Finding The Good: An Emotional Anniversary

I am an exacting judge of interpretive product. I realize this. My boss and I have had a few discussions about how both of our standards, sometimes, might be just a bit too high.

I still am not convinced that pure and utter excellence is not too much to ask for on every interpretive program. All too often, though, I don't find it.

When I do see amazing moments, it thrills me. I get outrageously excited. Through my entire experience as a visitor at the sesquicentennial celebration at Gettysburg, two programs stand out as verging on that sort of gleaming excellence.

The first one was on the afternoon of July 3rd. Standing at the wall, where fifteen decades before the United States was saved and slavery's ultimate demise was clinched, it would have taken effort to not offer up some meanings. They could have been rote, expected meanings. But what happened instead was something personal, something pressing beyond the simple bounds of battle mechanics and "boxes on a map."

Ranger Caitlin Kostic was offering up a moment in time. She tried to help us live as Hays' brigade, if just for a brief moment. She wasn't trying to "teach" anything. Her aim wasn't to have us walk away with knowledge, but with a feeling, a visceral moment of the fear that rippled through those men's hearts on the afternoon of July 3rd so many years before.

She helped that field sing in a way I have rarely seen displayed by LBGs, historians and rangers alike. Her short program was the embodiment of a future for military interpretation, not bogged down by excessive quotes and mechanics, but embedded in human experience and universal emotion.

By Thursday, I was spent. Monday had found me spending six solid hours leading tour groups across the campus of the College. Tuesday I wandered from site to site from noon to (literally) midnight. Then Wednesday was the sapping heat at the Angle.

But I'm a sucker for civilians. I am convinced, as I've said time and again, that the last great frontier of Gettysburg research lies in the experience of civilians and their interaction with the military landscape. So a tour focusing on the civilians, starting at the Brien Farm, was too good to pass up.

Ranger Jared Frederick led us on a short walk down the ridge line where Ijust had stood the afternoon before.

When I am on an interpretive program, my mind usually races in a continual internal monologue of, "what would I do." It can be amazingly painful when you see an interpreter tripping and missing the obvious meanings, missing the opportunities.

I leaned to a friend as Jared was speaking about the Bliss Family's farm burning on July 3rd. "That farm. The damage claim he's using covers the things you can replace, the crops, the fences, the barn. What about the family photos? The heirloom quilt?"

Then something happened that barely ever happens. Jared said nearly the same thing I had whispered. He described the Bliss' beloved collection of books and family photos, the things that when tragedy strikes can't be replaced.

My heart soared. Jared saw it. He saw where his audience could find themselves in the story, in the Bliss' experience. He put their life into terms we could understand. Not flank movements, not laundry-list damage claims, but sorrow and loss.

It happened again and again as Jared walked us down the ridge.

He let the landscape drag him around by the nose (or rather by the heart). Each place we were standing dictated the perfect story as he guided the experience. He pointed; he made sure he had things to point at. Not one of his stops felt jury rigged or awkward. Everything just fit.

Gettysburg came to life for me for a few brief moments on this most meaningful of anniversaries thanks to Caitlin and Jared. Brother and sister, you speak my mind.

Four Days in Heaven Spending Four Days in Hell

The German Baptist Brethren Bible on the front table inside the sanctuary of the
Mumma Meetinghouse, 150 years after it sat there on the eve of the battle.

I spent four days this past weekend wallowing in the depths of hell. Around me swirled the maelstrom of battle, a spinning vortex of blood, death, destruction and loss. Outside the windows, every patch of ground is a reminder of the sacrifice and heartache.

If you squinted your eyes, or better yet closed them completely, you could see it all.

The Dunker Church (more accurately called the "Mumma Meetinghouse" or "German Baptist Brethren Meetinghouse) is a purely magical place, an amazing environment in which to weave tales of meaning for visitors.

Those tales were ones of fear and trepidation, as pacifists confronted the awful prospect of war. Those tales were ones of hope and heartache, as Emancipation came within a hair's breadth of freeing the men and women enslaved on Sharpsburg's landscape, but not quite close enough in 1863. Those tales were ones of horror and shock, as Civil War photos became portals to the past and the present.

