Public History Student – Page 3 – Public History at UMass Boston

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Amelia Earhart returns to Dennison House on Tyler Street where she is greeted by children of all nationalities. The Boston Public Library, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:6682zd38z

Remembering Jim Green and the Boston’s Working Peoples Heritage Trail

By: Madison Vlass and Adam Derington

On a quintessential fall day this past October, the UMass Boston Labor Resource Center held a memorial lecture in honor of the late Dr. James Green. Dr. Green, the celebrated historian, author, and activist, was a beloved member of the UMass Boston faculty and the Boston labor community. The event featured Professor Patricia Reeve of Suffolk University, who spoke to an enthusiastic audience about the contemporary labor landscape in Boston and Jim’s legacy in the field. As first-year public history MA students, we responded to the Labor Resource Center’s call for volunteers to lead a labor history walking tour in downtown Boston. This was also an opportunity for us to learn about Jim Green’s work and legacies as a movement historian.

As a scholar of new labor history, Jim brought together scholarship and his commitments as a public historian. He brought a people’s history lens to Boston’s historical landscape in 2001, when he planned and wrote the “Working Peoples’ Heritage Trail,” a driving tour of Boston’s labor history sites from colonial times right up to the present. In 2017, a recent Harvard PhD, Cristina V. Groeger, revised and updated the tour. Her project resulted in digital access to the sites, facilitated by an easy to follow google map, both of which can be found here. Groeger spoke briefly at the memorial event about the creation of the website and then handed the microphone over to us to introduce our tours.

We were a bit intimidated, as neither of us are labor historians or active in the labor movement. We knew we would be talking to experts in the field, leaders in the community, and people connected to Jim’s legacy. But as aspiring public historians, we enthusiastically embraced the challenge. In planning our tours, we divided up the sites, so we offered the participants two different experiences. Adam (having only lived in Boston for a grand total of a two months) kept his group focused around the Common. This part of the tour brought the group to well-known Boston landmarks, but interpreted them through a labor lens. Heading in the opposite direction, Madison took her group down through the theater district, Chinatown, and the old Garment District. Her tour had very few extant buildings, but brought people to lesser known sites and illuminated their hidden histories.

Amelia Earhart returns to Dennison House on Tyler Street where she is greeted by children of all nationalities.
The Boston Public Library,
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:6682zd38z

Despite the anxiety of keeping groups together through construction sites, yelling over jack hammers, and illustrations blowing away in the wind, both tours were successful and rewarding. Our groups were engaged in the information we presented, and excited to see Boston through a new lens. Madison’s audience loved hearing about the time that Amelia Earhart, a short-term employee of Denison House, a social settlement on Tyler Street, flew over Boston scattering leaflets about a Denison House event. They were also very curious about the development of Chinatown as a center of labor, and the community’s efforts to preserve their unique culture. Many of the participants were involved in the labor movement themselves, so when we were not able to answer specific questions, we deferred it to the group at large. This encouraged dialogue and critical thinking, and generally led to rich group discussion.

“Soiling of Old Glory” depicting Joseph Rakes assaulting Ted Landsmark, a civil rights activist and lawyer, at Boston City Hall. Photo credit to Stanley Forman/Boston Herald.

Adam’s group enjoyed finding the exact place of the famous photo, “Soiling of Old Glory” in Government Center. They discussed the

Remarkable riot picture taken on Boston Common during one of the most severe crisis known to Boston in history, the Boston Police Strike of 1919. The Boston Public Library,
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:b8515n66f

ways in which Boston’s busing crisis is remembered, or not, as the case may be, through public displays and in our collective consciousness. We also considered the complicated history of African American struggles and contributions to Boston’s historical landscape. These conversations with our tour participants reflected their deep interest in thinking about how to complicate our narratives and tell hard truths.

We are pleased that the Labor Resource Center has offered us the opportunity to lead tours again in July 2018. We are delighted that our continued participation in this project gives us the opportunity to continue developing our skills as public historians while keeping Jim’s legacy alive.

