Readings Week 4: Historic Preservation

Read:

• Wallace, Mickey Mouse History pp. 177-221
• Cauvin, Public History, Chapter 2: Historic Preservation, pp 55-88

Websites:

• National Trust for Historic Preservation
• National Register of Historic Places - National Park Service

Public History Blog of the Week: Preservation Nation

Public History Video of the Week: Eastern State Penitentiary: Prison scares up revenue and creates a controversy

Listen: Pick any of these museum podcasts and listen to one. 

We have a special guest this week, Megan Duvall of the Historic Preservation Office. To prepare for her visit, please view these websites as well. 

• Spokane Historic Preservation Office
EWU students survey East Central’s history
• East Central Survey

Discussion Leaders: William and Katie

Second Set of Readings and Reminders

Readings: Week 3: Museums, Pro and Con

• Cauvin, Public History: A Textbook of Practice, pp 140-162 (Chapter 6)
• Wallace, Mickey Mouse History, pp. 55-100, 115-132 (skipping "The Virtual Past" chapter, which is dated)
• Kennedy: At Museums, the Invasion of the Podcasts
• Cebula, Cell Phone Tours (see if the numbers still work!)
• Websites:
  • American Association of Museums (look at Ethics, Standards and Best Practices and poke around the site in general)
  • If you are on Facebook, follow a couple of museums. Try the Museum of History and Industry, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, our own Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian--and others.
  • This Google Search result suggests some good museums on Twitter to check out
  
  
  Public History Blogs of the Week: Museum Blogging (no longer updated, but good content) and The Burke Museum Blog
  
  
  (Optional followup to our film) Film (in class): The Last Conquistador (2007)
  Supplemental readings for film:
  • Film Update (2008)
  • New Mexican Spanish Cultural Preservation League response to film
  • New Mexico in Focus TV program dedicated to the controversy over the film
  • Artist John Houser’s website
  
  
  Discussion Leaders: Drew and Ryan
  
  
  Preliminary Discussion Questions:
  • Why do Americans like to tell the story of immigration the way they do?
  • What changes in the country influenced the way museums told our history in the 50s, 60s, and 70s?
  • What are some of the best practices for museums?
  • How are museums leveraging social media--and does it seem effective to you?

Reminders:

1. A couple of you have not Tweeted or shared your blog that I can see. Logan will be contacting you via email if this is the case.
2. Remember to Tweet--try and start a conversation with your fellow students or with public history professionals. Explore the medium by tweeting at least one link and one picture. Always use the course hashtag #EWUHIST389.
3. For the assigned blogs and websites, DO NOT try to read everything. Just figure out what the organization is, what it does, and find and interesting fact or two about it. For the blogs, read a couple of entries of your choice. An hour, tops.

First Set of Readings and Assignments

Esteemed Students:

Great first class. I can tell this is going to be a lively and accomplished bunch. Our TA Logan noted the number of "hard chargers" in the class, with the double majors and inter experience and the like. This is going to be fun.

Order the textbooks ASAP. In the meantime I have put together and all-digital reading list for this coming week only. (Fortunately I have a couple of chapters of Mickey Mouse History scanned.) Here are the readings:

• Wallace, Mickey Mouse History, Intro, Chapter 1, Chapter 2
• Cebula, Open Letter to the Curators of the Baron Von Munchausen House
• Anonymous, You as a Professor should stop bringing into the 21st century all this negativism
• Waanaen-Jones, Facing History
• National Council on Public History website--what does the organization do, check out the jobs board, what advice do they have for job-seekers (under publications), and read some of the posts from the History@Work blog

NOTE: I reserve the right to add a couple of more things and likely will, check back on Saturday!

Other things to do:

• Go to Wordpress.com and start a blog for this course. Don't do the minimum--choose a nice theme, customize it with some images and sidebars and the like. Make sure you enable comments on your blog.
• Go to Twitter.com and set up an account for this class. Follow me and 20 other people and/or institutions. If you look at my recent tweets and replies you will see a ton of suggestions. Find some of your own as well.
• Send some tweets of your own, using the course hashtag #EWUHIST389. One of your first tweets should be a link to your new blog, so I can find and follow it.

Don't put off the blog and Twitter to the last minute, and do reach out to me if you run into trouble.