I kept getting asked the question, over and over again, "aren't you tired?"

But the opposite was true. Each interaction with a visitor refreshed me, uplifted me and brought light to my step. By Monday, I could barely hobble out of bed and slide into my green and grey uniform. But the pain was a good one, the aches were almost therapeutic.

My hat / PD NPS Photo

I had forgotten the joy of seeing someone have that moment of new appreciation for a place, whether that place be old friend or new acquaintance.

All told, I spoke to the majority of the people who visited Sharpsburg this weekend and wandered onto the battlefield. The location was prime, the crowd flow was intense, but the opportunities for meanings were limitless. From the fight against slavery to the fight over secession, from smouldering Libya to the streets of New York, the Dunker Church became a time machine allowing all of us to view ourselves from wild perspectives and amazing heights.

Tune in next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel and you might get a glimpse at some of the meanings I shared with visitors.

Maryland, it turns out, was an amazing, violent, vibrant, frightening and befuddling place in 1862. It only takes a time machine to visit it.

Falling Like Autumn Leaves: Cutler's Brigade at Gettysburg

147th New York Monument
CC Flickr user Runner Jenny

The 147th New York's monument stands along Reynolds Avenue, silently (and incorrectly) marking where the regiment bravely fought and fell on that July day in 1863. The monument lists the brigade, division, and corps of the regiment, along with the various other battles that are part of the regiment's story. It also lists the regimental losses as well - out of 380 men that started the fight on July 1, 212 men were killed and wounded. Placed by the veterans themselves, they knew what that monument represented. It represented the entire ordeal of their regiment and its brigade on the first day of Gettysburg.

For, Cutler's brigade, of which they were a part, was one of the first U.S. infantry units to fight in the battle of Gettysburg. Comprised of hearty New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians, the 147th and the rest of Cutler's brigade battled it out on the first day west of town with troops from North Carolina and Mississippi. In a few short moments, Cutler's brigade, and the 147th New York along with it, was decimated as it struggled to buy time for the rest of the United States Army to arrive on the battlefield.

One of the first to fall in the opening engagement was Major Grover, commanding officer of the 76th New York, the 147th's sister regiment. One of the initial Rebel volleys killed his horse, dismounting the major. Not losing a step, it was recalled that the Major could be seen waving his sword as he raced on foot up and down the line of the New Yorkers. Soon though, a bullet struck close to his heart. He pleaded with his men as they were falling back, "You will not go off and leave me will you?" Some of his men attempted to carry him off, but to no avail - Major Grover realized he was dying. "Boys, it is no use carrying me an farther..." he told them. Major Grover lived just long enough to hand off his watch and rank badges to a friend before passing. Grover was a Methodist minister before the war. At 32 years of age, he left behind 3 daughters and a wife back in Cortland, NY.

Major Grover, one of the first to fall
Courtesy of the NY State Military Museum

Captain Story, also of the 76th, had a close call when they first arrived on the battlefield - a cannon ball passed between his legs plowing up the ground behind him. Later, Story was wounded in the thigh, the ball shattering his bone in three parts. He was taken to Mrs. William Culp’s home in town. There, surgeons were only able to remove some of the broken bone. Story's wife and sister were with him when he passed on August 6th. All told,  Major Grover's boys of the 76th New York suffered over 150 casualties on the first day of Gettysburg.

the 147th, from Oswego, New York, another town outside Syracuse, fared even worse on July 1st. Fighting just south of the 76th, the 147th was out in front and bore attacks from multiple sides. The first to fall in the 147th was a man by the name of Fred Rife. Rife and his partner in the battleline, Hiram Stowell, fell almost at the same time. A 33 year-old farmer-laborer, Stowell left behind his wife Charlotte and two children.

Soon into the engagement, the 147th New York was forced to fall back from its initial position. During the retreat, Lieutenant Guilford D. Mace cheered on his men, shouting words of encouragement, "Do not fall back, boys, but give the Rebels what they deserve!” Although Mace had been slightly wounded earlier in the fight, he refused to leave the field. In fact, Mace never did leave the field alive. As his men were retreating, Mace fell with a shot in both the neck and the back, the wounds breaking his back and severely paralyzing him. Lying on the field, Mace sent word to a friend, to write his wife and tell her he was dead. As he was making known his last wishes, a shell exploded near him, ripping his body to shreds. Back home in Fulton, New York, Mace's wife was just made a widow, and Mace’s three young children just became fatherless.

