I-496 Project

For my Public History class we are working on creating a museum exhibit for the temporary exhibit space at the Michigan Historical Center dealing with I-496.

The class was divided into two teams, one that mainly focuses on the research needed for the exhibit and finding all of the artifacts necessary for it, and the writing team that is actually working on creating the exhibit story line, design, and proposal for the exhibits actual implementation. I am on the writing team, and we currently have a working story line of the exhibit:

• Introduction: Interstate Highway System
• Process: Decision Making
• How, why, and where
• Real estate segregation and its impact
• Impact Zone
• Path of least resistance
• Controversy
• What was there
• Transition of Before and After
• Construction of the Highway
• Consequences
• Paying the Price: Construction and Relocation
• What was lost
• Progress section (Shows pro and Con)
• Integration
• Economic impact
• GM
• Conclusion: Memories

We are constantly going back and forth with the research team in order for us to incorporate what they have found into the exhibit and to tell them what additional information or artifacts we need. We are currently in the process of determining what types of artifacts we want for each portion of the exhibit and creating a floor plan of the exhibit based on the empty template that we have of the temporary gallery floor. We are hoping to make the exhibit in a clover-leaf pattern to imitate the clover-leaf pattern of I-496, as well as have road signs to help guide visitors through the exhibit.

One of our current struggles is finding three dimensional artifacts. Currently, many of our ideas for artifacts are maps, photographs, newspaper clippings, drawings, and graphs. What we really need to do is figure out how to incorporate a large number of physical and interactive artifacts, as least two or three in each part of the exhibit, without putting in things that detract from the main messages of the exhibit. The vast majority of the Michigan Historical Museum's visitors are 3rd and 4th graders, so there have to be lots of different things to catch their interest.

Another current challenge is a website called Omeka, where we are supposed to put digital copies of all of our documents. None of us is very familiar with how to create a digital exhibit through Omeka, and we have been rather disappointed with its capabilities for having a creative and interactive presentation of the exhibit online. We are still working on this.

So, needless to say that we have a long way to go before finishing our portion of this project and since class ends the end of April, not much time to do it in. Hopefully the next few weeks go smoothly and we have something wonderful to present at the end.

Searching for Local History

Map of Historic Sites in the East Lansing Area of Michigan

From http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/hso/map.asp

Having just started Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You, by David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty, it came as no surprise that our professor wanted our class to do some exploring of local history. He directed us to the Michigan Historical Center Website, which will search for historical sites by city. In the area around East Lansing, there were a good number of historical homes that were still being lived in, but I felt uncomfortable with the idea of going to check out a house where someone was living. Continuing down the list I found a toll house that was built about halfway through the nineteenth century.

It is quite possible that the Alonzo Proctor Tollhouse is the only historic tollhouse left in Michigan. It was originally on the Lansing to Howell plank road that connected Lansing all the way to Detroit, after the state capital was moved to Lansing. The tollhouse, according to the Michigan Historical Center Website, was originally located at 564 North Hagadorn Road in Okemos, MI, but had been moved to Wonch Park, which was also in Okemos. When I went to go see it, it was not there, but instead had been moved from its original location to Meridian Historical Village. That the Michigan Historical Center did not know or did not have the correct location of one of Michigan's historic buildings, I find rather disconcerting.

Meridian Historical Village is a collection of older buildings from the area that have all been moved to this park so that visitors can see them all together. On one hand, this seems like a wonderful on-taking, creating a park where people can go to learn about history, on the other hand, it robs each of these historical buildings of their context. Personally, I find myself torn over whether or not this trad off is worth it.I have always loved going to such historic sites like Greenfield Village, Colonial Michilimackinac, and Colonial Williamsburg, but I also think that there is something extremely special about historic buildings remaining where they were build like Meadowbrook Hall or the Turner-Dodge House. 

One question to ask is who is going to see these buildings. Many of the historical parks have programs for schools to take students on field-trips in order to help the children to gain a vague idea of what life was like "way back when." They also have family weekends where the whole family can get involved in learning about history. Many of the places still on their original spots do not appeal to such a wide audience. Some have been converted into offices or private homes and no attempt is being made for their historical merit to be presented to any audience except that of the owners. Other historical landmarks may be recognized as historical in passing, but no one ever learns their stories or their significance. On the MSU campus, for example, there are any number of historical buildings, but few if any of the students could tell you anything more about them than that they are in fact old.

