ebook img

Cultural Resource Management, Information for Parks, Federal,... Preservation Education in Service to the Community... Volume 21, No. 11... U.S. Department of the Interior... 1998 PDF

59 Pages·1998·11.4 MB·English
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Cultural Resource Management, Information for Parks, Federal,... Preservation Education in Service to the Community... Volume 21, No. 11... U.S. Department of the Interior... 1998

Y CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Information for Parks, Federal Agencies, TavelFUaa fal]o fstM es)e lect Mote MOTo)7-larlaalsalee and the Private Sector VOLUME 21 NO. || "1998 Understanding e Past S U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR National Park Service Cultural Resources - PUBLISHED BY THE Contents VOLUME 2! NO.II NATIONAL PARK SERVICE ISSN 1068-4999 Understanding the Past To promote and maintain high standards for preserving and managing cultural resources Practicing History American Women Nurses in the in the Public Interest Spanish-American War........... DIRECTOR Josie Fernandez Mark R. Barnes Robert Stanton ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Presenting History to the Public— A Spy Named Whitney ........... CULTURAL RESOURCE STEWARDSHIP The Study of Memory and Milagros Flores Roman AND PARTNERSHIPS the Uses of the Past Katherine H. Stevenson David Glassberg A Splendid Little War EDITOR Alan Sweeney Ronald M. Greenberg Seneca Falls Remembered— Celebrations of the 1848 First Women’s ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rights Convention..............66. 9 Great Events in Canadian Women’s Janice C. McCoy History—Celebrations and Vivien Ellen Rose Commemorations GUEST EDITOR SP e2eupeeeeg eee eaee @ 8 Vivien Ellen Rose Luce Vermette Hontahoel Pr ast , I re ...16 ADVISORS Human Rights Declaration Turns 50 . 42 David Andrews Allida M. Black Editor, NPS Joan Bacharach Celebrating the Illinois and Museum Registrar, NPS Michigan Canal.................. 18 Randall J. Biallas George D. Berndt On the Road to Equality .......... Histonical \nchieect, NPS Eugene Fleming The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo— Celebrating the Legacy of Forgotten or Remembered? ......... 20 John A. Burns Martin Luther King, Jr. ........... 45 Art G6mez Architect, NPS Harry A. Butowsky Carol Ash HistorianN,P S Observing the Civil War Centennial— Rhetoric, Reality, and the Bounds of Centennial 2002— Selective Memory Bureau of Reclamation ‘eee eee tees Mary Munsell Abroe Brit Allan Storey The 2003 Centennial of Flight— Hope and Glory—The Centennial Roger E. Kelly Celebration of the Monument to Aerospace Historians and the ArcheologistN,P S Challenge of Commemoration ...... Robert Gould Shaw and the Antoinette J. Lee 54th Massachusetts Regiment Roger D. Launius HistorianN,P S Martin Blatt ASSISTANTS A Decade of Rediscovery at Denise M. Mayo Fort Clatsop National Memorial— Structuring Memory—The Haymarket Jessica Olive: Lewis and Clark Winter Martyrs’ Monument .............. 28 Encampment Bicentennial Robin F. Bachin Ser eee @ Cynthia L. Orlando Women and the An electvrersoionn iofc th is Spanish-American War ............ 30 The American Way of Memory ..... issue of CRM can be accessed Teresa Prados-Torreira Dwight T. Pitcaithley through the CRM homepagea t <http:/www.cr.nps.gov/crm>. Cover: National Woman's Party leader Alice Paul and Senecc Falls officials with the Wesleyan Chapel marker at the 75th anniversary celebration of the first warnen’s rights convention, |923. See story page 9. Photo from the slide files of Women’s Rights National Hist srical Park, Seneca Falls, New York. Statements of fact and views are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect an opinion or endorsement on the part of the editors, the CRM advi- sors and consultants, or the National Park Service. Send articles and correspondence to the Editor, CRM, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources, |849 C Street, NW, Suite 350NC, Washington, DC 20240; 202-343-8 |6 4, fax 202-343-5260; email: <crmmag@nps.gov>. 2 CRM No 11—1998 Josie Fernandez Practicing History in the Public Interest All human beings are practicing historians. As we go speech unveiling the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.'s new through life we present ourselves to others through our life story; as cultural resource management badge. Efforts to com- memorate the centennial of the Civil War, and the we grow and mature we change that story through different inter- dedication of the Robert Shaw memorial statue are pretations and different emphasis.We stress different events as considered in following articles. Robin Bachin dis- having been decisive at different times in our life history and, as we cusses the continuing importance of a monument to do so, we give those events new meanings. People do not think of 1886 May Day strikers dedicated this year as a this as “doing history,” they engage in it often without special national historic landmark. The Spanish-American awarenessW.e |v e our lives; we tell our stories. It is as natural as War centennial, observed internationally through conferences, publications, and preservation efforts, is breathing... covered in four articles. Significant anniversaries of Being human means thinking and feeling; it means reflect- important events in Canadian women's history are ing on the past and visioning into the future. We experience; we examined by Luce Vermette, a Parks Canada historian. give voice to that experience; others reflect on it and give it new The 50th anniversary of President Truman's form. That new form, in its turn, influences and shapes the way next executive orders ending racial segregation in the generations experience their lives. That is why history matters.