The original color-bearer, affectionately known as “the big Swede”, standing a fair-haired, blue-eyed, 6 feet 2 inches, Sgt. John Hinchcliff, was shot several times during the retreat. One of the bullets pierced his heart as he fell to earth wrapped up in the bloody and torn flag. A gas fitter from Rochester, New York, John left behind 3 children - John Jr., Rola, and Panneila, and his wife Elizabeth.

Lt J. Volney Pierce remembered that men were “falling like autumn leaves,” as the 147th abandoned the field. During the retreat, Pierce found Edwin G. Alyesworth lying on the ground, a mere 21 year old boy, mortally wounded. Edwin recognized Pierce, calling out to the Lieutenant not to leave him behind. Sgt Peter Shuttz and Pierce tried to carry the young private to the rear, but they couldn't manage to carry Alyesworth, who was wounded in the thigh. Fearing their own lives, the pair dropped Alyesworth and ran for their lives. For the next twenty-five years, Pierce recalled that he could still vividly remember Edwin’s last words to him. “Don’t leave me, boys,” haunted his dreams. Alyesworth’s leg was later amputated on July 3. Just hours before his father arrived in Gettysburg on July 10th, Alyesworth died from the wound.

News reached upper New York of the horrible fight at Gettysburg just as many towns were putting the final preparations together for Independence Day celebrations. Instead of celebrating, the towns prepared to mourn. Later, on July 6th, several wounded officers from the 147th arrived home in Oswego, the first eye-witnesses to tell of the terrible fighting. War came and touched Gettysburg on July 1. In the coming days, it touched town after town, city after city across the United States as news of the battle reached home. The monuments that stand on the fields of Gettysburg are just markers, made of stone and metal. But those markers also recall a story, one that touched not only Gettysburg, but towns, people, and places across the United States.

Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the NPS

Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the National Park Service, a joint report between the NPS and the OAH was released a couple of weeks ago. Since then, it has been mentioned on Twitter, other blogs, on the OAH's website, and it figures to be the topic of much discussion when the NCPH and OAH meet up in Milwaukee this weekend for their annual conference. I've read the report several times now, and I have been mulling over it for some weeks. I felt now would be a proper to time to throw a couple of my reactions out there as well.

Generally, I think most of the report is dead on - it confirms much of my feelings about history in the National Parks. It feels somewhat satisfying that your fears and troubles have at least been recognized - I think we have identified in this report the major problems that National Park Service faces as an agency.

Yet, one thing not described in the report is the language barrier. Simply put, professional historians and park ranger interpreters don't speak the same language. The definition of interpretation is different in both professions, one that will be a thorn in everyone's side going forward. To me, interpretation isn't an argument about the past.  Interpretation doesn't answer the question, "Why did it happen, what it means, or why it is important to us today." Interpretation is a opportunity creator. It is speaking the language of the past, in order to help the present visitor connect to it. It offers up no primary argument about why such thing happen, instead, it explores multiple viewpoints to find meaning, never discriminating against any one single meaning. In the end, interpretation's main goal it to promote care, and whatever form it takes. It's hard for academically trained historians to grasp this - as a master's student in history, I wrestle with these conflicting views of historical interpretation all the time. And that's a good thing, wrestling with the idea. But not having the shared language sometimes makes historians and interpreters their own worst enemies.

Three of the report's findings especially rung true to me - going forward, I think fixing these problems are the key to revitalizing history in the Park Service:

#10. The Constraints of Boundaries, Establishing Legislation, and Founding Father Histories.
The Park Service really needs to break out of this mold. No interpreter can ignore meaningful events because they aren't part of the prescribed founding legislation of his/her specific site. We can't build silos at historic sites. The world is interconnected - just like it was in the past. History that happened over here relates to what over there. We need to see our historic sites as a spider web of entangled themes and ideas, that run their course and disappear, then reappear again, slightly different, as they have been transformed and molded once again to fit a different time period. We need to get over the Three Days in July Syndrome.