In his many writings, Dr. Green called for scholars to be stewards of historical knowledge and make history accessible in causes for social justice. We have taken those ideas to heart. It was a distinct pleasure to learn about his perspective on history and to experience the challenges to personal and popular narratives of history, posed by a people’s history tour. The entire experience provided a lesson on how each individual and community shapes their own histories, and the importance of the contributions and agency of those relatively invisible in the historical record as the true agents of important historical moments. As historians, we play a role in shaping these narratives, and Jim’s work reminds and challenges us to live up to our responsibilities to and the promise of collaborating with our communities.

Ayer's Sarsaparilla trading card, c.a. 1890

A wildly successful businessman of patent medicine, Dr. John C. Ayer owed most of his success to his excessive advertising. c.a. 1890. (LNHP collection; photograph by author)

Branding Lowell: Collaboration, Material Culture, and Community Identity at the Lowell National Historical Park

February 26, 2018 / Heidi Gengenbach / 0 Comments

By: Sarah K. Black

Streetcar, Lowell National Historical Park (photo by David Wilson, Oak Park, IL)

I spent my fall 2018 semester working as a curatorial intern directly under Laurel Racine, Chief of Cultural Resources at Lowell National Historical Park (LNHP). Maintained and operated by the National Park Service and spanning a full 142-acres, the park “interprets and preserves significant historical and cultural resources from the 19th-century American Industrial Revolution.” More than just a conglomerate of former mill buildings, and a locks and canal system, the Park is a hub for education and a major player in Lowell’s evolving cultural landscape and economic revitalization.

I came to LNHP in search of experience in exhibit planning and execution. I also wanted to gain a general understanding of daily museum operations since I had never worked in a cultural institution. Knowing this, Laurel brought me in to assist two volunteers who were in the beginning stages of developing a temporary exhibit. Branding Lowell: A History of Local Design was the brainchild of Mark Van Der Hyde, a graphic designer by trade and an extremely enthusiastic and dedicated volunteer. Combining his love for both logos and Lowell, he envisioned an exhibit that centered on how the city, as well as its local businesses and organizations, have designed their own symbols and how this imagery has reflected Lowell’s collective and evolving identity since its founding.

I knew that I would walk away with more experience than I had going in, but I never expected my internship to be as valuable as it was. Not only did I grow and improve my skillset in several areas including exhibitions, collections management, and museum operations, but the opportunity also offered me a chance to prove to myself that I can step outside academia and into the public sphere of the historical discipline.

Mark had conceived of a panel exhibit with the help of Tony Sampas, Senior Digital Documentation and Records Management Specialist for UMass Lowell’s O’Leary Library— and a fellow logo enthusiast. My task—shifting the two-dimensional exhibit into a three-dimensional one—required me to research, select, and interpret artifacts to create a storyline. I spent many long hours searching through the park’s databases and experimenting with storyboards, all the while trying to find objects that both fit Mark’s narrative and illumniated stories that did not appear in the panel text. But the artifacts themselves are undeniably crucial in this history. Early sketches of the logos reveal the process of branding. Branded goods and memorabilia evidenced how these symbols were disseminated to and absorbed by consumers. Taken together, these themes demonstrate just how pervasive symbolism and branding is throughout our culture.

Early mock-up of UMass Lowell’s hockey team logo. Including sketches from the artists offers audiences a glimpse into the process behind forming a logo. Circa 1994. (On loan to LNHP from artist Brian Trainor; photograph by author)

After just a few weeks on the job, I realized just how dynamic and unpredictable building an exhibit can be. With each team meeting, Branding Lowell grew in both content and thematic scope, and with it, so did my responsibilities. Hoping to put my training in public history theory and practice to good use, I volunteered to explore new content, draft panels, and introduce interactive components. Although these additional tasks certainly opened the door to practical experience in interpretation and exhibit planning, I found the collaborative component of the project to be the most valuable. Each member of our four-person team brought something unique to the table, be it curatorial experience, graphic design skills, or an extensive knowledge of the history of Lowell. Our exhibit team meetings were opportunities to share progress and problems; they were honest and productive sessions where we brainstormed, proposed solutions, and compromised. Collaborations, especially when they involve community members, are never a guaranteed success, so I am tremendously grateful to have worked alongside professionals who were both eager to share ideas and open to constructive criticism. In the end, our unique perspectives and expertise combined to ensure Branding Lowell is as content-rich, aesthetically pleasing, and engaging as possible.