* Armed Forces and federal employment, and of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human ultural resource managers mediate Rights by the United Nations General Assembly were the relationship between the viewer also marked in 1998. Three articles consider the his- and the past. They determine histori- toric cost of racial segregation during World War II, cal significance; they preserve struc- First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's essential role in the tures to a particular period of significance; they creation and adoption of the Declaration of Human interpret this understanding of significance to the Rights, and the civil rights struggle led by Martin public. Yet while historians, anthropologists, cura- Luther King, Jr. tors, archivists, historic architects, and educators Three articles remind readers that the future agree about the importance of preserving the past, contains the past. Brit Allan Storey returns us to the commemorations open the question of what the past concerns of citizens of Illinois and Michigan, who means to visitors who frequent historic sites and moved earth to contain water in canals for their use— museums. As Gerda Lerner, former president of the much as the 100-year-old Bureau of Reclamation’s Organization of American Historians and author of dams and water projects have made gardens in the many books on women in history, points out in the wilderness. An article by Roger Launius deals with the passages quoted above, “all human beings are prac- impending centeinial of the first flight at Kitty Hawk, ticing historians.” North Carolina, and what is being done to keep that This issue of CRM uses case studies to consider commemoration on track. Cynthia Orlando reviews how cultural resource managers can facilitate com- the 10-year commemoration plan of Fort Clatsop memorative celebrations that are respectful of histori- National Monument, where the bicentennial of the cal fact while leaving room for visitors to frame and Lewis and Clark Expedition serves as a focus for understand the past from their own perspectives. The renewed preservation, research, and educational essays by David Glassberg and Dwight Pitcaithley efforts. provide a framework for understanding memory and Cultural resource managers have a particularly history. If the past is contested terrain, perhaps the important role in making the past accessible and best we can do is provide a safe place to speak. understandable to today’s audiences. I hope that the Managers can use Glassberg’s analysis of history as philosophical essays and the case studies presented politics, popular culture, and place to determine what here will serve CRM readers grappling with commem- to emphasize as they plan commemorative events. Orative events. The sesquicentennial of the California Gold Rush, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the opening Note * Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters: Life and Thought of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and the Seneca (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 199, 211. Falls women’s rights convention were all celebrated in 1998. Articles about the last three begin this issue, Josie Fernandez is Superintendent of Women’s Rights along with First Lady fiillary Rodham Clinton’s National Historical Park. CRM No 11—1998 David Glassberg Presenting History to the Public The Stu of Memory and the Uses of the Past n the past decade, there has been an ing that audiences more or less understand the explosion of new scholarship examin- same historical images the same way, new ing the uses of history in Western cul- approaches emphasize the many different mean- ture. Ranging from broad overviews ings audiences derive from the same historical rep- such as David Lowenthal’s The Past is a Foreign resentation. The meaning of a historical book, film, Country (1985) and Michael Kammen’s Mystic or display is not intrinsic, determined solely by the Chords of Memory (1991) to monographs such as intention of its author. Meanings change as audi- Karal Ann Marling’s George Washington Slept ences actively reinterpret what they see and hear Here (1988) and my American Historical by placing it in contexts derived from their diverse Pageantry (1990), the new scholarship explores and personal backgrounds. But if each person cre- the various ways that the “memory” of a society is ates his or her own past, how and when does a created, institutionalized, disseminated, and shared understanding occur? understood. The current fascination with memory Much of the new scholarship investigates among a wide variety of disciplines, including his- how individual memories of the past are estab- tory, shows no sign of abating. lished and confirmed through dialogue with others. This new scholarship on memory offers a An individual memory is the product of group com- common intellectual framework for those working munication, intimately linked to a “collective” in museums, historic sites, and historic preserva- memory of the community. Those working with tion agencies, as well as those in academe. community groups are in a good position to inves- Comprehending the various ways in which soci- tigate how stories about the past are handed down eties think about the past and