe no! Even so, we need to make our story for I-496 not only appealing to the public but also SIMPLE so that everyone can participate.

I feel that now that we all have been able to see real exhibit examples, I think we can really get to moving on what we want to do for ours. The one thing is, is what are we going to do. We have a story but we have no actual personal interviews or photos of people from the time. The only things that we have are maps of the area during the time and how they have changed, so my question is, is what can we do with what we have to make an interesting exhibit that people want to look at? Most of the exhibits at the MHC had objects and things to possibly touch or music? What can we do to compete with this? I am not sure the answer to this but I do think this is something we need to brainstorm about!

Individual Project!!!!!

So, as I have been pondering over what to do for my individual project I decided that I may choose to focus on the bringing about of the "social gospel" with groups such as the Salvation Army. Many people seem to know of that little store down the street where you can donate clothes and other items but not many people know what the initial creation of the Salvation army really stood for. I was one of these people I will admit it. I find it to be a really intriguing event/group and feel that it should be something shared with other people. I am not totally sure of what my overall focus will be whether it be about the struggles that women had during the period or maybe just some of the hardships of the group overall or something completely different but I am going to start researching to see what I can find!!! More to come about this soon :)

What to do?????

Now that I have finally had some time to ponder over the 2 focus choices for our I-496 project, I still am not completely happy with choosing either topic fully. I feel that both choices are beneficial into giving important insight into the areas concerning the overall construction but I still think we need to fully decide who our audience is going to be to decide what we want to do. I personally still think that if we are going to propose an idea to the MHC, that we still should cater to their audience (being third and fourth grade students.) I know that our overall goal is not necessarily to have the MHC want to use our idea but hey while we are putting a lot of work into this project we may as well do it in a way that COULD be useful if it was wanted.

Last week, Prof. Knupfer posted after class on how we were facing a problem between “realism and idealism.” I could not agree more with this statement. It is unfortunate that we have such a short time to complete this project but I tend to side more with the realism group! I do not necessarily think that one proposal or the other is harder per se but I do think that there are some areas in each that will be harder to do. With proposal 1, I am still having a hard time grasping what we would do to create an exhibit that would not only flow well but would also be appealing to any audience. Some of our listed sources are things such as census/population statistics, real estate assessments, city directories etc. but is the information that we are able to collect from these items going to interest our intended audience?? I am not sure. I know these are important things but I am trying to figure out what is appealing to let’s say a student age audience. Students like narratives, colors, personal interviews, pictures……. Basically visual items that they can learn from. Now, if our audience is going to be an older adult population, things such as numbers, documents, safety and efficiency issues etc would definitely be things to use and share. I am just really confused. I feel like we have little time to complete this task in addition to our individual projects that we SHOULD choose the option that would be easiest but I am mixed between easy and meaningful because there is no use in completing a project that is easy if it is useless whereas more time spent in a more beneficial project is worth the while in the end.

Needed think time now….. more to come soon….. hmmmmmmmmmm

5 LSJ Stories from 1964: Effects of what will eventually be I-496

After having Matt Miller visit our class, I took the time to read the 5 short stories on I-496 from the Lansing State Journal from July 12-16, 1964 that he distributed to us to see if they were any use to our project. Initially the first thing that struck me was that the series of 5 articles was written a whole 3 years before the construction even was to begin. This made me curious as to WHY this would be such a huge thing to be presented in the paper at such an early date and I came to the conclusion that it may have been that this was going to be a much bigger project that would affect more people than anyone would realize. As I kept reading some of that was answered in addition to focusing on both the positive and negative effects the new highway would bring to the city.

The first short excerpt dealt with a basic introduction of what the highway would look like and presented readers with the “basic facts.” The article stated that the construction of I-496 would, “provide direct rapid access to the Lansing downtown area from connecting routes on the east, west, and south of the city.” It was also mentioned what highway connections would become present and what interchanges would be included. Overall though the point was that this highway would be the best ROUTE and create EASY ACCESS, no mention at first was negative.

