Monthly Archives: March 2016

The Responsibilities of a Public Historian

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Often when one speaks of original research, whether it be thesis-based or otherwise, there is emphasis placed on finding gaps in the historiography of a particular topic. A thesis candidate is supposed to work off of primary sources in order to draw his or her own unique conclusions; in a sense, he or she must write about something on which nothing has been written before. There is a certain amount of excitement that goes along with this, a feeling of “trailblazing” and becoming an expert in a specific area of history. However, as I browsed through the different entries to the Black at Bryn Mawr blog, I noticed how open its creators have been about the difficulties of this kind of “trailblazing” work. For example, in her reflection on the naming of the Enid Cook Center (http://blackatbrynmawr.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2015/09/03/black-at-bryn-mawr-and-the-enid-cook-31-center/), Grace Pusey expresses her concern that “the story [she] told about Enid Cook could very well become *the* story of Enid Cook.”

Writing a research paper is stressful by nature, and there must be a considerable amount of additional stress involved in turning that research into a public project. When it is difficult to decipher the meaning of a source, or when a body of evidence contradicts the thesis statement, it is tempting to skip over the problem and go on as if it does not exist. However, if there is a chance that the final project will be the first someone has heard of a given topic, the consequences of such oversights can be especially great. A successful public history project, it would then seem, is able to negotiate the careful balance between doing its subject justice and revealing what about it remains unknown. In order for the project to be taken seriously, a public historian must be an authority on his or her subject without pretending to be the authority.

Bryn Mawr not only is racist; it is ingrown!

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The two part blog post (Unwavering Dissent) was probably the least surprising thing I read on the blog, at least regarding the slowness at which Bryn Mawr’s administration moves when dealing with things that it would rather just go away. The line “the administration’s noncommittal response” almost made me laugh because it was so sad, because it is so true even today.

The parallels between the administrations slow response to dealing with the admission of black student to Bryn Mawr, with giving them their own cultural space on campus, with treatment of black staff, and today’s racial issues (specifically the confederate flag incident among others) just demonstrates how this is not a new issue at Bryn Mawr. Racism is not the limitation of what is ingrown in Bryn Mawr’s administration; it is everything that goes along with it the administration’s noncommittal stance towards social progression. It is also still the current process that if Bryn Mawr students (especially any students of color) who want to change anything at Bryn Mawr “they would have to fight for, loudly.”

Documenting the Senses

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Looking through Swarthmore’s Black Liberation Archive, I was particularly struck by their page dedicated to the soundtrack of the liberation. On the one hand, music seems like a very obvious aspect of a political movement (witness the recent Stephen Colbert skit on good Simon & Garfunkel songs to match our current presidential candidates), and on the other, it opened a lot of questions for me: documenting written sources and physical artifacts is all very well and good, but how does one go about recording the other ways we perceive events in our everyday lives– the sounds, the smells, the tastes?

Already Swarthmore’s page is having problems: of the twenty-five songs they have posted, two (“Pata Pata,” Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain) have been removed due YouTube copyright violations in the time since this site first went live. Furthermore, a digital exhibit automatically robs the observer of their ability to touch documents and to conduct physical examinations of an archive’s contents (of course the physical documents are still present somewhere, but then you run into the question of access again).

I think a case can be made for the power of music in demonstrations, but we should also be asking the question of whether it matters that documentation of smell and taste (and perhaps a lesser extent touch and sound) is often lost in the archiving process. We learned from Trouillot that all archives carry with them inherent silences– it’s part of the process. How would you go about preserving smell and taste, anyway? Most likely someone would have to write down how it felt, and that changes the nature of the source, and then…

The short version of all this, really, is that I think the archival process is extremely long and complicated, and I’m really impressed with how Swarthmore handled it. They were right to recognize the importance of music in the student movements, and to make that available to researchers– frankly, I think it was a brilliant idea. The question of maintenance remains, but they do list on the site an option to contact them in the event that you have questions or have found an error, and I’m not sure there’s a better option than that right now.