In Kyvig and Marty's book, they discuss the significance of local history being in connecting the history of a particular person, family, object, building, or place to the wider history of the time. How is a specific family representative of the trends of the times? What does an old Victorian mansion tell us about the way people lived, the class system, and the architecture style in a particular region? These are the types of questions we are trying to be able to answer in saving historic buildings and monuments. The question is how best can we do this?

Personal History and Family Heritage through Song

Many peoples' earliest connections with the past come from hearing the stories told by parents and grandparents. The history that they start with is in many ways far more heritage than history. There is usually a sense of family connection or pride that accompanies these stories. Just as in the song "Something to be Proud of," many parents and grandparents use stories about their pasts and the past in general to help explain how their children and grandchildren should live their lives.

Something to Be Proud of  by Montgomery Gentry Lyrics

There's a story that my daddy tells religiously

Like clockwork every time he sees an opening

In a conversation about the way things used to be

Well I'd just roll my eyes and make a bee-line for the door

But I'd always wind up starry-eyed, cross-legged on the floor

Hanging on to every word

Man, the things I heard

It was harder times and longer days

Five miles to school, uphill both ways

We were cane switch raised, and dirt floor poor

'Course that was back before the war

Yeah, your uncle and I made quite a pair

Flying F-15's through hostile air

He went down but they missed me by a hair

He'd always stop right there and say...

That's something to be proud of

That's a life you can hang your hat on

That's a chin held high as the tears fall down

A gut sucked in, a chest stuck out

Like a small town flag a-flyin'

Or a newborn baby cryin'

In the arms of the woman that you love

That's something to be proud of

 

These early experiences often lead people to a deep connection with their heritages, but those who experienced past events have even stronger attachments to the past. To these individuals, these events and stories are far more than historical occurrences, they are the stories that make up their lives.

A song that truly reflects this is called "In Color" by Jamie Johnson. In the song, a grandfather is trying to explain to his grandson different events in his life through a few black and white photographs. He is frustrated because of all that the pictures leave out from the stories. There is a really powerful line in the song where he says "That's the story of my life/ right here in black and white."

In Color by Jamey Johnson Lyrics

I said, Grandpa what’s this picture here
It’s all black and white and ain’t real clear
Is that you there, he said, yeah I was eleven

Times were tough back in thirty-five

That’s me and Uncle Joe just tryin’ to survive

A cotton farm in the Great Depression

And if it looks like we were scared to death
Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other

You should have seen it in color

This one here was taken overseas

In the middle of hell in nineteen forty-three

In the winter time you can almost see my breath

That was my tail gunner ole’ Johnny McGee

He was a high school teacher from New Orleans

And he had my back right through the day we left

And if it looks like we were scared to death

Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other

You should have seen it in color

A picture’s worth a thousand words

But you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered

You should have seen it in color

This one is my favorite one

This is me and grandma in the summer sun

All dressed up the day we said our vows

You can’t tell it here but it was hot that June

That rose was red and her eyes were blue

And just look at that smile I was so proud

That’s the story of my life

Right there in black and white

And if it looks like we were scared to death

Like a couple of kids just trying to save each other

You should have seen it in color

A picture’s worth a thousand words

But you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered

You should have seen it in color

You should have seen it in color

In spite of the fact that this may not be a true story, it does reflect the feelings of many people who believe that those who never experienced these events are leaving such important things out when they tell it. These events are not merely dates on a timeline, but things that happened to them; not random faces, but their beloved friends and family; not obscure places, but familiar haunts from times gone by. These people are irrevocably attached to the history that they lived through.

I can only imagine a historian getting his or her hands on the photographs discussed in the song. What would a historian write about these pictures in a book, as a slide in a lecture, or as part of a museum exhibit? History deals with being impartial, with critical inquiry, but at the same time we, as historians must never forget that when we tell history we are telling the stories of living, breathing people who have deserve our respect and acknowledgement.