The second article looked at the 900 families that would be affected and have to be possibly re-located. This definitely answers one of our data questions that we brainstormed in class. It also noted how a sum of 815 parcels (of various types) would have to be purchased to construct over. In addition, note was given to how many white and black families the construction would affect being 400 and 300 respectively. One thing non-statistical that struck me while reading was that the NAACP stated that the construction and relocation “provided a rare opportunity for the city to make at least a start toward a model integrated community.” This was big to me because this shows no fight rather that NAACP and other groups thought it may be a good idea to construct such business through this particular community and break it up a little bit. I especially liked this article as well because the last section ends asking a majority of questions that we as a project group asked ourselves.

The third dealt with business relocation and the removal of tax base from the city. These seemed to be of less importance from other things. Article 4 dealt with schools and the uncertainties of staying open or having to close down. These two articles to me were definitely good information to read and to understand what was affected by the highway construction but to me did not seem as relevant to what we need for our project.

Lastly, article 5 dealt with how properties were appraised and purchased, including where to construct the highway and the process of how residential homes were purchased. I sort of already knew this information so was not surprised but it is good information as well but would be even better with detail, but like I said at the beginning, nothing had actually been done yet since this all was written 3 years prior to actual construction.

Anything left out??????? I thought it was interesting that no public opinion of residents was included in any of the articles. All of the comments made were either basic data facts or thoughts and opinions given by significant groups such as the NAACP and school officials. I would have been curious to know what George who lived on Walnut street thought about him home being possibly purchased and being forced to relocate or what big business Ben thought about having his family business demolished after being in business for such and such years.

Formal and Informal Integration Thesis? Useful or no?

As I have finished reading a 1965 thesis entitled, “The Level of Formal and Informal Integration of Negroes in Lansing, Michigan,” I found out lots of interesting information about the population that Lansing consisted of around the time of the construction of I-496. Although this thesis had a focus on the integration of blacks in both the internal and external community of Lansing at the time, little information seemed to be overly significant to our project. Most of the information was related to age, education level, occupation of informants and their families etc. as well as investigated the relationships blacks had with whites, in the areas of jobs, church affiliation and union affiliation. There was no mention of the construction of I-496 or how these people were affected by it, or how means of integration were changed. The only thing that I found to stick out was a table representing how many residents owned/rented their homes. This could possibly give us an idea how many people actually owned their homes and possibly got paid to move. Even so I do not think this is overly relevant either. I will have to see what we narrow our investigation questions down to, to see if we have a major focus on formal and informal integration to see if this thesis is at all useful for us to use.

I-496 Construction: Was it right or wrong?

I never knew that the construction of I-496, the main highway in Lansing/East Lansing was such a big ordeal. I-496 spurred growth in the suburbs, but claimed many streets, homes and businesses in the city in the process. The heart of Lansing’s African-American community was torn out by the freeway’s construction. The construction of the freeway required the demolition or removal or nearly 600 homes, 60 businesses, and 15 farms. This was an incredible amount of destruction. While looking at the photo gallery of I-496, I was sad for those who lost their homes. So many photos were of machines crushing people’s homes. It made me wonder, where did these families move to? Did they move to a home just as nice as this one? Were they forced out of the city or did they move somewhere near? It was such a devastating event for some families and I just wonder how well these people were treated. In Miller’s article he shares a comment from historian Thomas Sugrue stating that the highway construction was steered toward places where people did not have the money or power to put up much of a fight or what Sugrue called “the paths of least resistance” aka. Primarily black neighborhoods (Miller.) This made me wonder, was this area chosen because of this reason? Why was another area composed of primarily whites not chosen? Was it really the location that prompted the construction or was it the composition of people in the area that made for the decision?

I was very appalled at reading the article to find out that many people were basically told they had to re-locate their families and purchase new homes to build the highway. Until now I was completely unaware of what Lansing actually looked like before I-496 was actually built. I never knew that mainly an African American population dominated the area and that many thriving businesses were located in the area and were forced to shut down or move.

I questioned a lot of things while reading and scoping out the websites posted and some of the questions I had were:
1. As families homes were demolished due to the construction of I-496, where were these families re-located? Or were many left without places to live/move (due to lack of funds or segregation)?
2. Why was the specific location of I-496 really chosen? Was it really the best suitable location for creating a highway or was it due to what Miller claimed as “the paths of least resistance?”
3. Since the highway construction cut out a lot of homes and businesses, how did this affect the overall economy at the time? Was it a positive outcome for Lansing?
4. It was said that the creation of I-496 would help in regards to the situations with segregation at the time but did this really happen or is the area still segregated today? At the time were blacks and whites integrated like intended?
5. Were people, whose homes were demolished or purchased, paid a fair amount? How was the amount decided? Were the amount sufficient for these people and their families to re-located and purchase new homes?

