"With high hope for the future": Holy Temples of Democracy

A Temple to Democracy
/ CC Kevin Burkett

I did it again. I went to Pennsylvania Historical Association's annual conference (this year in Harrisburg). I always seem to be the black sheep at these gathering, focused on raw emotional meanings and the usable past far more than the broader historiographical implications of either the proverbial or actual price of tea in China. This year I went to present a paper on the knock-down, dragout brawl that Daniel Sickles and William H. Tipton have throughout 1893 over the preservation of the Gettysburg Battlefield to a room full of professional historians.

OK, so the room wasn't full. There were five spectators. Yeah. That's how these academic conferences tend to go for me.

Before my session (where Dr. Bloom, my Master's thesis adviser joined me to talk about the Carlisle Indian Industrial School), I sat in on a session on Pennsylvania's colleges' and universities' Public History programs.

It was interesting to see the lay of the land, but I was unimpressed by the general trend of the conversation. I think one of the key problems that academics (even public historian of the academic stripe) have is that they are terrible communicators for a general audience. I never got the chance to ask the question during the Q&A, "do you have a mandatory interpretation or communication course in your program?"

Like a petulant preteen, I took to Twitter to grouse about it. "Here's the point the panel missed," I tweeted, "'office' historians can't communicate effectively w/ normal folks. That *NEEDS* to be problem #1."

Twitter is one of the safer places to complain like this at professional conferences I've found because barely anyone over 30 pays attention to the social media dimension of these events. To some extent, I'm simply complaining aloud to myself like a psychotic mumbler in the corner of the Metro car, swathed in a worn fatigue jacket and sporting a unkempt greying beard.

Much to my chagrin (and maybe elation) one of the panel's participants, Aaron Cowan from Slippery Rock University, wrote back. He noted that there's been, "much agonizing over this in profession." But his keen question was simple: "but do we ask this of English lit, chemistry, psych? Are historians worse?"

So I bit. I responded. Twice.

Not simply a temple
to Christ, but a temple
to liberty as well.
/ CC Meghan

"I don't think historians are worse than all acads," I wrote, "but I fear the effect is more dire: under-informed electorate." "But," I noted, "I'm one of those funky, altruistic Federal public historians."

I am one of those funky, altruistic Federal historians who thinks that our parks and sites of cultural import are sacred spaces and safeguards of liberty.

If applied physics fails, and an engineer makes a miscalculation or two, a bridge falls down and a few folks end up dead. It's a tragedy but it's ephemeral. If applied mathematics fails, and an economist makes a poor prediction or two, some investors lose a chunk of change in the market. It's a loss but it's relatively small.

But what happens if applied history fails, if public historians aren't effective in their work of communicating America to Americans?

America is a society built upon a secular religion. Our sacred spaces are our historic places. And our citizens learn the craft of citizenship, the process, the pitfalls and the promise of America, within those temples to freedom. Public historians are the scions of those spaces. If we fail to help the public find the meanings they need, if we fail to even entice them to come inside the temples, we risk losing America.

If applied history fails, and civics evaporates from the American peoples' consciousness, America falls down.

Huck Finn, Robot Jim and John Denver: Language, Young Man!

The "book trailer" for a new edition of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

I'll be teaching a section of Civil War Era Studies 205, Intro to the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College this spring. I had been puzzling over my book list for the past month or two, trying to decide which tomes to assign to students who need an overview of the era and a firm grounding in the four Civil War historical schools: social, military, political and memory. While Drew Gilpin Faust and Charles Dew have drifted onto and off of and back onto my list as I've been planning, one firm holdout has always been Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Like all college survey courses (I believe it is required by Commonwealth of Pennsylvania charter), I needed to include the requisite novel. Instead of Killer Angels or The March, I've decided to punch my ticket with a primary source.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens' birthday was yesterday, so I've been thinking about him a lot over the past 24 hours. Clemens is this particularly troubling character for a modern viewer, specifically because of his transformation. In our age of denigrating flip-floppers and those who periodically reevaluate their views, Clemens strikes an odd chord. An unabashed racist in his youth, a true product of his surroundings, Clemens through the voice of the crafted character Twain overcame his prejudice and became one of the most ardent voices for social reform our nation has ever known.

It is this deep, inside-baseball understanding of the imbecility of the racist system of slavery which gives Adventures of Huckleberry Finn its raw power. Twain turns the entire social order on its head through his use of language, through his subversion of words' meanings and through his conjunction of incongruent thoughts in Huck's simple yet profound mind. The language matters.

