Week 4 Readings and the Excitement it Brings

     The two book readings were very appropriate for each other due to the fact that both were focusing on historical preservation and the costs, rewards, and failures that come with it.
   
     Essays from the Field:
     In Gardner and LaPaglia, the first essay writer, Antoinette Lee, takes us through the life of a preservationist. Lee makes the point that historical preservationists are tasked with taking boring facts about a location and presenting them to government boards in an energetic and passionate manner in order to keep historical sites from being destroyed. The next essay was by Mark Howell who dealt with the topic of interpreters. Howell took a more casual approach with writing this essay and I don't believe that it is necessarily a bad thing. As a profession, historical interpreters are tasked with being personable and approachable and I felt like he conveyed that about himself. He believed that as a museum interpreter, he and his peers were tasked with being able to teach both children and adults. This becomes a difficult task of being able to filter what you can say to both groups.

    Mickey Mouse History:
     In this, Mike Wallace takes the reader through a journey of the development of historical preservation starting from the 1880s. Each subsequent generation had its own opinion and role in historical preservation, but a common theme is that if the rich are interested in history, then it is easy to preserve history. During the 50s-70s, there was a mass tourism boom as a result of better transportation and communication. The development of the car sent people across the country and these people wanted attractions to draw them out of their urbanized cities and places like Colonial Williamsburg  and Greensfield Villiage would reap the financial benefits until the development of other parks. There was an update to Wallace's essay in which he updated the ideas of historical preservation for the 80s and 90s. This was used mostly to tear the Reagan administration and Republicans a new one.
   
     Web Readings: This was an interesting examination of critique and critique taken the wrong way. I did feel like Dr. Cebula presented his case and complaints in a respectful and professional manner while acknowledging that his tour guide at the Baron Von Munchausen house was a volunteer. The manager of the historical site did not seem too happy about any critique that was directed their way. It is a classic battle between a worker in the field and an academic...who is also a worker in the field of public history.

Terror behind the Walls. Image courtesy of

     Websites and Video: The two websites were very bland. It seems to be a recurring theme that the blogs are nice and classy with good content and interesting links while the historical websites are in desperate need of a makeover. It would seem like the National Park Service would be able to afford a web designer who could make the website look more desirable and with better content. The video was weird but well done. The students at Temple did work. It was a very creepy looking prison, but in order to keep it well funded they turn it into a haunted house at night. This is actually a genius idea to get extra interest and revenue for the historical site.  The academics didn't seem overly excited by this however. This feature is similar to what the "cannon-ball parks" do with their ghost tours of the battlefield. 

Example of one of the many ghost tours at Gettysburg
and other battlefields. Image courtesy of