Documents, objects, and sites: Considering a moving public history career

Over the past few weeks I’ve been contemplating a question for aspiring public historians: How would you best understand—and feel connected to—a historical figure? For example, you’ve no doubt read extensively about Honest Abe in history books and other popular literature over the years. To more deeply appreciate Lincoln as an individual, however, would you rather see his penmanship on original documents, stand before his famous top hat, or visit the place where he lived as a child? Which would move you the most? Now, beyond your personal preference as a visitor, consider your role in helping the public discover the Lincoln. If you would like to create a moment of inspiration for the public to truly understand him, what tools would you use: documents, artifacts, or sites?

From left to right: Lincoln's boyhood home at Knob Creek, Kentucky, now part of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park; his July 22, 1862 draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, now held as part of the Robert Todd Lincoln Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress; the top hat he wore to Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, which has been part of the Smithsonian Institution's collections since 1867.

The relative power of these three main mediums of public history seems to be truly personal. Of course, there are many factors that influence how you perceive each encounter, including how clearly the information is presented (whether in person or on paper). Your background, interests, and prior knowledge certainly shape your experience with each as well. As Freeman Tilden reminds us in his classic text Interpreting Our Heritage, visitors respond differently to content and thus interpretation should be customized based on their interests.

It took me 3.5 years of professional experience, a year of graduate school, and a month and a half of interning at the Smithsonian to realize that public historians also have inherently different interests. This is probably a strikingly obvious observation to many, but it’s a new concept for me to articulate. As a consumer of history—someone who loves soaking up history in any form on weekends—I consider museums, historic sites, and archives equally interesting. I certainly believe these three types of history institutions are equally important. However, as an emerging public history professional, it has occurred to me that I do not find documents, artifacts, and sites equally engaging to work with.

Personally, papers do not speak to me in the way objects do. Although Michael Johnson (based on his Denmark Vesey findings published in the William & Mary Quarterly) would likely disagree, I feel that digital facsimiles can sometimes reveal even more than original documents can with the ability to zoom, search, and hyperlink with other rich content. I find sharing a space with original objects that were held, owned, worn, or used by historical actors to be extremely poignant. Objects, however, do not cast the same sense of awe that I feel when visiting a historic building or site. While objects and papers can feasibly be transported, historic sites simply cannot. Instead, they serve as vehicles to transport visitors from the present to the past.

I have long been enamored with visiting battlefields and historic house museums. It recently dawned on me that my attraction stems from the simply matchless power of place. Standing on the very same floorboards as a historic figure almost literally allows you to walk in their shoes. These sites offer an opportunity to become part of where history happened. Historic sites touch all the senses, and they can be deeply affective regardless of age, ability, or language.

Of course, questions of authenticity complicate historic sites. What about buildings that are reconstructed to appear historic or have been significantly modified to come up to code? Structures that have been removed from their original context? Settings that have changed so significantly they would be unrecognizable to the historical actors? Teresa Moyer and Paul Shackel raise all of these questions in their book, The Making of Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park. Although these issues can complicate the interpretation or presentation, I don’t believe they take away from the power of a historic site. The story of a building or site’s preservation can be incorporated into the interpretation to form an engaging and unique narrative. 

Again, these insights are likely obvious to others—but they only clicked with me once I had hands-on experience in each of these main practices of public history. I fully intend to visit archives and museums wearing my “history consumer” (or, graduate student) hat. Moving forward in my career path, however, I will be aware of why my interests lie with historic sites and will seek opportunities that allow me to share my passion for place with the public.

An Overview of My Internship at CECOM

Image 1: Lab Test of cargo courier used by the Signal Corps Antarctic Research Team (1956-57).

     This summer I am an intern with the CECOM Historical Office of the United States Army (http://www.cecom.army.mil/historian/) at Aberdeen Proving Ground. CECOM is the U.S. Army Communications and Electronics Command, which is tasked with the development, testing, and sustainment of C4ISR systems (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) throughout the Department of Defense. CECOM traces its history to the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was originally headquartered at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, but was moved to Aberdeen Proving Ground under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). During World War I, the need for a dedicated Signal Laboratories led to the development of Fort Monmouth on the site of a former horse racing track.

     In addition to the laboratories and training school constructed on the site, other facilities were constructed on Fort Monmouth (then known as Camp Alfred Vail) to consolidate the operations of the Army Electrical Development Division to develop and test radio equipment and establish a pigeon breeding and training facility. In 1919, all Signal Corps Schools were relocated to Fort Monmouth, ensuring that the facility would survive the demobilization of the Army following the end of the war. Many of the technologies that would be used by the U.S. during World War II were developed by the Signal Corps Laboratories in the years between the wars. These developments included improved radio equipment such as the “walkie talkies” and field telephones used throughout World War II. Most importantly, the Signal Corps Laboratories worked significantly on the development of RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) after the project was transferred from the Ordnance Corps in 1930. The project was top secret, and so in early Field Manuals, RADAR was defined as a term used for communications radio sets.