All of the above just stands as prologue as to why I am not assigning the NewSouth Books edition of the book. New South's edition, which replaces each use of "the n-word" with the word "slave," destroys the subversive meaning behind Twain's work. Twain's use of language, and his particularly crafted subversion of "the n-word", is critical to the plot of the novel and its deepest meanings. But "the n-word" has such deep and rightly-earned emotional baggage for America, no matter skin color or heritage, that many see that word as unprintable. But "the n-word" is necessary to fully understand Twain's meanings, that Jim is not simply an "n-word", a label attached by an oppressor, but a reasoning and thinking human being.

Annie's Song... the radio edit.

Did you see what I did there? Every time you got to "the n-word" in the above paragraph, what did your mind do? Did it fill in the blank? It is very similar to the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia; your mind fills in the chaos with order. You subconsciously read "nigger" each time I wrote "n-word." Your mind will do the same thing to you when you listen to the John Denver song embedded at the right. This is the classic Annie's Song, but this is the version edited for airplay on national radio. Go ahead, click play. I'll wait right here.

Comedy duo Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine have created an alternate-alternate version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, instead replacing "nigger" with "robot." The trailer for their book appears at the tops of this post. The replacement is as meaningless and simultaneously disastrous to the book as replacing it with "slave." The new-new edition is brilliant satire. Your brain will still fill in the word, but now it will be keenly attuned to the absurdity of the matter. The character of Robot Jim, fundamentally altering the entire meaning of the book for the base level comfort of the reader, is the most absurd concept possible and points to the fundamental problem with NewSouth's edition and schools' propensity to censor the book.

The word nigger should be retired, much as the Confederate Flag. Both are hateful symbols, at their core working to deny the humanity of a race of people. But likewise both should still be displayed where they can teach and educate as to their hatred. That means that we can still show the flag in museums, we can still talk about the tough stuff of history in a proper context. We should never call anyone a nigger again as an insult or an epithet. But we can say the word in the right time, place and manner. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of those places. Here the word is displayed in all its hateful meaning, the fallacy of its concepts being slowly unveiled across the novel until finally Huck utters those words which show how absurd the word and its concept is. Jim becomes a man, not the sub-human concept characterized by the word "nigger".

Huck contemplates sending a note he has written to Jim's owner:

Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck Finn.

He hesitates. He realizes that he, "was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now." Huck is left with the choice to either send the note or go to hell for trying to free his friend. His answer:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"

And he tears up the note; he tears up that word. Which is more powerful, Huck tearing up "nigger" or tearing up "slave?"

...or maybe tearing up "robot" instead?

Wittingly Effaced for Too Long: Hidden in Plain Sight

The former Gettysburg College
logo, phased out in early 2001
but still available on the
Internet Archive.

A few years ago, Gettysburg College changed their wordmark. The previous college logo featured the words "Gettysburg College" topped with a line art version of the flag flying from the cupola of Pennsylvania Hall. The logo explicitly acknowledged the sense of place, referencing the 34-star flag which flies above the Civil War era field hospital both night and day. The logo acknowledged the Civil War inherently.

In early 2001, everything changed. The logo shifted to a simple blue and orange wordmark of "Gettysburg College." No flag, no war, no history. As the re-branding initiative continued throughout the 2000s, a company named Cognitive Marketing helped the college pilot a campaign to, as the college newspaper reported on November 6th, 2003, help, "Gettysburg College [seem] new and in the moment." The article went on to make the cryptic observation that, "the culture does not embrace the rich history of Gettysburg."

This seems to have been the norm within the college's history community for quite some time as well. The most recent college history, a two-volume, 1060 page work from 1987 by Charles Glatfelter entitled Salutary Influence and available here [136mb], devotes under 9 pages or roughly 0.8% to the war years. If you weighted each year evenly, 5 years of Civil War should take up 3% of the book, or roughly 30 pages. Tumultuous years like the 1860s would seemingly demand an even closer investigation, not a lesser one.

Two of Gettysburg's
Civil War programs'
old logos.

The college has in the past gone out of its way to efface the Civil War from its landscape. Today, that trend is being reversed by a forward thinking administration who seem to see that the Civil War is one of the things which makes this place unique.

Why do I mention all this? I've been working on the college's Civil War history since 2006, trying to piece together something meaningful from the bits and pieces. I offer tours for groups of college alumni and parents around the campus, helping unfold the Civil War stories hidden beneath the surface. A few weeks ago, I gave a tour for some high-power alumni, parents and trustees, all of whom were outrageously interested in the hidden history of this place. They connected to this landscape (which some of them spent years crossing on their way to class) in new ways. They were floored at how rich the stories of Gettysburg's students, faculty and the soldiers who inhabited the college's campus could be. I am stockpiling research to hopefully put together a book on the college and the Civil War in time for the 150th in 2013.