“Patricidal Memory and the Passerby” by Rebecca Schneider // Black Liberation 1969

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“Patricidal Memory and the Passerby” by Rebecca Schneider

In another class, I had to read this really, really interesting piece by Rebecca Schneider. We talked about it briefly in class, but her piece talks a lot about the interaction between the monument and the onlooker. It was super insightful. I really recommend looking at it!

http://sfonline.barnard.edu/ps/schneide.htm

Black Liberation 1969

I really liked browsing through the Black Liberation 1969 Archive. I found the interactive 1969 Mapping the Sit In quite useful (I also am really curious as to how to do that on Omeka??). It took me a little bit to find out the events in chronological order to be honest, but it was a really neat idea regardless. Luckily, the Timeline of Events was a bit easier for me to understand and navigate.

One thing that really shocked me what the FBI surveillance of the black student population of Swarthmore College. I supposed that I hadn’t even considered the FBI’s involvement until I browsed the collection. A part of me is terrified that this ever existed, but the other part of me is really happy that the physical evidence is able to be displayed on a accessible medium that can be used to educate other people.

I suppose it bothered me that this event happened so close to us, and impacted so many people, and yet this is the first time I’m ever hearing about it. I’m not sure why this is, because it seems to me that this was a very significant event, but I’ve never studied it in class, and I haven’t heard any students on campus talking about it. I recognize that it happened quite some time ago, but I think an event like this would be hard to forget, and would even be passed from generation to generation. This opens up other questions about the passage of memory, the transmission of information, and what events are deemed important enough to pass on.

 

Regarding Quita Woodward

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A memorial gift was offered that was of special significance. Quita Woodward, of the class of 1932, was a student beloved by all, gay, friendly, intrepid in the face of advancing ill health, bound to graduate at Bryn Mawr, bound also to let nothing darken her happiness there. Her death, in the year after her graduation, inexorable as merciless ill-ness had made it, was a desperate blow to all of the many who had known her and been so deeply attached to her. As Bryn Mawr lives, so her memory is to live, in the wing and the reading room which carry her name. It is, somehow, a memory that has preserved the impression of the beauty and happiness of her short life, not the unreconciled sorrow that goes with untimely death. Her father and mother subscribed to the new Library wing, particularly for the housing of the departments of Art and Archaeology, and for the specially designated reading room for the students to be called the Quita Woodward Room.

— From What Makes a College: A History of Bryn Mawr (p. 165-66)

How to Consume a Memorial

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“It’s like Berlin. You see the devastation”

Poster of Friedrich Seidenstücker photograph. Reichstag, Berlin 1946.

Poster of Friedrich Seidenstücker photograph. Reichstag, Berlin 1948.

This comment by Joel Shapiro referring to his proposal that the World Trade Center site to Berlin in the decades after World War II struck me as odd. Berlin, in its current state, is full of very constructed, very planned new monuments and memorials. Perhaps because of the destruction that served as memorial in the decades after the war, Berlin is a prime example of a city deep in “memorial mania.” From memorials for the Berlin Wall and its victims, to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, to memorials of Soviet prison camps, Berlin keeps building new memorials and expanding existing ones. And these sites generate so much revenue. People come to Berlin to see these sites. However, in order to charge people money to remember, you need to build something. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is free, but has a museum that charges for various services, such as translation. The Hohenschönhausen memorial to political persecution in the GDR charges admission. Aside from direct revenue from visitors to the memorials, the city profits from tourists travelling to these various points of memorial. This begs the question: what is the purpose of a memorial, especially a memorial as large in scale as these? What should a memorial do to us, as the viewing public? How should we interact with the memorial? Should there be any money exchanged from public to memorial at all? Does your relationship to a memorial change when part of it is monetized?