Branding Lowell will open on March 24, 2018 and although my formal internship has concluded, I intend to see the project through to its completion. We still have a great deal to do, including case layouts and object mounts, text editing, and installation. I look forward to increasing my skillset even further.

Ferrin & Parker "Boots and Shoes" nineteenth century business card

The Branding Lowell exhibit will feature an array of nineteenth-century business cards. This one is from 1890. (LNHP collection; photograph by author)

The internship requirement for the public history program had haunted me since the evening I received my acceptance letter. I came into the program with no experience in a museum (or even a comparable institution), and feared that my lack of experience in the field would ultimately cast me as the inexperienced underdog in both academic and professional networks. But this is exactly why our time as interns is so essential. No matter how little or how much experience a student has, there are always new skills to learn, most of which have to develop outside of the classroom. I was fortunate to be mentored by a museum professional with tremendous experience in the field and a desire to create a positive and productive environment. Laurel not only took me under her wing to teach me about collections management and museum operations, but she also granted me a great deal of freedom with the exhibit content and development. At the end of the day, I will leave my internship with something even more valuable than an improved skill set: the knowledge that I left my mark on a truly dynamic and collaborative project, one that tells the story of a city’s identity in a unique and interesting way. As an aspiring public historian, I can think of no place better suited for professional and personal growth than the Lowell National Historical Park.

Public History at the American Historical Association’s 2018 Annual Meeting

January 29, 2018 / Heidi Gengenbach / 0 Comments

By: Genevieve Wallace

How do you choose which conferences to go to, especially as a graduate student with limited travel funding? Public history students in particular (myself included) will likely be drawn to the National Council on Public History, or the New England Museum Association’s annual meeting. The American Historical Association (AHA) is often overlooked by students of public history because of its reputation for academic history. However, as the largest professional organization of historians, there is something for everyone—including public historians. I was fortunate enough to attend all four days of its annual conference in Washington, DC this (especially frigid) winter, and it was worth bundling up for.

Program Cover, American Historical Association, 132nd Annual Meeting

Program, American Historical Association, 132nd Annual Meeting

Museum Talk

Several panels at the AHA were focused on public history and composed of public historians in the field. I chose to attend 1960’s GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) in large part because Samir Meghelli, museum curator for the Anac ostia Community Museum, was presenting. I learned about the Anacostia Community Museum in a public history class, and was inspired by its innovative approach. Meghelli walked us through the museum’s history and the transformative experience of sharing authority with a neighborhood. By opening dialogue with neighborhood residents, the museum gained information about community interests.

Anacostia Museum’s building at 1901 Fort Place, S.E., Washington, D.C. Public Domain.

These interests motivated the museum to shift its orientation from objects to the community itself. Exhibits became about topics like the neighborhood rat infestation, and the museum became a hub for community.

Public History and Public Memory: Talking about Slavery at Presidential Plantations panelists included staff from three presidential plantations: James Monroe’s Highland, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and James Madison’s Montpelier. All three institutions include tours and exhibits about slavery. Monticello and Montpelier have collected oral histories from hundreds of descendants of slaves, and work with the descendant community about how to represent their past. Brandon Dillard, educator at Monticello, shared an interesting anecdote about the slave quarters at Monticello. Visitors on tours consistently remark, “this isn’t so bad!” while inside a restored slave cabin. These remarks prompted staff to install a sign outside that reads, “not so bad?” and explains the reality of slavery as more than the material reality of their cabins.