use it in the present within families, or circulate among friends. They can illuminate the institutional contexts in which are also in a good position to compare the memo- cultural resource managers operate as well as the ries that circulate among family and friends to the ideas about history with which the public historical representations that circulate in public approaches their work. Moreover, the insights on a wider scale, in towns, regions, nations, and preservation and interpretation professionals gain mass media. A second look at the many oral his- from working with the public in a variety of set- tory projects connected with the 50th anniversary tings, the first-hand understanding of how histori- of World War II, for example, reveals how family cal knowledge is created, institutionalized, dissem- stories told about the War were more than solely inated, and understood, cain help revitalize the personal reminiscence, but also reflections of the entire profession and practice of history. larger political culture and mass media. What is meant by memory? By and large This leads to a larger question, at the core of these studies seek to understand the interrelation- much recent scholarship on memory: with all the ships between different versions of history in pub- possible versions of the past that circulate in soci- lic. They investigate what anthropologist Robert ety, how do particular accounts of the past get Redfield termed “the social organization of tradi- established and disseminated as the public one? tion”; how various versions of the past are commu- How do these shared histories change over time? nicated in society through a multiplicity of institu- Politics tions and media, including school, government cer- One approach to these questions is to ana- emonies, popular amusements, art and literature, lyze how the prevailing images of the past reflect stories told by families and friends, and landscape political culture. In the wake of controversies over features designated as historical either by govern- the Smithsonian exhibit on the end of World War ment or popular practice. II or the content of national history standards and Following this approach, scholars i.ave textbooks for schoolchildren, few can deny that the moved from studying the institutions that produce question of whose version of history gets institu- history—colleges and universities, government tionalized and disseminated as the history is a agencies, mass media—to studying the minds of political one. Contemporary debates over the poli- the audiences where all these versions of the past tics of history have only increased the importance converge and are understood. Rather than assum- of being familiar with new work on the political CRM No 11—1998 uses of history in the past, as reflected in the estab- Washington. In this role, the task of cultural lishment of war memorials, civic celebrations, resource managers may be more to create spaces museums, archives, and historic sites. for dialogue about history and for the collection of For some, history supplies the myths and memories, and to insure that various voices are symbols that hold diverse groups in political soci- heard in those spaces, than to provide a finished ety together. In the words of Benedict Anderson, a interpretation of events translating the latest pro- shared history—elements of a past remembered in fessional scholarship for a popular audience. common as well as elements forgotten in com- Popular Culture mon—is the crucial element in the creation of an When history appears in the commercial “imagined community” through which disparate mass media and in tourist attractions, it is primar- individuals and groups can envision themselves as ily the marketplace and the desire to appeal to members of a collective with a common present— large numbers of people in their leisure hours that and future. One strand of analysis has portrayed are the driving forces. Popular appeal is the the politics of public historical representation as lifeblood of commercial historical ventures; with essentially consensual, embodying an underlying the decline of government and foundation funding civic or national faith beneath ethnic and class for history, all but the most exclusively scholarly of divisions. historical institutions have been increasing their Others argue that history is a tool in the marketing and promotion to bring more visitors political struggle for hegemony among various through their doors or to broaden the constituency social groups. This strand of analysis sharply for their work. As museums and historic sites seek delineates between an official history used to larger audiences and cater to popular expectations, maintain the status quo, and the many “vernacu- will the conventions that shape other popular lar” memories used by ordinary citizens to sustain media play a greater role in shaping the form and family and community ties. These authors believe content of their work? Roy Rosenzweig docu- that when government and mass media use histori- mented how the popular journalistic convention of cal imagery to advance an imagined national com- the human interest story permeated the presenta- munity, then authentic local and group memories tion of history in American Heritage magazine in are suppressed. the 1950s and ‘60s. In the future, will every histor- Pitting official history against vernacular ical documentary or exhibit need a happy ending memories oversimplifies the play of forces shaping to compete for mass audience? Will