     During World War II, the Signal Corps played an important role in the U.S. war effort, both in the United States and on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. The Signal School trained men for communications roles throughout the Army and the Signal Laboratories continued to develop new technologies for the war effort, including the first synthetically-produced large quartz crystals, a development which eliminated the U.S.’s reliance on imported quartz for use in communications devices. Following the end of the war, the Signal Corps continued to make important discoveries and innovations, such as Project DIANA, a radar antenna constructed at Fort Monmouth that was capable of transmitting and receiving signals bounced off of the moon. This development paved the way for future developments in artificial satellites such as the first communications satellite, Project SCORE. It was launched in December of 1958 and broadcasted a Christmas message from President Eisenhower back to Earth.

Image 2: Sphere Spotter antenna of DIANA moon radar in 1957.

      The Signal Corps as an institution continued to change in the years following World War II, adapting to the challenges faced in the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the overall challenges faced during the Cold War. Reorganization in the military led to new responsibilities and new names for the Signal Corps Laboratories, including ECOM (Electronics Command-1962), CERCOM (Communications-Electronics Readiness Command-1978), and, in 1981, it became CECOM following its merger with CORADCOM (Communications Research and Development Command).

     As an intern at the CECOM Historical Office, I will be working with the digitalization and indexing of a collection of photographs from the Communications-Electronics Museum Collection. These images span the history of the Command, but are primarily from World War I through the 1990s. The collection covers many different subjects, from images of personnel, commanding officers, and buildings at Fort Monmouth to equipment in the lab and in the field. Although I am primarily working with photographic prints, I am also learning about the identification and preservation of photographic negatives. As I continue with my work at APG, I will also learn more about how the Army, and the federal government in general, work with and preserve historical artifacts. I am interested in seeing how the Army’s policies regarding history differ from the policies of the National Park Service, where I had previously held an internship.

Image 3: Mule with radio pack, c1912. (Rear View)

Bibliography:

CECOM LCMC Historical Office, A Concise History of Fort Monmouth, NJ and the U.S.

Army CECOM Life Cycle Management Command (U.S. Army CECOM Life Cycle Management Command, 2009).

Image 1: Image #2605, “US Army Photo collection, C-E Museum Acquisition” from the

CECOM Historical Office archive, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.

Image 2: Image #2681, “US Army Photo collection, C-E Museum Acquisition” from the

CECOM Historical Office archive, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.

Image 3: Image #2076, “US Army Photo collection, C-E Museum Acquisition” from the

CECOM Historical Office archive, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.

 

Interning at the Holocaust Museum

For my internship this summer I will be at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at their collections management branch in Linthicum Maryland. My work has primarily revolved around the condition assessment of pending collections cartons that need an updated condition report on file and then I add them to the data base for quick access if anyone needs to find the location, description, and condition of these specific items in the future. For condition reports I must take the object and give measurements, identification of possible afflictions effecting the objects, and identify the afflictions in a picture of the object. When it comes to the process of adding these pending collections into the data base I use a module database program called EMU and I use a legacy number to identify the collection, if it has been registered in a previous database I update the location, if it has never been added to the database I create a new file for it. I have dealt with several interesting objects while interning, a few things that stand out have been the pictures and documents that are apart of collections that deal with the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps, there has also been a number of childrens books that were used as propaganda during the Second World War.  Aside from my primary duties I have helped out a lot with the proper packaging of out going loans from the museum. Recently, last week, the museum had to return a barrack to Poland that consisted of over 1000 items. I help with taking pictures, condition report, and proper placement in shipping boxes, this was an enormous project that I was glad to help with. To better understand the nature of collections management and the context of the objects I am working with I have created a reading list that consists of a textbook about the history and practices of collections management at museums, a collection of articles and oral histories of soldiers who were involved in the liberation of concentration camps, and a study of research on the nature and practices of what happened at these concentration camps so I can better understand what I am looking at. In addition the the Holocaust Museum my supervisor took us on a tour of the Peabody Library and Museum in Baltimore city to understand how their collections management process functions. This internship has been exhilarating and very interesting so far and I can not wait to see what is in store for the rest of the summer.

Settling into the Smithsonian

This summer, I am interning with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. As a blog editorial assistant in the New Media Department, my responsibilities include helping to update the museum’s active blog as well as assisting with all of the museum’s social media platforms. On a typical day I can be found on the computer editing, formatting, or tracking down images for a blog post as well as researching and writing social media content that relates to a historic anniversary (“Today in 1964…”), a special event (whether a holiday like Father’s Day or a happening at the museum) or new artifacts on display (such as this jersey worn by soccer superstar Pele). Because I am not terribly familiar with the museum’s collections, I’ve also spent about 1.5 hours a week exploring the exhibits alongside museum visitors.