Job Talk

“What Do Public History Employers Want?” A Report from the National Council on Public History was enormously informative. With an expected graduation in May (knock on wood), I walked away with several useful pieces of information about the job search. For example, jobs posted on USA Jobs use computers as first readers of applications, so interested parties should pack their resumes with terms from the job descriptions. Since many of us in the room were either teachers or students, we learned some “tricks” to describe our roles in ways that match the skills required. Serving on a thesis committee, for example, might translate into some of the skills needed for a project management position.

Panelists highlighted two particular skills—public speaking and digital skills. Public speaking was listed at the top of desirable skills for public history jobs. Digital skills, like graphic design, were likewise named valuable. These skills can be developed in myriad ways, and panelists encouraged current graduate students to take courses outside of their departments.

My takeaway from this panel? Continue to develop your extracurricular activities, even if they seem unrelated to your career search. I have been volunteering for The Moth, a non-profit dedicated to storytelling, and telling my own stories in various venues for the past two years. When I asked panelists for strategies

Here is one example of Genevieve's creativity and talent. You can see more on her Instagram.

Making mixed media art has helped Genevieve to develop her digital skills.

to bolster my public speaking resume, they encouraged me to highlight my storytelling experience. Additionally, I make mixed media art in my spare time, which has inadvertently helped to develop my digital skills (shameless self-promotion if you are interested). For the full report, “What Do Public History Employers Want?,” click here.

Networking

Snacks, drink tickets, public historians—what more could you want? The public historian’s reception was a fantastic opportunity to meet and talk with professionals in the field, other graduate students, and professors. Plus, Jim Grossman, executive director of the AHA, gave a speech, and announced that there were “a few” tickets available to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I was in the front of the room to pick one up before he had finished saying the word “museum.” My networking experience continued on the escalator down to the metro after the reception, where I ended up meeting a founder of the National Council on Public History and exchanging contact information.

I went to Building a Professional Profile on LinkedIn in the hopes of learning more about digital networking. Unfortunately, the presentation ended up being a bust due to AV issues in the conference room. However, while we were waiting for the presenters to set up I started talking to a history professor from New York who offered me another ticket to the NMAAHC. She said she had seen me get one the night before at the reception, and she was unable to attend her time slot. I was able to give this bonus ticket to my friend, who was kind enough to host me for the conference, and had never been to the museum.

Intellectual Growth

In addition to public history, there are panels on dozens of topics in history for conference attendees to choose from. Attending these topic sessions helped reinvigorate my desire to contribute meaningful scholarship to the field, and to read widely. In this case, my favorite panel of the entire conference, Comics and History: New Historical Research, inspired me to read more comic books. Jonathan Gray, former editor of the journal Comics and Culture, analyzed and applauded the work of graphic novels as sources of historical information on the Civil Rights Movement. He examined the graphic novel March in particular, which I was able to get for free from the Penguin Books booth in the exhibit hall. Ari Kelman, history professor at UC Davis, walked us through his own process of making a graphic novel with no previous experience working with an illustrator.

I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in history to not only join the AHA, but to attend their conference next year in Chicago.

Graphic for the American Historical Association’s Annual Meeting, 2019.

Judith, relaxing outside of her work at the Lynn Museum.

Alumni Spotlight: Judith Marshall

November 3, 2017 / Heidi Gengenbach / 0 Comments

By Violet Caswell

In the spring of her senior year at McGill University in Montreal, Judith Marshall opened her computer and searched that question that is nearly ubiquitous among history majors:

For students of history who do not want to teach or work in academia, this wearisome question is ever-present, made worse when relatives exclaim “History! What are you going to do with that?” at every holiday dinner. Yet, as she browsed the internet, Marshall found occasion for hope, not despair. History majors, she realized, could pursue careers in all kinds of organizations and institutions. As the possibilities stretched out in front of her, one path seemed particularly enticing: public history.

Judith with peer, Jacob Lusk, working with archival materials in a graduate history class.