History through Radio and Film

As new technologies within the world of communications evolved, historians and producers decided to take advantage of it by presenting history in a way that would appeal to the public, as discussed in Historians in Public by Ian Tyrrell. This trend of historians trying to pursue a general audience started as these new technologies were becoming available with several book series. Two of the most well known were: The Pageant of America (1925) and Chronicles of America (1918-1921), historians then tried to turn into a series of films.

Historians tried to expand their audience both through radio and through film and spanned everything from early documentaries to Hollywood classics. One of the first films with historical themes to appear on the sliver screen was Birth of a Nation, which was created in 1915. There was a great deal of controversy over this film, as it was seen as overtly racist and contained Southern bias.



Some early documentaries were made in the late 1930s by Pare Lorentz, including The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (`937).

The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936)

The River (1937)

Despite numerous attempts at reaching audiences through film, historians' strongest successes came from radio productions. One of the first national radio productions centered on history was the Cavalcade of America, which ran from the 1930s through the 1950s and had 6 million listeners nationwide. An index of episodes can be found at archive.org. Other popular radio shows include: America's Town Meeting of the Air and History behind the Headlines.

In the end, the historians of the 1930s through 1950s struggled with where the line is between public appeal and academic integrity. Today it seems that professional historians have decided to stay firmly on the side of academic integrity, while leaving Hollywood to create the films that teach the general public (often incorrectly) about history.

This situation, though sad in itself, opens up a wonderful opportunity for teachers to connect the academic-based curriculum with entertainment based films by having students write reviews of popular historically based films like The Patriot, Glory, Anne of the Thousand Days, A Man for all Seasons, Gone with the Wind, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc. They can asses the movies for historical accuracy in terms of events, culture, and individuals. Much the same thing can be done with historical fiction, either in print or as a film adaptation. This way students leave with information that is more interesting to them, and they serve as ambassadors between the academic and general worlds by correcting the errors that are created through entertainment-driven media.

Historical Works By Amateurs and Professionals

In chapters 3 (Searching for the General Reader: Professional Historians, Amateurs, and Nonacademic Audiences, 1890-1939) and 4 (The Crusade against Pedantry and Its Aftermath: Allan Nevins and Friends, 1930s-1950s) of Ian Tyrrel's book Historians in Public, Tyrrel discuses how the most popular historical works read by non-academic audiences were those not written by professional historians. On cause of the elaborate and often tedious writing style of many professional historians compared to that of many authors with backgrounds in professional writing or journalism, as well as the failure of professional historians to assess the needs and desires of the non-academic audiences, this trend of amateur historians writing the history read by the public continues to present. Fortunately for a time, professional historians did spend time publishing reviews of popular amateur works, so that the public had a strong idea about which sources were accurate.

Today there is a greater struggle for while there is a plethora of interesting and popular amateur writings on historical topics (New York Times Bestseller Lists: Hardcover Nonfiction and Paperback Nonfiction) it is not always clear how trustworthy the source may be. There are obvious things to look for of course, like the author's background and motivation for writing, along with the sources he or she cited. Unfortunately, there are many works out today that may pass a quick assessment for inaccuracy, but may indeed be extremely problematic. This begs the question of the best ways to discern an accurate and interesting historical text from an interesting and questionable one.

Personally, as a future teacher I really struggle with the question of discernment of non-academic texts. As a teacher, I will need to continue to be learning about all different areas of history. I have always believed that one of the most effective ways of keeping material interesting and fresh for students is to always be making a concerted effort to always be learning more about the material oneself. In addition, students need more than a text book and lectures to get a wide perspective of history: they also need supplementary material in the form of primary and secondary sources. Depending on the level of students, it may be unreasonable to ask them to read the latest academic article on any given subject from a journal such as JSTOR. What they may really need is additional information on specific subjects that is both readable and accurate to help them to expand their historical knowledge. Towards the endeavor of finding these sources, I do not know of any excellent resources that review main-stream histories for historical accuracy or of any efficient way of sorting through numerous books and articles to figure out which ones are reliable.