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Berlin

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Berlin

People will pay to process the memorializing. The World Trade Center Memorial itself is free, but an adult ticket to the museum is $24. I visited the memorial in the spring of 2011 and the museum had not yet opened. Growing up outside of Manhattan, there were kids in my school that lost family members on 9/11. It was one of the most upsetting things to see people taking selfies in front of the reflecting pools. I came with an understanding that there was a very particular way to experience a memorial: to be somber, quiet, and reflective. Even if you had no connection to the people or moment being memorialized, you respected the space in that way, because other people around you might be connected. However, for other people around me at the memorial, it was like any other tourist attraction: something fun and interesting to pose with and then move on quickly to the next spot. The emotional disconnect that I felt between myself and the rest of the public was so intense. Rather than being a space of collective mourning or remembrance, it was a space of individualized consumption. Perhaps I think (or still think) too highly of public spaces of memorial. Maybe for most people, memorials are something to take a picture of, tell your friends you saw it, and move on. Is this because of the public? Or are we consuming memorials this way because the design of them guides us to do so? Or are we consuming memorials because we are paying to see them, directly or indirectly through transportation costs?

Selfie at Reflecting Pool 9/11 Memorial

Selfie at Reflecting Pool
9/11 Memorial

My experience at the World Trade Center Memorial influenced my decision not to go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. Instead, I stayed in Krakow. While wandering around the city, I came across a giant billboard with a smiling woman in front of the Auschwitz camp. It was advertising an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow titled “Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz.” This was exactly what I feared most about visiting the Auschwitz Memorial: being part of a collective having an entirely different emotional experience from me. I asked my friend when he returned to Krakow from the Auschwitz Memorial if he saw people taking pictures like the smiling woman. He said that he did and that it added a strange other layer to the experience of remembering to understand how others were engaging with the space. With all of this money spent on memorials, they still do not encourage public remembrance. Most are instead public art projects, like the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Therefore, they should be listed as such and other spaces should be given for public memorials.

Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz MOCAK Exhibit Ad

Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz
MOCAK Exhibit Ad

Painting a False Picture of the Past

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In reading “The Crumbling Monuments of the Age of Marble,” I was struck by this quote in particular: “Yet if Woodrow Wilson College simply becomes Bloomberg College, Princeton will have lost an opportunity to talk about what kind of college it wishes to be.” This sentiment seems further reflected in an article I found linked in one of the comments on the site, which I think adds an interesting perspective to the debate (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/names-in-the-ivy-league).

When colleges rechristen buildings named for those who held racist beliefs, they are in a sense sugar-coating the past. How would new names be chosen for these buildings? A college may be able to identify a figure innocuous enough so as not to offend anyone; however, this would be projecting a false version of history. It would, albeit unintentionally, be denying the fact that some of the most influential figures in the development of the college believed people of different races were not entitled to the same treatment as those of their own. Consciously or unconsciously, this worldview undoubtedly affected how figures such as Woodrow Wilson shaped and influenced the schools in which they were invested. We have discussed the tendency of some historical exhibits to avoid the controversial aspects of their subject matter, and it is worth acknowledging that this avoidance is not always performed by those who stand to benefit from believing the injustices never happened. Eradicating the evidence of unpleasant histories because they make us feel hurt and outraged is just as much an act of avoidance as pretending they do not exist.

Of course we should not ignore that certain prominent figures were racist, precisely because they were so prominent and their influence was and is felt so strongly. At the same time, human beings are neither perfectly good nor perfectly evil; one has to acknowledge that the same individuals who nursed such prejudices also made important and notable contributions to their schools. Rechristening buildings with the names of those who are less controversial and/or were not as instrumental in the development of a college denies enormous parts of that college’s history. It dismisses significant steps made in the development of the school, while simultaneously pretending that this development was not tainted by the racist ideas of the time. College buildings are not named indiscriminately. The names of specific people were selected for specific purposes, and these selections and the reasons behind them shed light on the climate in which they were chosen. The controversies surrounding these names should be revealed and will rightfully cause outrage; at the same time, letting this outrage lead to the destruction of evidence will only cause more facets of history to be swept under the rug.