As I've been searching, I found an intriguing article in a 1937 issue of the Gettysburg College Bulletin. Workmen digging the foundations for the north portico of Pennsylvania Hall, the non-historic porch of the building, "came upon some bones said to be human." Barely stopping the excavation, the workers almost seem to have been expecting to find remnants of the, "amputations of soldiers wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg." Among the other artifacts were, "an
old-fashioned key, a piece of shell, a penny dated 1838." The article boasts that the college's new addition was, "deep-seated in courageous history." The enthusiasm is palpable. We can take some inspiration from this profound excitement: sometimes it is a far more effective strategy to embrace the histories we might not like instead of eschewing them.

"That all men are created equal...": Universal Relevance and the Civil War

"Time circuits on...
Flux Capacitor... fluxing" /
CC by Anthony Catalano

One of my favorite movies is Back to the Future III. I know that is a terrible choice in some folks' eyes. The response I usually get is an, "ugh!" and a snarl of the lip. Still, I think there is so much going on in that film, from the struggle between fatalism and free will to the themes of love and sacrifice, heartache and heartbreak.

The reason Back to the Future III comes up in my mind today, though, is because of a dialogue within the public history world that appears to be heating up, thanks in part to both Kevin Levin and Ed Ayers (via James Loewen). The "Next Interpretive Challenge," of making the Civil War matter to an increasingly disconnected and diverse audience is crucial to the survival of the War's legacy, chiefly the emancipation ethic.

Levin, Ayers and Loewen see the great divide forming between how we service the traditional American audience (i.e. whiter, Anglo-centric audiences who have either a geographic or genealogical affinity for the war) and the new American audience (i.e. more diverse, recent immigrant populations whose ancestors lived thousands of miles from this country during the war). Their answer seems relatively clear: geography and a global view of the war.

This answer made me think of an exchange between Marty McFly and Doctor Emmett L. Brown on the rim of Clayton Shonash Ravine:

Doc - "You're just not thinking fourth dimensionally."
Marty - "Right, right. I have a real problem with that."

I'm not quite sure that Levin and the rest are thinking fourth dimensionally. They are running under an assumption that the sole barrier standing in the way of relevance for an audience of Pakistani visitors is a matter of geography. They assume that these visitors will instantly find relevance in the Civil War through any connection made between the war and Pakistan. But this forgets the simple fact that 150 years separate the Pakistanis of today from the denizens of the British Indian Empire of the 1860s. The assumption that these visitors (or any visitors) will care about any event or person of the past simply because of it's geographic location is dangerous.

Would telling a group of Pakistani tourists about Syed Ameer Ali and the Central National Muhammadan Association quest in the years after the American Civil War to win independence and freedom from oppressive British rule, and the similarities the quest had with the Abolition movement, instantly make a Civil War landscape matter to them? I'm not so sure. And furthermore, can any interpreter actually be prepared to offer that kind of relevance to any visitor of any nationality who wanders into their site at the drop of a hat? Does the inclusion of a shared geography instantly create relevance? Or is there another dimension (the fourth / time) which complicates this problem?

I'm not sure that pure geography is the right route to relevance. Too many things separate any of us, especially those without a blood connection, from the American Civil War. There seems to be a more unified solution to both the third dimensional and fourth dimensional distance which is far simpler: human universals.

No matter who walks into a Civil War site, be they a twelfth generation American or a new immigrant, we are all human. We all have wants and needs. We all have hated. We all have been proud. We all have been disappointed. We all have lost those we love and we all have found new love in others. We all have dreamed. These human universals are far more effective in helping any audience to access a site's meanings. It is my firm belief that through the lens of the human universal, we can help people see why these places might matter to them.

Why is the Civil War relevant? Certainly it is not simply because it is an American story (or a Chinese story, or a Canadian story or a Pakistani story). No. The Civil War is relevant because it is a human story.

CC by Jay Bonvouloir

That, as Marty McFly would say, is "heavy."

Thinking about how to bridge both the third dimensional gap and the fourth dimensional gap through human universal relevance, rather than trying in vain to make increasingly tenuous connections to each and every geographic locale, seems a far more fruitful endeavour.

I'll have more musings on the universal power of the human story next week, drifting back into that place where so much of our discussion of this War leads: race.

"And preachin' from my chair": The Historian and the Interpreter

I've been thinking lately of titles. The new blog Emerging Civil War's inaugural post touched off a powder-keg of thought for me. Looking down the list of contributors yields name after name listed as "historian at...." But most of those folks appear to have the official job title of "park ranger," "interpreter," or "visitor use assistant," and not "historian." This got the wheels in my head turning.

What does it all mean? Who am I to say?

What we choose to call ourselves is sometimes as important as the work we do. For those who 'do history' on Civil War battlefields, we have two distinct options. The best place to find how someone views themselves is right in their e-mail signature, but sometimes it's in the bio they put on their blog.