The museum, looking rather intimidating to me on my first day.

My initial impression of NMAH was that it was SO huge. The building itself is two city blocks long and can resemble a maze to those of us who lack a great sense of direction. At the orientation, the museum’s internship coordinator estimated that there were about 400 full-time and/or year-round staff members who worked in the building in addition to about 75 interns and fellows at any given time. A staff of 400 seems unimaginably large to me considering that I’ve mostly worked at institutions made up of two to 10 full-time staff. What I’ve observed, however, is that my daily workflow is mostly related to about a dozen individuals. While there are literally hundreds of NMAH employees and interns who I never interact with, there are others I’ve worked closely with in just a few weeks’ time.

The New Media Department is made up of only three people. I was surprised to learn that such a small group is responsible for maintaining the website, blog, and social media presence for such a large institution. Although I’m sure their daily to-do lists would be lightened if the office were equipped with more manpower, they seem to manage a high volume of work quite efficiently. This relatively intimate environment is ideal for an intern, of course, because I have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience. Instead of just brainstorming content for the blog, I am writing posts. Rather than only monitoring the museum’s Instagram account to keep track of analytics, I am taking photos, writing captions, posting the content (sometimes live at events), and answering constituents’ questions.

And on the subject of live events, it’s an exhilarating time to be at NMAH with a flurry of activity in recent weeks. I’ve worked on content related to a naturalization ceremony on June 17 (which I unfortunately couldn’t attend because I forgot my ID badge at home—I learned my lesson!) and National History Day on June 18. The biggest event, however, was the nationwide Flag Day celebration on June 14. Raise It Up! Anthem for America was part of the museum’s War of 1812 bicentennial commemoration (which happens to be the subject of my thesis). As the stewards of Mary Pickersgill’s iconic Star-Spangled Banner, it makes sense for NMAH to mark the 200^th anniversary of the song that made the flag so famous. The flag and the original manuscript were united for the first time, where they will be on display together until early July. NMAH celebrated this occasion with a performance of American musical classics on the national mall, which was streamed online, and by inviting organizations and individuals across the country to join together in singing the national anthem at a designated time.

Among the special guests at the Raise It Up concert on Flag Day were country musician Carlene Carter and Governor Martin O'Malley. Secretary of the Smithsonian G. Wayne Clough is pictured just behind them.

In the days before the event, I combed through the museum’s Star-Spangled Banner blog series and website to generate (very) brief facts about the flag and song, which we posted on Twitter every 15 minutes throughout most of the day. Thankfully, this is one subject area I feel confident about considering I used to work at the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House. If the content had to relate to, say, World War I, it would have been a much more nerve-wracking challenge. It was a delight to see these facts retweeted because I felt connected to these other individuals across the country—who care, as I do, about the War of 1812, conserving the flag, Francis Scott Key’s original four stanzas, etc. The most popular tweet I composed is below:

The original Star-Spangled Banner flag sewn in 1813 measured 30x42 feet--school bus sized! #raiseitup #FlagDay pic.twitter.com/I6fcP5Opat
— amhistorymuseum (@amhistorymuseum) June 14, 2014

On the day itself, I attempted to keep track of what was happening in person as well as online. Throughout the day I was glued to my iPhone to take photos/video and communicate with these national partners through social media. To a casual observer, it probably looked like I was paying no attention to the United States Air Force Band or the other esteemed performers—but I was indeed working the whole time. Time is of the essence for any event, especially ones that are simulcast, so my supervisor and I were trying to post as quickly as possible on Flag Day rather than waiting until Monday to sort through pictures, thank partners, answer questions, etc.

New Media is just that—new—so it seems like customs, norms, expectations, etc. around it are still developing in the museum field. How museums develop, maintain, promote and envision both their websites and social media platforms vary. I appreciate that the museum categorizes New Media as part of the Education Department. The museum’s website and social media are meant to contribute to “the increase and diffusion of knowledge”—the mission, after all, of the Smithsonian Institution. Instead of viewing Twitter as an afterthought, it was at the heart of the Raise It Up campaign. For the majority of their social media followers, who do not live in the DC metro area, the only way to engage with the museum is online. Many of the Twitter followers and Facebook fans are looking for historical expertise, and seek NMAH’s social media to learn new information about the past. Thus, almost all of the posts I create are not promotional but educational. Expectations—both internal and external—are high for every single word published by this institution of national prestige, so a great deal of care must go into each of the 140-word tweets, Google+ posts, Instagram photos, Facebook updates, Pinterest pins, and Flickr captions that I write.

My complete social media summary of Raise It Up can be seen on the NMAH blog, O Say Can You See (sensing a theme here?).

Backstage at Raise It Up with some of the staff members I work mostly closely with: from left, educator Tory Altman, researcher Patri O’Gan, and my supervisor in New Media, Erin Blasco.