historic sites a shared history. Concern that depictions of the and districts more and more resemble theme parks nation’s “collective” beliefs and values might such as the one Disney proposed in Virginia? endanger minority rights leads these works to over- The new scholarship on memory argues that look the apparent spontaneity and depth of emo- individuals neither passively accept nor actively tion associated with a shared history. In fact, there challenge the historical information encountered in are multiple official histories as well as multiple television docudramas, music, film, novels, and vernacular memories. Analyses of the politics of tourist attractions. Rather, as George Lipsitz has history must not only explain how elites appropri- shown in his Time Passages: Collective Memory and ate and transform vernacular memories into official American Popular Culture (1990) they “negotiate” history, but also how national imagery acquires between mass culture and their own particular diverse meanings in the local contexts in which it subculture. To appeal to the widest possible audi- appears, such as rituals of ethnic, fraternal, and ence, popular historical representations, like other labor organizations, and the conversation of family pop culture forms, incorporate a variety of possible and friends. characters and themes with which diverse audi- Cultural resource managers not only strive to ences can identify. Even the most commercial of balance competing political forces but also local history products contain the submerged collective and larger-scale interpretive frameworks as they memories of subordinate groups. Through close place a local story in larger context. Since it is analysis, historians can recover the hidden mean- nearly impossible to reach a consensus on the ings and memories present in these stories. But do meaning of a historical event that anyone still individuals really interpret history based primarily cares about, cultural resource managers often on social characteristics such as gender, class, and make exhibits, war memorials, and commemora- ethnicity? Or is education and ideological stance a tive ceremonies deliberately ambiguous to satisfy better determinant of how popular presentations of competing factions. The products of this ambiguity history are understood? How competent are most are examples of what James Young has termed people to recover the hidden meanings in popular “collected memory’—discrete and often conflicting representations of history by reconfiguring the memories brought to converge in a common space, information present and supplying what is left out? much like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in And what about the role of intermediaries in guid- CRM No 11—1998 ing reception? We not only see the film but read mandates, visitor education and satisfaction the review. Doesn't being told that the historical remains one of four major operational goals. While account they will see is “true” affect a visitor's each layer of NPS bureaucracy offers a context that understanding of the past as much as race, class, shapes the meaning of the past, all remain commit- or gender? ted to the overarching goal of visitor ¢..ucation. If individuals actively analyze and interpret Cultural resource managers and interpreters who the historical interpretations they receive, we need work in multilevel cultural agencies are in a posi- to find out what other stories they might have tion to recover these various contexts and mean- heard, and what sources they consider reliable. | ings, as well as those brought by visitors. would guess that most Americans trust the presen- Or consider viewer response to popular his- tations of history at historic sites and museums torical documentaries such as Ken Burns's The more generally than those of a commercial televi- Civil War. During March 1991, I read the letters sion network—-though recent controversy over the Burns received at his home in New Hampshire as a Smithsonian's Enola Gay exhibit demonstrates way to begin to understand how audiences con- how fragile that trust can be. structed the meaning of what they saw and heard. Many writers were prompted to discuss how they learned about the war from their families. Nearly one-third of the letters Burns received mentioned family members, suggesting that these viewers saw the national history presented in the film through the lens of their family history. Place History can not only be used to communicate political ideology and group identity, or to make a profit, but also to orient oneself in the environ- ment. Historical consciousness and place con- sciousness are inextricably intertwined. We attach histories to places, and the environmental value attached to a place comes largely from the memo- ries and historical associations we have with it. Connecting stories of past events to a particular present environment occurs whether showing a film of a Civil War battlefield; designating, preserv- ing, and interpreting a local historic site or district; Managers and interpreters understand that or placing a statue or marker. What cognitive Hiroshima survivor historical meanings are not only created by the changes occur when an environment is considered Yasui Kouichi posed in front of a authors of history books, but are also shaped by as “historical,” either by government designation photo mural of the the institutional bureaucracy in which they work or popular practice? When civic organizations, Enola Gay crew on and reinterpreted by various audience