Historic Site: Turner Dodge House

The Turner-Dodge House Park and Heritage Center is located in the heart of Lansing on 100 East North Street. This house is the only 19th century residence in the greater Lansing area open to the public and has been used for both recreation and culture. A man by the name of James Turner built the original house on this site in the 1850’s and it was later reconstructed by Turner’s son in law, Frank Dodge in 1905. The house is extremely large and brick and is described to be of the Georgian Revival style. The overall features of Georgian Revival may be described as symmetrical composition enriched with classical detail. You can find the very detailed description of this old house on the Michigan Historical Center Website.

Being a future educator I would definitely take a class of history students to this historical site to visit. Not only does this particular site offer events and lead tours of the old mansion but it also has been restored and kept in its time period. Any student can look in a book and see houses and buildings from differing time periods (19^th century in this case) but they do not get the same experience as if they were able to visually see the house or building up close. They also do not know the back story on why it is important. When visiting a site such as the Turner-Dodge house students are able to visually see, touch and personally experience bring in such a place. In addition, they are able to learn of the importance of the building as well as the people who surrounded it throughout its time such as James Turner and his family. James Turner was a very prominent figure in Michigan history but few people know much about him or even his name. Also, a lot of information about the house is not available online and therefore going to visit the house can give an individual so much more. I think it would be a great opportunity for any classroom of students if they have the chance.

Currently, the house is owned by the City of Lansing Parks and Recreation Department and is used as a museum and cultural heritage center. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and has remained there since.

QUESTION: Would you take your class here for a fieldtrip? Why or why not?

Enola Gay Controversy

Before this week I was one of those students who were completely unaware of what the Enola Gay Controversy even was. While delving into the readings and searching various sites on the internet I was immediately familiarized with the event in which the first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States. I was very intrigued by the fact that this one single event in history was such a controversial topic in regards to being presented in a Museum setting since I believe that so many events that have been portrayed in museums all over with no public controversy. David Thelen, in his article “History after the Enola Gay Controversy” points out that controversy/views were given by so many participants: WWII veterans, the AFA (Air Force Association), the U.S. Senate, the American Legion, and differing curators just to name a few. It was incredible! It was a fight over commemoration versus scholarship in which some though that in-depth research was more valuable and authoritative than veteran’s first hand shared experiences for example. Neither of these should reign over the other, both aspects should be incorporated and shared. Even so, this lead to such an uproar in the designing and implementation of the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian.

While reading the article written by Richard Kohn entitled, “History and the Culture Wars: The Case of the Smithsonian Institution’s Enola Gay Exhibition,” I came across a statement that I really liked. It stated,

“Do you want to do an exhibition intended to make veterans feel good or do you want an exhibition that will lead our visitors to think about the consequences of the atomic bombing of Japan? Frankly I do not think we can do both.”

No matter what would have been done with the Enola Gay exhibit, some party or parties would have been disgusted, embarrassed or insulted by the material being shared. But isn’t this true for other exhibits, monuments, statues, etc? I do think that even though such extreme events do cause controversy that controversy can be hammered to a minimum with compromise and that is what should have been done with Enola Gay.

I believe that the Enola Gay exhibit should be allowed, even as a possible permanent exhibit somewhere, not necessarily at the Smithsonian, but somewhere where it will be well represented. Just like the 9/11 attack or the Vietnam War, it was an event that changed the world in one aspect or another and is a part of our history whether we want to admit it or not. I do not believe that history should be chosen piece by piece and only those that make us (The United States) look good be represented in a museum or by a monument or statue etc. All historical events, even those that may not build a great representation for Americans should be shared, such as that of Enola Gay. No nation is perfect without stains on their reputation; therefore the U.S. has no reason to hide their wrongdoings.

Now having read about this one single controversy that caused such uproar, I am curious to know if other events that have been portrayed in museums and such have caused similar uproars, even if only to a lesser extent. I would find it hard to believe that this is the only one that has such a strong story behind it.