#11 Fixed and Fearful Interpretation.
As I've said before, give visitors everything. Show them the good, the bad, the terrible, and the unspeakable. Help them to make sense of the country's greatest moments of triumph and darkest days of despair. We need to talk about history - especially history deemed uncomfortable and or controversial.  It's hard, getting over your own fears as interpreter, whether it be over race, gender, discrimination, war, climate change or whatever other controversial subject your site deals with (most likely all of them). The NPS as a whole, has to embrace controversy, welcome it, and relish the opportunity to present the real whole history - the messy, confusing, and contradictory record of human interaction that is history.

#12 Civic Engagement, History, and Interpretation
The NPS has to take up the role of civic engagement mantle - by fostering citizens of democracy everywhere. We need to embrace the mentality of visitor engagement first at historic sites everywhere. Allowing visitors to have agency and voice, allowing them to have their say and to be heard should be mantras. But like finding #11 suggests, the NPS can't be afraid to tell visitors something they don't want to hear either...

All in all, I think the report is a good eye opener and wake up call. All that's left to do is act to keep the promise of excellent history and interpretation alive in the NPS.

The Past is a Foreign Country: But They Still Eat Ketchup There

Earlier this week, the folks over at the Gettysburg National Military Park Facebook page posted a link to their Gettysburg School Bus blog highlighting a post on integrating the Civil War into a language arts curriculum. I love the concept. I think in the current educational environment, which seems to be spurning history and social studies in primary classrooms, anywhere we can integrate the stories of the past into the state's standards, sneaking the history back in, is awesome.

But the Facebook post got me thinking. Particularly the way it was phrased, and especially this tidbit:

In our world of instant communication the idea of handwriting a letter home to loved ones seems quite foreign. But for these soldiers it was their only way to express their thoughts, feelings and concerns for their families.

The concept of difference, of discontinuity with the past, is often the first place our minds drift as both historians and visitors at historic sites. It is one of the stumbling blocks of many living history presentations. The "gee-whiz, they were so darned different back then," factor can make the past seem like "a foreign country," as L. P. Hartley described it.

But is it really? And is accentuating the differences really the most powerful technique when we try to help visitors connect and find relevance within the past?

One of my students, a promising historian and avid 19th century chemist named Cory, was frantically trying to polish a paper Monday night in the office on campus at the same time I was entering this semester's grades across the room. We started talking about 19th century photographic techniques and that particular Facebook post. The conversations began to weirdly cross wires...

I recently listened to a story on NPR's Fresh Air about a cave in France filled with prehistoric paintings. The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, and the travails of documentarian Werner Herzog to capture its wonder, caught my imagination. It still swirled in my mind Monday night discussing the weakness of interpreting the differences.

A human eye saw these animals and
a human hand captured them on
a cold cave wall in modern day France.
/ CC Wikimedia Commons

In the cave are paintings encrusted with thousands of years worth of calcite, brilliantly preserved. Crafted in charcoal, the pictures can help conjure the image in the mind of an itinerant early hominid, obsessively studying a majestic herd of bison crashing over a dale. He rushes back to the dank cave and by the dim light of a half-extinguished torch frantically tries to fix the image on the wall, trying to freeze the fleeting moment in time.

Just a few millennia later, you can conjure an itinerant enlightenment artist standing at a canvas. He glances over the edge, back and forth from taught fabric to blushing beauty to canvas again. He obsessively studies every line and crease of her evanescent youth as he places brush to canvas. Then he frantically tries to fix the image on the canvas, trying to freeze the fleeting moment in time.

A human eye saw these men and
a human hand captured them on
a cold glass plate in Gettysburg. / PD

Less than a century later, an itinerant early photographer, obsessively focusing his camera on a putrefying landscape of death and destruction. He stares at the frosted plate on the back of the camera, obsessively studying the death and destruction before it succumbs to its transformation from human to dust. Then he frantically shuttles the sensitized medium from wagon to camera to fix the image on a glass plate, trying to freeze the fleeting moment in time.