After graduating from McGill, Marshall moved to the United States and enrolled in the public history program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Over the course of two years at UMass, she broadened her horizons and discovered that her interests were more diverse than she could ever have imagined.

“One of my responsibilities was to research the craftsmen and laborers . . . I didn’t think I would be interested in these men . . . but as I learned more about them and immersed myself in their lives, I became absolutely fascinated.”

“I had an internship with Historic New England,” she recalled, “and one of my responsibilities was to research the craftsmen and laborers who built a historic house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I didn’t think I would be interested in these men—and they were all men—but as I learned more about them and immersed myself in their lives, I became absolutely fascinated.” Marshall’s intensive research allowed her to understand the craftsmen as dynamic individuals with robust political and social lives. Her capstone project, a walking tour of Portsmouth, showcased those lives and brought them to life.

After graduating from UMB, Marshall returned to informally advise incoming students at the History Department’s Graduate Student Symposium in September 2017.

With plenty of skills and experience under her belt, Marshall graduated from UMass in 2105 and entered the job market. She soon learned that a position was opening up at the Lynn Museum and Historical Society in Lynn, Massachusetts. After shadowing the Museum’s outgoing education and research specialist, she took over the position. There was only one problem: “I didn’t know anything at all about Lynn. Here I was training docents and working with our visitors, and I was just learning all of the history myself.” Marshall wasn’t intimidated by her task. With little determination and a lot of research, she eventually became well versed in Lynn’s history.

1911 postcard of Market Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, with a car of the Bay State Street Railway. Wikimedia Commons.

“It’s a little like being a teacher,” she explains, “Where at first, when you’re doing lesson plans and you’re teaching yourself along the way. But then it gets easier and easier.”

Now, Marshall serves as an excellent resource to her institution’s patrons. She works with any researchers who come to the Museum to look at its remarkable photograph collection, which spans from the nineteenth century to the present day. Although the Museum has transferred its archival holdings to the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum, she routinely directs research requests and assists the public in any way she can.

Judith Marshall (center), Education & Research Specialist at the Lynn Museum, leading a tour.

There is no such thing as an average day for Marshall, whose duties at the Lynn Museum are broad in a way that is common for professionals working at smaller institutions. On any given day, she might be training docents, developing new exhibits, leading fleets of elementary school groups through the Museum or even trying to figure out why that fountain in the courtyard keeps leaking. “Small institutions can be like that,” she laughs.

Marshall says that juggling so many responsibilities can be a challenge, and that time management skills are essential to her success. Flexibility, too, is crucial– as is the ability to remain calm under pressure. When busloads of students arrive early for a field trip, or when buses are late to pick them up, Marshall has to improvise and find ways to entertain them for longer than anticipated.

Despite the occasional hiccups that arise, Marshall finds planning field trip programming to be one of her most exciting responsibilities. While she works with students of all ages, her most extensive initiative is with third grade groups. Because of Marshall’s planning, these Lynn public school students have the opportunity to participate in a field trip that much more dynamic than your average, forgettable one-day field trip.

When she first started the program, Marshall says, “I didn’t have any idea how to communicate with third graders. I didn’t know what they looked like or what they could know.” After careful research, she developed an age-appropriate program to teach Lynn students about their city’s history. She and her colleagues go into the classroom twice—one before and once after students visit the Lynn Museum—to reinforce the lessons that students learn. She also invites the students and parents to the Museum’s end of the year Open House to reinforce the students’ knowledge of the institution and to create new bonds with parents.

Judith, relaxing outside of her work at the Lynn Museum.

Through her work with the Lynn Museum, Judith Marshall has put her background in public history to good use, developed new skills, and brought history to life in Lynn, Massachusetts. Yet, her career trajectory was one that she never could have predicted, even as she graduated from UMass Boston.

Her advice to current students?

“Apply for jobs- lots of jobs. You never know what you’ll end up being interested in.”

Excerpt of a publication concerning the replacement of the El.