members. such as a local chamber of commerce, create maps the opening day of Audience research aimed at understanding the pre- and historical atlases that recognize some histori- the Smithsonian conceptions about history with which audiences cal places but not others? The scholarship on how exhibit, 1995. Photo by Ed approach historic sites would assist everyone who memories attach to places has special relevance for Hedemann of the works with historic preservation and interpretation cultural resource managers helping communities to War Resisters and the general public. define and protect their “special places” and “char- League. Originally Consider, for example, a family visiting a acter” through historic preservation strategies. published in National Park Service historic site. What at first Over the past decade, just as historians have Bulletin of Concerned Asian glance seems a historical interpretation handed studied the making of historical consciousness— Scholars, April- down from a central office in Washington, Denver, how ideas about history are created, institutional- June 1995. or Harpers Ferry turns out to be a product of the ized, disseminated, understood, and change over interaction of national and regional offices, time—other disciplines have investigated place between park personnel and local interest groups, consciousness, what scholars in environmental as well as between NPS and the visitor in the field. psychology, folklore, and cultural geography call Park Service personnel have a lot of autonomy in “sense of place.” Psychologists have explored how the selection of what information to tell visitors, children, as they develop, »ond emotionally with and park visitors continue to interpret and reinter- places and memories of childhood places, particu- pret the history they see and hear in terms of fam- larly environments explored between ages of 6 and ily and other contexts. Even in an era of declining 12, which remain a crucial anchor for personal resources and government performance and results identity in adulthood. One's sense of place is fur- 6 CRM No 11—1998 ther developed and reinforced by the social net- “historical” and distinguished from ordinary works participated in as an adult; the longer one places, or stabilized, restored, or even recon- lives in a place, the more likely that the environ- structed, which (and whose) version of community, ment becomes saturated with memories of signifi- place, and character will prevail? This is an espe- cant life experiences with family and friends. cially important question when it comes to consid- Psychologists have also explored the emotional ering the tourist relationship to historic sites and consequences when the bonds between people and cultural resources. By and large tourists look for places are broken, the grieving for a lost home that novelty in a landscape, what is not back home, occurs among the elderly or exiles forcibly while local residents look at the landscape as a deprived of their familiar environment and memory web of memory sites and social interactions. sites. In studying the relocation of 500 Boston resi- Research on memory and place should be a dents to make way for an urban renewal project in regular part of CRM work. Resource managers can the 1950s, Marc Fried noted that nearly half exhib- initiate programs to identify and protect a commu- ited symptoms of depression even two years after nity’s memory sites, places unintentionally pre- the move. Boston's “West End” gained an intelligi- served or iade special by popular practice, in bility in memory that it might never have had in addition to sites designated by governinents as experience—a destroyed collection of streets important to a collective political identity, such as became a single “neighborhood” or place primarily battlefields and presidential homes, and those through the memory of its destruction. local chambers of commerce designate as appeal- While psychologists connect sense of place to ing to tourists. In 1991, I investigated how the con- personal identity and recollection, cultural geogra- cept of “town character” was used in three New phers and folklorists connect it to group communi- England communities: Northfield, a post-card New cation and collective memory. Through conversa- England village; Wilbraham, a sprawled out post tions among family and friends about past local World War II suburb; and the McKnight historic characters, about the weather, about work, local district of Springfield, a racially diverse urban residents transform ordinary environments into neighborhood. In a series of public meetings, resi- “storied places.” Wallace Stegner notes, “’,o place dents discussed the “special places” in their town is a place until the things that have happened in it or nei;,.iborhood. Historic landmarks and commu- are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, nity memory sites were different. For example, the or monuments.” Unlike early folklore studies that restored Victorian facades of the McKnight sought to capture and preserve the romanticized Historical District in Springfield held different “spirit of place” of the natives in rural areas, recent meanings for middle-class African-American resi- research has focused on the often conflicting mean- dents moving up from ine ghetto and middle class ings for the same environment communicated whites moving in from the suburbs. among socia! groups, and how the invention of a Among the other kinds of public programs “collective” sense of place, like the