Just a century and a half later, an American, living in an increasingly itinerant culture, obsessively studies a sunset as the burning orb creeps toward the horizon. She squints at the bright neighbor-star, all the while adjusting the exposure rate of her Nikon digital camera. Then she catches the precise color in he eye, raises the camera and frantically snaps shot after shot, trying to freeze the fleeting moment in time.

We are the early man. We are not separated from him. Our humanity unites us. Our impulse to preserve the moment, the ephemeral and the fleeting unites us. You can understand, for just a moment, the ancient man. You feel the weight of his crude brush in your hand. Then you dip that brush in oil paint. Then you adjust the hand-ground lens of your camera. And you push the button, you snap a shot to preserve the moment.

What is a Civil War soldier's impulse within his letter? Nothing different than our perpetual impulse as humans. He wanted to connect. He wanted to, if only for a moment, feel the warmth of his family and friends. And he wanted to update the folks he left behind on his status.

The Civil War soldier's letter was not simply a private affair. It was to be read aloud in the parlour for aunt and sister and cousin. It was to be shared with the neighbors, reprinted in the newspaper, preserved for generations as a final sentiment of love from a dying son.

Facebook updates live from 1861...

This status update was a human impulse, an impulse we still have. We post quick notes letting our friends know how life is going. We send them far away, hoping and praying those that see them read them and know we're in good spirits, happy, content, safe and still OK. Or that we're not and we desperately need help.

What is a Civil War soldier's letter but a 19th century Facebook update?

Isn't that sort of sameness far more meaningful, more able to put the pencil in your hand after frantic battle than pointing out how different a pencil was from an iPhone?

Just Interpret to Me: Reflecting on NAI 2011

Last week saw Jake and I in St. Paul, Minnesota for the annual National Association for Interpretation workshop, a week long gathering of professional interpreters from around the nation. I'll guarantee that the next couple of weeks will be filled with recaps from both of us on what struck us the most during the conference. Our reactions ranged from "meh..." to "Dude!"

To quote everyone's favorite viral video
"What does it mean?"

I'm going to begin with one of the "meh..." moments. Friday found us on a field trip to Fort Snelling State Park and Historic Fort Snelling (operated by the Minnesota Historical Society). The fort sits high on the bluffs overlooking the waters of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, dating originally to the 1820s. The fort has what seems to have been an amazing and vibrant history, filled with amazing national connections and deeply moving concepts.

Unfortunately, we did not hear that much about the meaning of that place when we toured the site. Our site visit consisted of watching the orientation video (a decent in-house production), a 35-minute PowerPoint presentation on the history of interpretation at the fort from 1970 to today and a very quick visit to the site wherein the staff unlocked doors for us and described the types of programming they do for the public. We were talked at for about an hour on the craft of what they do at the site, but never shown that craft in action to judge for ourselves. Why is Fort Snelling important? Judging only by what we heard inside of the fort's walls, I'm not quite sure.

To be fair, this was only a symptom of a larger impulse which seemed to pervade the conference. Again and again, instead of proving by showing the bulk of the presenters tried to teach their skills by telling. Concept after concept flew by, with little to no actual examples of what works, no attempt to show how meanings can be forged. A convention center full of professional communicators often had a tough time communicating.

We protect our cultural landscapes and interpret them because we believe that the real, the true, the actual is one of the most potent tools. This is the fundamental ethic in interpretation: tie a story to a landscape (what the craft calls a "resource"). But as soon as we step in front of a PowerPoint projector, even interpreters seem to lose this core ethic. Instead of teaching through effective examples, facilitating meanings for our audiences to show them new techniques for facilitating meanings, we begin blathering on about the craft endlessly. We read every word off of our slides and narrate endlessly to crowds quite visibly disengaged from what we are saying to them. We bore our audiences with theory the moment we are told they are interpreters. In short, for some reason we check our interpretive impulse at the door.

If we preach as a profession that interpretation is the most effective type of teaching, why not practice what we preach? Why not show how to interpret well through powerful examples of what is effective instead of simply telling how we think it might work?