Still not a fan of M. Carey Thomas

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I had a conversation about M. Carey Thomas last week (or several conversations, which isn’t surprising), about the name change of TGH and the fact that all we do is talk about M Carey Thomas! So I wanted to acknowledge that some people, and I to a certain extent, think that the M. Carey Thomas example is often overused and sometimes seems to be something that people can talk about to seem radical and cool without truly engaging in what it means to be oppressive. But not all conversations about her are like that. And I also think she’s just a perfect example for what I’m thinking!

 

After reading everything for this week, and also reading through everyone’s posts, my feelings about changing the name of TGH have shifted. As recent as early this semester, I did not know how I felt about the issue. I could no confidently support nor object to the idea that the name of TGH should be changed. Most of the reasons for changing it was because M. Carey Thomas was extremely racist, which I of course don’t like. But a lot of the reasons that I heard about not changing it was that it would erase the memory of racism on our campus and we wouldn’t think about it as much. Which I could also see happening.

 

However, a couple of weeks ago a friend came up to me and shared an idea that she heard. In an effort to subvert the space, we could have a memorial of sorts to honor the women of color who have made lasting impacts on our campus, or who went off and did great things in the world. Perfect! I thought. Especially because one of this student’s concerns was that if we changed the name of TGH we would lose a lot of funding. Which I think is valid. But going back to Sofi’s question of, who are these memorials for? and the question of, what is an institutions values? I am not sure that we could justify glorifying the oppressive mindset of a woman just because we want another old white woman’s money. Are we glorifying this old white woman’s racism too? Though I still want scholarship money for students, so I’m not fully convinced that that is the most important point for myself.

 

But to the other point about losing our campus history, Gwendolyn’s post got me thinking. We are arguing that it is important to commemorate this woman because it highlights all the injustices of this campus’ past. But couldn’t we achieve the same thing through commemorating a person who actively fought to change the policies and the structures that M. Carey Thomas put in place? I’m not sure if this is a novel idea but I feel like I haven’t heard it a lot! We can have multiple histories, and the only way to learn about oppression doesn’t have to be through the lens of the oppressor! I am quite distressed that this is the current model that we fall back on. I am also upset that money controls so many of our decisions, but I suppose that could be a whole other post.

Context in the Comments

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I made the mistake that I normally do and I read the comment section of the article The Crumbling Monuments of the Age of Marble. I thought the article was really interesting, and I had time to burn so I just kept scrolling. Shifting through the comments which were targeted towards everyone and everything, I picked up on a trend of people talking about context; in that people thought the author was not giving enough room to the historical characters being represented in the arguments to be seen in the times and circumstances that they lived. While their were many, many comments made about this topic I choose a couple of my ‘favorites’ to use as examples. *Note: These are not necessarily comments I agree with but rather they made either a statement that was agree with by other commenters or I think it added something to the argument that was already going on*

Kilpatrick Kirksimmons said : People must be judged in context. Are there moral absolutes? Of course. Should we ignore the bad (or at least what we today feel to be bad)? Absolutely. But to judge someone out of context is as naïve as it is unfair. Imagine your own great grandchildren doing the same thing to you. After all, you do not fancy yourself to be the last generation, do you?

Zen Galacticore said: Judging our fellow contemporaries is bad enough, but to judge our forebears, our antecedents, by our own 21st century moral and ethical standards is the height of self-righteousness

PurpleJello said: Where do young people and minorities draw the line in judging history. Because if you naively believe any man or woman is without sin, look at yourself?

Liars N. Fools said: Our history — and for that matter that of the west in general — has been shaped for better or worse by white men. Only recently — last century — have non-white-men come into their own in fundamentally shaping the country. It is anti-intellectual and ahistorical to deny this. The best thing to do is to study the “better or worse” aspects of the shapers of our nation rather than living in a world of atemporal and ahistorical virtual reality of political correctness.