Some fashion themselves as historians first and foremost, imparting the historical truth to their audience. They persuade and argue a thesis for their audiences, acting as the professor in walking lectures with distinct points to prove.

Others see themselves as interpreters first and foremost, offering opportunities for visitors to connect with a site's meanings, to find meanings that the member of the audience find personally relevant. They offer multiple perspectives and a variety of viewpoints, acting as a facilitator, orchestrating a conversation between the resource and the visitor with no thesis to argue.

A historian emeritus from
Princeton on a battlefield...

Historians persuade; Interpreters reveal.

There is nothing inherently wrong with persuasive argument. But often historians on battle landscapes craft grand arguments with very specific theses. The historians dictate the conclusions and demand acquiescence to those conclusion by laying out every point of their argument to support their theses. They argue a point. There is what could be called a dictatorship of thought.

On the flip side of that coin, interpreters leave conclusions to their audience, offering multiple perspectives on an event and moral ambiguity. No one ends up having been right or wrong. This past summer, I've been running discussion-based experimental programs on John Brown. In the end, when the visitors step out of the engine house, I don't care what they think about John Brown. Some walk out loving him, thinking him a saint. Others walk out thinking him a terrorist and the devil incarnate. There is no right and wrong conclusion, only the visitor's conclusion. If they walk out thinking something, anything about John Brown, I've done my job. Think of it as a democracy of historical thought.

Take a look at the top of the blog. Go on... scroll up there. I'll wait. There's a very distinct reason we chose that title. "Interpreting the Civil War."

Yes, we'll argue historical points vehemently here in our own backyard, because to some extent we're hashing out our own personal meanings of these places. You have to care about something personally before you can help others find why they care about it too. But when we head out into the sacred spaces that America has set aside for itself, there is no right and wrong. There is muddy chaos, moral ambiguity and the visitor's conclusion. There are no theses. There are no right answers or acceptable opinions.

There is only the visitor and their personal appreciations of the places we hold dear.

Slavery and Justice: What Brown University has taught me about Public History

John and I have often written posts for this blog describing what we feel to be good standards and examples of public history. I first questioned what public history meant in one of my first posts, and more recently, John added his thoughts about Sam Richard’s TED talk on empathy and how it relates to the field of public history.

In the post today, I want to add to that debate by discussing Brown University’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. John recently turned me on to this, and while I still haven’t read the whole report (available in pdf), I’m really impressed by what I’ve read so far. For those of you who are not familiar with the report, I highly recommend it - it is very insightful. The Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice report documents Brown University’s public struggle with its historic foundations which, are tied inextricably to the economics of slavery and the slave trade. The committee’s report seeks to reconcile with Brown’s historic past and find where the present lives in the past.

The report seeks to answer the question:

How are we, as members of the Brown community, as Rhode Islanders, and as citizens and residents of the United States, to make sense of our complex history? How do we reconcile those elements of our past that are gracious and honorable with those that provoke grief and horror? What responsibilities, if any, rest upon us in the present as inheritors of this mixed legacy? The Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice represents one institution’s confrontation with these questions.

The Steering Committee is doing public history. It asks people to consider, “What does our history mean to us today?” and, “What should we do about the parts of the past that aren’t so honorable?” The goals of the committee were not only to present the, “University’s historic entanglement with slavery and the slaver trade and to report the findings openly and truthfully,” but also to, “reflect on the meaning of this history in the present, on the complex historical, political, legal, and moral questions posed by any present day confrontation with past injustice.” The committee’s goals were to acknowledge the past, and recognizing that it can’t be changed, ask and foster the debate today on what could be done going forward. The committee is actively engaging the community and the country with the past, and what it means to us today. It’s practicing public/civic engagement. As the president of the University stated, it was, “an effort designed to involve the campus community in a discovery of the meaning of our past…Understanding our history and suggesting how the full truth of that history can be incorporated into our common traditions will not be easy. But, then it doesn’t have to be.”

Why would an institution do this, you might ask? What does it accomplish? Why open chapters of the past that are controversial and painful? Brown University faced the same questions while undergoing this project. Their answer was simple – “Brown is a University.” Even today, the institution recognized that it was part of that past, it was a descendent of that past, and that it was forever connected to that past. Historically and morally, Brown is forever connected to its history and slavery.

Reading the first half of the report, I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s great public history. Along with fostering empathy, this is where public history needs to be headed. Brown University becomes human through the report. The institution, struggles with difficult problems, and they are the first to admit, that they don’t necessarily have all the answers – none of us do. Hopefully, by engaging the community and greater public, they can foster a discussion, that while it may never furnish the perfect answer, it might at least encourage debate and maybe a consensus.

Brown University image courtesy of Brown University Library via Wikipedia. "Am I not a man..." courtesy of LoC.