Setting foot in an historic fort in Minnesota after flying nearly a thousand miles to get there, we were visitors last Friday. But the staff didn't see that. All we wanted was to see some effective programming that could help us feel why Fort Snelling was important. But the presenters didn't try to understand who their audience was and what they came to the site seeking. We weren't interpreters when we walked through the gates of that site; we were visitors. We came seeking meaning; we left unfulfilled. We walked away with no new tools in our toolboxes, only a vague understanding that Fort Snelling used to do first-person, living history interpretation and now no longer does.

How might the very different people who looked out of these very different windows have seen the world?
Just one of the amazingly provocative questions I was hoping would be asked of me at every turn but never was...

Jake leaned to me at one point during the day and said, "Remind me to never mention that I'm an interpreter to anyone when I visit a site. They immediately stop interpreting for you and just want to talk shop."

Jake, consider yourself reminded in spades.

So, what were the missed interpretive opportunities? Tune in next week when I'll try to give you the interpretive program I didn't receive at Fort Snelling. Just in time for Thanksgiving, I'll share with you the power of an historic landscape to show us the impacts of European colonization of the Americas. And it's a Civil War story to boot.

A Dictatorship of Meaning: Villainizing Multiple Perspectives

Sorry for drifting a little off course from the promise of a discussion of universal relevance, but this one seemed important. Tune in next week for some thoughts on universal relevance and race. Now, on to this week...

-----

I read Louis De Caro's "John Brown the Abolitionist -- A Biographer's Blog" regularly because I deeply respect the work which DeCaro has done in researching Brown, particularly putting him into the context of his religious life. I assigned "Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown to the students in my class this semester on Brown, as it is an intriguing look at the abolitionist. But I read DeCaro's blog because I don't agree with him on many of his criticisms of how Brown is interpreted in a modern context. I try to follow a rule of thumb: you need to read those with whom you disagree voraciously, to keep you from growing complacent in your opinions.

DeCaro repeatedly has expressed issues with how the National Park Service (and others) have interpreted Brown's raid and his justification in taking others' lives, most recently in his post about the Smithsonian's "Time Trial of John Brown," a program which Jake highlighted last week. DeCaro is critical of the Smithsonian's Susan Evans' statement that, "We don’t want to make out John Brown to be a hero at all...." He continues, stating that, "...like the staff at the National Park Service at Harper’s Ferry, evidently the staff at the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum/Theater have an opinion about Brown."

The hat I wore at Harpers Ferry, atop a
period advertisement for a slave raffle.

My day job is in the NPS. I worked at Harpers Ferry for three years in the living history branch, wearing the clothes of both civilians from 1859 and soldiers from 1862-1864, all the while helping visitors to understand and appreciate the blow for freedom Brown struck in the small Virginia town. You don't work alongside a figure like John Brown, in the places he inhabited, without forming an opinion about the man. To say, "evidently the staff... have an opinion about Brown," is a relative no-brainer.

So what's my opinion on Brown? I think he struck the match for a holy war, a war that was guided by a principle that there is law and there is justice, and the two don't always meet. I think he struck for freedom, using violence to combat a violent system and begin the destruction of the purely evil concept of human chattel slavery. I think that Brown was, to some degree, just. I hate violence, I don't think it is the right answer, but I can understand and appreciate how someone might come to the conclusion that it is necessary. I have never had chains on my wrists, never been dragged along in a coffle, and never seen friends subjected to that treatment. I simply don't know what violence would well up in my soul if placed in the position of a Dangerfield Newby, Shields Green or John Brown.

Here's the clincher, though: my opinion of the justice of Brown's actions matters not one lick. My opinion is not valid in the case of Interpretation. Instead, it comes down to the visitors' opinions of Brown and his raid. The difference between History and Interpretation is a question of dictatorship, muddied by an intersection of language.

Above all else, this is a place to investigate
ideas. / CC by Mike Sheridan

"The chief aim of Interpretation," father of the craft Freeman Tilden intoned, "is not instruction, but provocation." Interpretation is a process by which the individual begins thinking about a place or person or thing. The aim is not learning, but drawing ones' own conclusions. "Information, as such, is not Interpretation," Tilden outlines in another of his principles, "Interpretation is revelation based on information. But they are entirely different things." The outcome of Interpretation is not for a visitor to walk away with one meaning for a place, imparted to all, but to walk away with a personal meaning for that place, developed by themselves. Interpretation represents a democracy of meanings, where only one intellectual vote counts: that of the visitor in their own internal decision of what this place or thing or person means. "Any Interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor," Tilden warned, "will be sterile."