Think Like an Archivist: A Public Historian Processes the Washington Street Corridor Coalition Collection

September 9, 2017 / Heidi Gengenbach / 0 Comments

By: Caroline Littlewood

Recently, the University Archives and Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston acquired the papers of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition (WSCC), a local organization committed to transport justice. The WSCC, a community group active in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, the South End, and Chinatown during the 1980s and 1990s, advocated for adequate replacement of the Elevated Orange Line along Washington Street.

The Elevated Orange Line on Washington Street south from Corning Street, ca. 1908. Courtesy of Boston City Archives. See City of Boston Flickr albums for more historic photos.

The group also facilitated community involvement in the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) planning and development process and orchestrated protests when MBTA service did not meet their community’s needs.

Flyer, produced by the WSCC, announcing a silent vigil to express a sense of community loss over the El’s closure.

Three decades after the Coalition’s founding, the WSCC records provide a treasure trove for researchers interested in community organizing, grassroots activism, and resident resistance to development.

Along with three other collections, the WSCC records were entrusted to the graduate students of Professor Marilyn Morgan’s Archival Methods & Practices class in spring 2017. On the first day of class, I was assigned to process the WSCC collection. I spent the rest of the semester preparing it for researchers and preserving it for the future. To do these things, I needed to produce a finding aid that described the contents of the collection and the value of the story it tells.

A carton of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition collection, in February 2017, before it was processed.

The first time I set eyes on my collection, I confronted a single cardboard box with dividers and papers and spiral notebooks and more papers. Next to the box was a pile of bound reports, inches thick. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, and I knew next to nothing about the WSCC. I had the urge to research my collection the way one would a person or artifact. But I couldn’t. Nothing had been written yet; the research materials weren’t in an archive or library. They sat in front of me, thousands of pages thick and unprepared for use by the public.

As a public history student and genealogist, I’ve learned how to interrogate a document from every angle, wringing every last drop of evidence. The urge to analyze is so ingrained, it’s practically instinctual. When faced with the WSCC collection, I wanted to pull up a chair and get to reading. However, I would not be assessing and describing every individual item in the collection. This would take too much time and prevent timely public access to the documents. It would be unnecessary and a waste of resources. Instead, I would be describing groups of documents.

To do this, I had to train my brain to work a little differently, to seek different kinds of information. Scanning each document, I had to consider intellectual content. Was it a letter, a memo, a map? Was there sensitive information? A date? What was it about? I also had to consider physical content. Did the document need to be photocopied, moved to the oversize folder, or rid of a rusty staple?

At first, this was an uncomfortable process for me. I couldn’t simultaneously assess the physical and intellectual content. But after practice, I began to see in a new way.

MBTA map showing the Washington Street Elevated route, as it existed from 1938 to 1975. Wikimedia Commons.

I scanned for the names and acronyms of key players, following the gist of their correspondence without reading every word, and understanding the general findings of reports without flipping through every page. By the end of the semester, I knew that the Elevated Orange Line train was a vital transport link which ran along Washington Street, through downtown Boston and neighboring communities.

When the MBTA moved the Orange Line to the southwest corridor and closed the “El” in 1987, community groups came together under the WSCC name to hold the MBTA accountable to their 1973 promise that they would replace it with equal or better service.

Excerpt of a publication concerning the replacement of the El.

I learned that the WSCC had launched an extensive letter writing campaign in support of Light Rail Vehicles and worked with other organizations to hold community dialogues about replacement options. I also knew that the MBTA finally replaced the old Orange Line with the Silver Line, a Bus Rapid Transit system the WSCC deemed neither better than, nor equal to, Orange Line service. And as the Silver Line expanded, WSCC activity waned.

Newspaper clipping reporting on the community reaction to the closing of the EL, 1987.

I was inspired and challenged by this collection. It was my first experience facilitating access to archival material, rather than mining the material, myself. The primary purpose of my investigation was to aid and encourage the investigations of others. This was a new goal for me, but, at the end of the day, it fit. As a public historian, I want to connect people to history and encourage historical thinking. Maybe, with a little more brain training, I can do this from within the archives, too.

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