public history – Page 2 – Public History at UMass Boston

November 27, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Alumni Spotlight: Clara Silverstein

Clara Silverstein is the Community Engagement Manager at Historic Newton in Newton, Massachusetts. A public/private partnership between the Newton Historical Society and the City of Newton, Historic Newton “inspires discovery and engagement by illuminating our community’s stories within the context of American history.” Silverstein has worked for Historic Newton for more than three years now, but the career path that led her there was anything but ordinary.

Before working in community engagement, Silverstein had a long career as a journalist and author. But when journalism became an unsustainable career because of the changes in the marketplace, she decided to apply her research skills and interest in American history in a new field: public history.

Clara Silverstein, photograph provided by Silverstein, 2018

“I changed careers when I was over age 40. It wasn’t too late!” Silverstein recalled of her decision to switch careers. She looked at many programs in the Boston area before deciding to enroll in the public history track of the history MA program at UMass Boston. “I liked UMass because it didn’t seem to focus on the MA merely as a stepping stone to a PhD,” she said. “The schedule also seemed flexible for someone who already had family responsibilities and part-time work. Best of all, it was affordable.”

While at UMass, Silverstein worked with the Tracing Center on the History and Legacies of Slavery, which prepared her for her later work at Historic Newton, where she interprets the Underground Railroad and slavery. Utilizing her already strong research skills, she completed the program with a thesis comparing the interpretation of the founding story of America at Jamestown, Virginia and Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Two Visitors, Historic Newton House Tour, 2017

After graduating with her Master’s in History, Silverstein did freelancing and contract work before finding a permanent role at Historic Newton. There, as Community Engagement Manager, she plans and manages public programs, including lectures, walking tours, panel discussions, and an annual House Tour attended by more than 400 people. She also manages Historic Newton’s social media accounts, newsletter, and press outreach. “I like finding creative ways to interest the public in history, whether it’s leading a tour about sports heroes or posting an interesting fact about the city on social media,” Silverstein told us.

Since Historic Newton aims to interpret local history in the context of American history with special emphasis on social justice, there is no shortage of creative opportunities for Silverstein. At Historic Newton, she emphasized, “We like to connect past the past with the present.” In the past, for example, the institution has hosted a panel linking activism around abolition in the 19^th century with the current Black Lives Matter movement. Their latest panel event, which took place on November 4^th, was a discussion about the history of language around race, LGBT issues, and disability.

Clara Silverstein giving an introduction at a Historic Newton Event, Newton Center, MA

A rich and diverse collection supports the Silverstein’s efforts to bring history to life for the public. Historic Newton collects a variety of documents and photos that relate to the history of Newton, plus many objects that relate to the material culture and institutions in the city. From maps and records of abolitionist societies to clothing and kitchen tools, Historic Newton preserves and makes accessible the records and items that give insight into the city’s past.

Despite loving her work, like many public historians in small institutions, Silverstein finds it challenging to manage a mountain of responsibilities during a 40-hour work week. Inevitably, she has to let some things– like social media posting– slide when she is overloaded with event planning. Yet she finds ways to get it all done, making use of the assistance of interns whenever possible (take note, current public history students!).

Maintaining a sustainable work-life balance makes it possible for Silverstein to set aside time after hours for her passion for writing. She just published her first novel, a work of historical fiction entitled Secrets in a House Divided: A Novel of Civil War Richmond. (If you’re looking for something to read over Christmas break, you can find it here!)

Ultimately, Silverstein is glad to have left her career in journalism behind. With an eye to the future, she stated, “I want to stay involved in interpreting American history to the public no matter what form it takes – writing, speaking, planning programs, leading tours. I think I have found my calling in life!”

Clara Silverstein and others at the Jackson Homestead Renovation Celebration, 2016

Her advice to current students?

Take advantage of your proximity to Boston and visit its rich historical resources while you’re in school so you can learn how various sites interpret history. Appreciate the opportunity discuss what you’re reading with professors and mentors who structure your learning. Once you leave school, that’s gone!

November 12, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Presidential Predicament: Developing a Self-Guided Tour at the Adams National Historical Park

By: Kurt Deion

When I first toured the Adams National Historical Park as an eight-year-old in 2003, it never crossed my mind that someday I would have the opportunity to help reshape the visitor experience there. Fifteen years later, that is what I am doing as a project intern.