invention of a that evoke a community's sense of place and his- public history, is part of the struggle for cultural tory are photographic projects, neighborhood walk- hegemony, the product of power relations between ing tours led by local residents, or public art pro- various groups and interests. Geographers con- jects such as “Arts in Transit” in Boston, in which cerned with the ideological aspects of place-making neighborhood vral historians collaborated with seek to supplement psychological and folklore artists in developing the public art that was studies of the subjective experience of place with installed at each station along the Orange Line. critical analysis of the social production of space— Cultural resource managers are in a position to how sense of place is affected by larger social, eco- contribute to local residents’ sense of place by nomic, and political forces that determine, for adding national context to local residents’ sense of example, the distribution of slums and suburbs in emotional attachment. They can help residents and a locale and who gets to experience which piace. visitors alike to see what ordinarily cannot be The established meaning for a place, and the land. seen: both the memories attached to places and the use decisions that stem from that meaning, are larger social and economic processes that shaped negotiated not only between various residents of a how the places were made. town or neighborhood, but also between local resi- CRM and the New Scholarship on Memory dents and the outside world. The new scholarship on memory has the The scholarship on sense of place in psychol- potential to provide a new collective framework for ogy, folklore, and geography reminds us that man- cultural resource managers and academic scholars. aging cultural resources is inevitably also an effort The new approach to memory, with a focus on bow to manage the multiplicity of environmental per- individuals and groups create an understanding of ceptions, values, and meanings attached to a place; their pasts, can be used as a basis for operating in when certain places are bound and marked as three historical endeavors. Political or official his- CRM No 11—1998 |a tory, popular history, and history of place all layden, Dolores. The Power of Place: Urban engage the public as participants in the history Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge: MIT being made at these sites. Cultural resource man- Press, 1998. agers and interpreters play essential roles in these “His.ory and the Public: What Can We Handle? A three endeavors. This discussion of how historical Round Table about History after the Enola Gay meaning is created will hopefully serve CRM pro- Conti wersy.” Journal of American History 82 fessionals and academic-based scholars in the (December 1995): 1029-1144. accurate, effective, and inclusive presentation of Hufford, Maiy .O ne Space Many Places: Folklife and the past. Land Use in New Jersey's Pineland’s National Reserve. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1986. References Conserving Culture: A New Discourse on Heritage. Benson, Susan, Steven Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig. Urbana, Il: Univerzity of Illinois, 1994. Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Kammen, Michael. Mysiic Chords of Memory. 1991. Public. Philadelphia, 1986. Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Krcamer, and Steven D. Bodnar, John. Remaking America: Public Memory, Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: Politics of Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Public Culture. Washington, L©: American Century. 1990. Association of Museums, 1993. Brown, Dona. Inventing New England: Regional Tourism Ihelen, David, and Roy Rosenzweig. Presnce of the in the Nineteenth Century. Washington, DC: Past: Popular Uses of History in American ! ife. NY: Smithsonian Press, 1995. Columbia University Press, 1998. Dorst, John. The Written Suburb. Philadelphia: Temple Young, James E. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Press, 1989. Memorials and Meanings. New Haven, 1993. Frisch, Michael. A Shared Authority: Writings on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History. David Glassberg directs the Public History Program Albany: SUNY Press, 1990. at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is Gillis, John. Commemorations: The Politics of National the author of American Historical Pageantry (1990) Identity. 1994. and Sense of History: The Place of the Past in Gluck, Sherna, and Daphne Patai, eds. Women's Words: American Life (forthcoming). The Feminist Practice of Oral History. New York: 1991. Copyright 1996 by The Regents of the University of California. Reprinted from The Public Historian, Vol.18, No.2 (Spring 1996), pp 7-23. CRM on the WWW CRM has a redesigned presence on the World Wide Web located at <http://www.cr.nps.gov/crm>. The new site features extended archives of past issues available in PDF format, a database containing every CRM article from the past 21 years searchable by Title, Author, Subject, and Year, and an online comment and subscription form. Submit your email address to be included on our new electronic mailing list. You will receive notification of new issues, corrections from the print edition, and links to articles and supplementary information only available online. CRM Wo 11—1998 Vivier “lan Rose Seneca Falls Remembered Celebrations of the 1848 First Women’s Rights Convention lizabeth Cady Stanton, daughter of important historical events. Managers