William Bergmann said: We’re exiting the ‘Age of Marble’ because we’ve finally realized that even the saints aren’t actually saints.

I would first like to point out the obvious that this argument is in a comments section, and is mostly devoted to arguing that you can(’t) separate the sins/morals of individual in the past from the sins/morals of the present. The majority of comments seemed to side with the idea that it was unfair to judge people of the past based on the modern idea of what was ‘right’. Their were a lot of comment that blamed this whole idea of questioning the past on the college age generation, saying it was because we are to PC, and that we are just trying to create a false history. What I feel these people are missing is what was said by Liars N. Fools, that the older generation feels by creating -what I think most of our class would call more correct- a history which includes women and minorities that we are literally creating stories, that this history wasn’t real because it wasn’t what they learned in school. I think that, they really think this generation is attempting to erase white males from the narrative of history. Because to them the breaking down of this privileged single white washed narrative feels like oppression, in the same way that their loss of privilege in other areas feel like oppression to them. To them if they aren’t on the top their are on the bottom, because that is where they viewed everyone else who wasn’t on the top. So it is easier for Liars N. Fools and other to think that everything in history was made about white men, they just like to forget it was the white men who made it all about them.

Memorials as Public Displays of Affection (read: who are we loving?)

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First I want to say that I only have the horizontal lines because formatting is hard and I really wanted paragraph breaks. Oh, WordPress…

In Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America, Doss does important work in articulating how history is emotional and human, it is not unfeeling or unbiased. I appreciate that she takes time to point out that creating memorials and monuments are uniquely human processes; they are rituals. The notion of memorials as sites of national honor, grief, and religious experiences made me think about how important memorials are for framing social worth. In other words, how do memorials demonstrate who we mourn and miss?

Memorials are far more political than simply remembering someone or something. It’s a question of whose loss do we miss or notice? Another way of saying this to me is, who do we love?

This made me think of a speech by activist Mia Mingus, a disabled queer transnational adoptee who’s work focuses on social justice for survivors of sexual abuse. She gave a speech called, “Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability” for the Femmes of Color Symposium in 2011, where she talks about embracing the Ugly as magnificent.

Doss writes a lot about how historically monuments honor “great men.” Further, Doss writes about how monuments and memorials enact “a living memory” (Doss 38). To me, monuments and memorials are spaces and objects that signal and structure our constructions of social worth. Therefore, if we are a culture that celebrates cisgender, white, heterosexual, able-bodied men in our statues and memorials–physical spaces that register important temporal moments–then we are a culture that continues to assert that man as the only human that we love, protect, preserve, and imagine as part of our nation’s future. In her talk, Mingus asks us to celebrate the ugly, to see the ugly in us–what society sees as freakish, unacceptable, or wrong–and not run away from it. She asks us to see the ugly as magnificent. I wonder what would happen if we memorialized disabled queer bodies of color? What happens when you assert the life and permanence of a specific community?

This is what I believe Doss gestures towards when she discusses the shift towards a “memorial mania,” and the increase in remembering more specific communities and acknowledging that we are a fragmented nation with many “publics.” However, I have some reservations about the new “experience”-based museums (Doss 51-52). Of course, I believe that restructuring memorials and the hierarchy of mourning and grief can greatly affect who we see as a citizen, and as a human worthy of protection. However, when Doss writes of museums like the Holocaust museum, which give each museum-goer an identification number, I wonder who their audience is. Museums assume that everyone who attends is going to learn about someone else’s experience, in which case it is helpful to try to access someone else’s lived experience. However, I wonder in what ways memorials and museums can help serve a specific community, and help that community grieve and heal. In other words, I wonder about the balanced between the internal and external when it comes to the civic duty of memorials and museums. Which population do these spaces serve, and in what ways does serving the white, heterosexual, Christian, able-bodied public prevent the grief and healing process for the rest of the public?