History, on the other hand, is chiefly instructive. Any historical monograph has a deep seated position, with which it is the author's aim to entice, persuade, goad and sometimes even force the audience to agree. There are right interpretations and wrong interpretations in History, with opinions being as sacrosanct and immovable as the facts and information upon which they are based. There are experts, there to impart a distinct view and interpretation of an event or place or person.

Note that word: interpretation. This is where understandings of the fundamental differences between the two fields begin to break down. The concept of an historical interpretation, or an opinion about what a collection of facts mean in the greater scheme, has little to do with Interpretation as an activity. Capital "I" Interpretation is about eschewing enforcement of specific interpretations on visitors. In short, the difference is as simple as the difference between dictatorship and democracy.

Those are two very loaded words. But they are illustrative. Historical dictatorship only allows one viewpoint. Like Stalin effacing malcontents from photographs or Winston Smith sliding disappeared Ingsoc Party members into a slot in his office's wall, the grand majority of facts left within historical argument are those which support a thesis, either predetermined or crafted from those facts which fit it. Historical argument, to a greater or lesser extent, is a game of stage magic. The proof of something happening comes from not only illustration, but from misdirection as well. But the clincher in this paradigm is that "p" word: proof. Historical dictatorship comes through a distinct use of an officious tone. Historians impart singular "truths" and sole meanings for events like dictators, with a sense of certitude which often the public rejects. It is a chief reason that academia is disdained by a chunk of the populace as the embodiment of arrogance: the continual hubris of thinking "we know better than you."

Was Brown a terrorist? It is a valid question.
And the answer all hinges on whose eyes
you try to see him through. / CC by Stephanie

The flip side of the coin, the Interpretive democracy, offers up all the contradictions. It offers up disparate parts and multiple perspectives. It presents the evidence for a point, against a point and everywhere in between. It not only leaves the malcontents in the photos and the documents unburned, but demands that you try seeing the world from their perspectives as well. In this world, you try to see the world from the perspective, through the eyes, of a Virginia planter looking northward at the threat of more Harpers Ferrys. You look through the eyes of the Washington politician just hoping to live out your term in office without provoking a war between white and black, or state and state. You look through the eyes of Brown too, and try to see his perception of justice.

Most importantly, you don't offer a meaning. You offer the ideas of the past, the multiple perspectives, but then refrain from judgement. This is not because judgements should not be made. Everyone does have a right to judge the past and find meaning in its folds. No, this is to make sure that judgement is never imposed. Each visitor's judgement is sacred, is sovriegn. They vote on their personal meanings in a democracy of one.

I gave programs in Harpers Ferry this past summer, focusing on the moral quandary of John Brown's Raid. In it figured Dangerfield Newby, free slave and avenging husband, killed while desperately grasping for his family's freedom. In it too figured Thomas Boerly, Irish immigrant and protective husband, killed while doggedly trying to repel raiders from his town and his family's doorstep. Who was right? I never said. When you wear that badge, when you wear that hat, your word is law. Those two symbols are too powerful to make a judgement. Instead, I left it to the audience. If they walked away believing John Brown a saint, I did my job. If they walked away thinking John Brown a terrorist, I did my job. If they walked away thinking anything about John Brown, I did my job.

A friend of mine (now lost to us) wrote in his journal in 2002:

A story - that has to be the holy word. More than a plot or narrative - it has to offer real opportunities to meanings. Not a TV movie. A story has to weigh more. Be able to crack open at the details.

The formula now is really quite simple. Make people care about a character, place, - something. Then understate the obvious. First let them feel.

Letting people feel these places and draw their own conclusions is the ultimate democracy of history. Letting them question and prod from any angle, and most importantly not telling them they are wrong for a belief based in the place's story, is the ultimate opportunity to connect with a place. That's Interpretation.