The John Adams Birthplace Home. A panel-based, self-guided tour here will partially focus on John Adams’s transition from student to attorney and his early romance with Abigail Smith. (Courtesy of Kurt Deion, 2011).

Under the auspices of the National Park Service, the Adams National Historical Park maintains several buildings related to the politically-prominent Adams family, which are spread throughout Quincy, Massachusetts. These include the side-by-side saltbox birth homes of John and John Quincy Adams, the second and sixth presidents of the United States. The elder statesman spent his childhood at a plain, wooden structure on his parents’ farm at Penn’s Hill, and in his adulthood he moved to the neighboring house, where his son was born in 1767. This second home was where he established his burgeoning law practice, and where matriarch Abigail Adams raised their children alone when her husband was away supporting the American Revolution.

The John Quincy Adams Birthplace Home. Here, the tour will feature additional aspects of John Adams’ law career and his role in drafting the Massachusetts Constitution. (Courtesy of Kurt Deion, 2011).

The Adamses uprooted from the Penn’s Hill farm in the 1780s and moved a few miles north to a residence that became known as Peace field. Naturally their belongings followed them, and short of disturbing the interior of the Peace field estate, in modern day the NPS is faced with a dearth of original furnishings to display at the birthplaces. At present, however, the ANHP is in the process of rethinking its historical narrative; in this context, the lack of artifacts at the saltbox homes creates an opportunity to refocus on the lives of the family members, such as John and Abigail. My internship responsibilities include identifying and prioritizing the stories that should be told at the birthplaces, via a self-guided tour.

Before I arrived at the ANHP, my supervisor had already outlined some general areas she wished me to investigate, such as John’s law career and his early romance with Abigail. Yet I was given much freedom within those parameters to prioritize particular stories at the birthplaces. In addition, because the Adamses were prolific writers, I had many primary sources as the foundation for content, for they left behind thousands of documents in the form of letters and diaries. And finally, the ANHP’s draft Visitor Experience Plan outlines their priority to implement the principles of inclusive history, which I learned about in the UMass Boston History MA program. My education at the university has emphasized the need to tell the accounts of groups marginalized by those in positions of power, which in the United States has historically been white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men. In my role at the ANHP, I must determine what stories are important that can also resonate with modern audiences regardless of age, race, and gender.

Abigail Adams. Portrait by Gilbert Stuart.

The correspondence exchanged between John and Abigail during their courtship and early marriage paint a picture of their thoughts as a young couple in 18^th century Massachusetts. These letters also provide a good basis for any future research focused on Abigail’s maintenance of the farm in John’s absence, and her personal philosophies. I struggled more with discerning which of John Adams’s court cases to include in the tour. As I read through his annotated legal papers at the Boston Public Library, I found many of the lawsuits to be archaic and inaccessible in the 21^st century. Some, however, revealed much about John Adams’s thinking about rights. In King v. Stewart, for example, Adams represented a loyalist whose home was ransacked in part because of his prospects as a Stamp Act collector. Adams also defended the British soldiers implicated in the Boston Massacre. These cases demonstrate Adams’s belief in the right to a fair trial and representation, even for those whose political allegiance differed from his own.

It was very rewarding to find those cases that resonate with current issues and principles of law. In Sewall v. Hancock, John Hancock was tried for smuggling in Admiralty Court, which deprived him of a right to a trial by jury. As his attorney, John Adams argued that British Parliament was depriving American colonists of a right granted to their brethren across the Atlantic. This allowed me to draw a line from John’s experience as an attorney, to his resentment for the British Crown at the dawn of the Revolution, and also to his draft of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1779. When he drafted the document in his law office, it included the right to trial by jury. This and other protections, such as freedom of the press and prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments, were subsequently included in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I hope that the relevance of these documents in Americans’ lives today will help illustrate the importance and influence of John’s legal work.

October 18, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

Always Night at the Museum

By: Jonathan Green

Sign on Canton Avenue marking the location of the Suffolk Resolves House and identifying it as the headquarters for the Milton Historical Society. Photograph by Jonathan Green.

Since 2014, I have served as the resident caretaker of the Suffolk Resolves House (SRH) located in Milton, MA and curator for the Milton Historical Society (MHS). Over the past four years I have answered one question numerous times: “What is it like being the caretaker for a historic house?” Normally when I reply, I try to convey the fun and humor that I find in the position and simply say, “It is always night at the museum!” The truth, however, is a bit more complex. Serving as a resident caretaker requires constant awareness as to what is happening inside and outside the house to preserve the structure and its collections, while also ensuring that the house and grounds remain safe, functional, and attractive spaces for visitors. In applying for the position, I sought a new professional challenge, and I found exactly that.

Resident caretakers must embrace the phrase “other duties as assigned.” Initially I envisioned dedicating most of my time to collections management and interpretation. Instead, I spent the first few months getting to know the house, and occasionally its collections, by dusting, vacuuming, linseed oiling, polishing, clearing out wasp nests, and attempting to get a handle on the house’s mouse problem. Regardless of my professional interests and aspirations, the house always came first, and I had to be prepared to address problems as they developed.

Sure, it is a unique job, but serving as a resident caretaker is a lot like being a homeowner. A resident caretaker, like a homeowner, must focus on maintaining the interior and exterior of the house, as well as the objects stored inside it. Seasons and weather often dictate how and when certain things are to be done. For example, unfinished thresholds require linseed oil every other fall before cold weather sets in. Other duties like checking mouse traps and bait stations, emptying dehumidifiers—the SRH has three—and dusting and vacuuming the house and its collections occur daily, every other day, and weekly, respectively. As the phrase “spontaneous needs” suggests, this only represents a glimpse of required maintenance.

Front of the Suffolk Resolves House in August 2017. Photograph by Jonathan Green.

As with anything, however, there are exceptions; in this case two. First, the SRH serves as the MHS’s headquarters. As resident caretaker the MHS’s Board of Trustees acts as my landlord, which means they establish rules, approve expenditures, and determine when the house transitions from private residence to MHS function space. When my wife and I are away from the house longer than twenty-four hours, we have to notify the MHS board, so they can arrange to have someone check the house daily. Other rules include no pets, no children (i.e., dependents living with the caretakers), and the caretakers can only store personal belongings in the three private rooms—bedroom, den, and bathroom—and the kitchen. That adds up to just under 700 square feet- and the kitchen becomes a public space for events. Second, there is no compromise when it comes to what is best for the house and its collections. As resident caretaker my personal tastes regarding décor, ideal interior temperature, and desire (or lack thereof) to conduct maintenance do not matter. While at times the job can be demanding, it is always fun and immensely rewarding.

Emma and Jonathan Green decorating the Suffolk Resolves House in November 2014 for their first Christmas open house as resident caretakers. Photograph by Jonathan Green.

Nine months each year, my focus turns to public engagement. This happens several ways. Open houses are the most common, when we invite the public to view the house, grounds, and collections. For these events my fellow board members and I don our docent caps and field any number of questions about the house, the MHS’s collections, and Milton’s history.

For the 2017 Fireside Chats, I invited Alex Dubois, Curator for the Litchfield Historical Society, and Tom Begley, Executive Liaison for Administration, Research, & Special Projects at Plimoth Plantation, as guest lecturers. Photograph by Jonathan Green.

Fireside Chats in January and February are intimate events that welcome twenty guests to attend a lecture prepared and delivered by the curator at the SRH, complete with cozy fire and refreshments. The Fireside Chats bring together one or more objects from the MHS’s collection to tell a unique and engaging history. My favorite event, however, is the Fifth Grade Tours. In May and June, the SRH is one of several stops on tours that immerses Milton fifth-graders in the town’s historical landscape. After arriving at the SRH, fifth-graders engage in a hands-on Backyard Archaeology activity, and, without fail, these students ask stimulating questions and offer exceptional answers.

For example, when examining a lace-makers lamp we discussed how veteran lace-makers earned the right to sit at first light—right next to the lamp—while less experienced lace-makers sat further from the lamp. One student asked why the more experienced lace-makers needed to sit closer to the lamp. “Aren’t they better at it,” she asked. “So why do they need more light? Don’t the ones [lace-makers] who aren’t as good need more light?” Moments like this, when I did not have an answer, forced me to be the best educator I could by simply admitting I do not know but that I can find the answer. Public engagement like this is what sustains the MHS and is a key component of the caretaker’s responsibilities.

Collaboration. Is. Essential. In December 2014, this contractor repaired a cracked bullseye window pane in the back door of the Suffolk Resolves House. Photograph by Jonathan Green.

Collaboration is essential. My first week in the position, the MHS president asked my wife, “Are you going to be able to help Jon with all the work? There is a lot of work that goes into this and he’ll need your support.” He was absolutely right. At times, the position can be labor intensive, which is why organizations hiring for resident caretakers frequently hire a dynamic duo rather than a solo caretaker. Plus, resident caretakers cannot know it all. This is why at times I feel something like a general contractor. When the HVAC system’s coolant line malfunctioned in the middle of July, I had to coordinate repairs with the contractor and arrange to have a board member meet the technician at the house because my wife and I could not get off work. You do not have to know everything to care for a historic house, but you do need to be able to troubleshoot, locate experts, and collaborate.

Though you may be doubting it, resident caretakers do have social lives. On average I dedicate about ten hours a week to my responsibilities as caretaker and curator. Most of the duties become part of a weekly routine, so we still go out on weekends. We are even allowed use of the museum spaces to host family and friends. Fun fact: my wife threw my thirtieth birthday party at the house. Just like there is life after thirty, there is life after the duties of caretaker and curator are complete.

After four years serving as resident caretaker and curator for the MHS, there is still never a dull moment. Whether caring for the house and grounds, the diverse collections, or interacting with the public, this job has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. The beauty of the position is that it regularly puts you outside your comfort zone, forcing you to directly confront new challenges by learning, adapting, creating, and collaborating. If that does not sound cool, remember that as resident caretaker, it is always night at the museum.

Jonathan Green received his MA in history (public history track) from UMass Boston in 2016. He is currently Assistant Director of Archives and Digital Assets Manager at Stonehill College.

September 12, 2018Jane S Becker No Comments

Dorchester Industrial School for Girls (2017–18)

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What can the artifacts, materials, and objects we leave behind say about our lives? The combs, dolls, writing slates, sewing needles, scraps of clothing, and pieces of pottery pulled out of the ground at the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls site left clues about the lives of the women and girls who made their home at the school. But who were these women? Why were they there? What were their stories, and could they be uncovered from the recesses of time?

To find out, Boston City Archaeologist Joseph Bagley and his team partnered with public historian Dr. Jane Becker and her graduate students at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Inspired by the preliminary research of two UMass Boston historical archaeology graduate students on Joe Bagley’s team – Sarah Johnson and Madelaine Penney – in spring semester 2017, members of the graduate history seminar, Interpreting History in Public: Approaches to Public History Practice, began extensive biographical research into 16 women and girls who studied, worked, and lived at the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls.

In 2017 our graduate students collaborated with the City Archaeologist to create a public platform that begins to explore the histories of the students and staff and managers who lived at or supported the Industrial School for Girls—Dorchester. The resulting online exhibition Uncovering the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls focuses on the 1860s: the board of managers, and students, teachers and matrons who lived at the school in the early years of occupancy at the Centre Street property. This online exhibition is built on a WordPress blog that presents the research and invites feedback from the public. We continued the work in in Spring 2018, focusing again on the personal stories of these girls and women, now bringing these histories into dialogue with the rich material culture that archaeologists removed from the site.

Artifacts found at the site of the archaeological survey provide an important source of information about the life and work of the students and staff at the ISFG. This collection of found materials offers important evidence regarding the details of everyday life at the school, information extracted from the remains of clothing and adornments, household and school items, for example. This material culture can offer more meanings, however, when we know more about the users, makers, and consumers of these goods. Other historical evidence, such as census records, street directories, and vital records, provide evidence of the lives of the individuals associated with the ISFG, and thus help historians and archaeologists understand the significance of the material evidence from the ground and its relationship to the lives of these 19^th century women. Our historical research and interpretation focuses on three groups of women associated with the ISFG in the 1860s and 1870s—students, staff who worked or lived on site, and officers or managers who supported and directed the organization. With little more than their subjects’ names and definitive location in 1860, the historians worked backward to find official records, personal papers, and photographs. UMass and the Boston City Archaeology team also worked with the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, which generously made the records of the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls accessible to our team, and facilitated use of the collection for this website. The material culture retrieved from archaeology at the School’s site, and the ISFG admissions logs and secretary records provide rich historical resources.

Stay tuned. We have more to do!

May 9, 2018Heidi Gengenbach No Comments

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.

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.