face other lawyer and New York State challenges, as well. Increased media attention and Supreme Court Judge Daniel Cady, visitation can result in higher sales, more fees, and founded the women’s rights move- infusions of funds for restorations or other CRM ment in the United States. Her birthplace, work, and overuse of precious resources, stretched Johnstown, New York, recognizes this important staff, and debates over the meanings of the past. heritage. Carefully preserved in the Johnstown Interpreting events as one single story may embroil Historical Society, along with her father’s cane managers in controversy when visitors and descen- and bedstead, are the Chickering niaio he pur- dants hold other meanings. As historian David portedly gave her on iver 10th birthday, her gilt Glassberg argues, interpreters, curators, and chair, and ephemera associated with her life as a preservationists can choose to “create spaces for reformer and speaker. Commemorative articles, dialogue about history and for the collection of including a political button for the 1915 New memories, and to insure that various voices are York State woman suffrage campaign, held in the heard” rather than “provide a finished interpreta- centennial year of Stanton’s birth, and a guberna- tion of events.”> At the celebration of the 150th torial proclamation of a statewide “Elizabeth anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention this Cady Stanton Day” in 1975, round out the dis- past July, fost: :ing such a diversity of voices and plays.! interpretations made for a very successful com- One piece of associative memorabilia held by memoration. the Johnstown Historical Society directly reflects The tissue box also exemplifies the ways Stanton’s involvement in organizing the July 1848 anniversary celebrations change when the event women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New commemorated passes out of living memory. York. At this convention, the first in the United Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, her life-long co-agi- States to demand equal rights for women as citi- tator, seized on decennial anniversaries of the zens, Stanton’s considerable rhetorical «\¢ organi- Seneca Falls Convention to reaffirm ties with long- .ational talents were revealed. That convention's time allies, reinvigorate current campaigns, and Declaration of S-ntiments—a list of grievances, prepare for future efforts, all within the context of resolutions, and action plans following the lan- annual meetings of women’s rights organizations guage and model of the U.S. Declaration of founded by them. nly as leaders aged and died Independence—continues to provide a framework did celebrations gradually incorporate pictures and for action in the late-20th century. Stanton’s “inau- artifacts to carry the memory of the Convention. In guration of a rebellion” is represented in Rochester, NY, in 1878, and in Washington, DC, in Johnstown Historical Society research files by a tis- 1888 and 1898, icons replaced the actual presence sue box produced by the Kleenex Company for the of conference organizers Lucretia Mott and the 90th and 140th anniversaries of the Seneca Falls M’Clintock family.* Convention. On the bottom of the box, Stanton’s After the deaths of Stanton in 1902 and image heads text explaining her role “leading the Anthony in 1906, various wings of the women’s way in women’s rights.” Perhaps the manufacturer movement used quarter-century and decennial wished to attract a predominantly female buying anniversaries to claim direct descent, and therefore population, and to simultaneously avoid offending legitimacy. Absent the voices that rang out in cold sufferers who disagreed with Stanton’s Seneca Falls, new leaders returned there as inheri- women’s rights agenda. tors of the women’s rights movement. Anniversary Kleenex’s marketing of Stanton and the commemorations held in Seneca Falls in 1908, Seneca Falls Convention demonstrates that cul- 1923, and 1948, respectively hosted by Harriot tural resource managers cannot control the ways Stanton Blatch (Elizabeth Cady’s Stanton’s daugh- that others use tempting opportunities to revisit ter), by the National Woman's Party, and by the CRM No 11—1998 community of Seneca Falls, all shared this ten- played a distinct role: the park interpreted the dency. Blatch, a member of the New York Suffrage Convention, Celebrate '98 celebrated the anniver- League, began the process of marking buildings, sary, and Forum "98 created an agenda for the gathering artifacts, sponsoring speeches, and ask- future. ing direct descendants to endorse particular strate- In Living Memory: |9 th-Century Celebrations gies for political change.> Nineteenth-century observances of the By contrast, this year's events included Seneca Falls Convention took place within the con- forums for exchange of ideas and collection of text of active organizing for women’s rights. In memories. Women’s Rights National Historical 1878, the National Woman Suffrage Association Park, created in 1980 to preserve and interpret the called the first recorded celebration, held at the sites associated with “the beginning of the struggle Unitarian Church in Rochester, NY, in place of its of women for their equal rights,” holds the regular annual convention. In addition to Stanton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton House, remnants of the delegates included Sojourner Truth, who had been Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, site of the Seneca speaking for women’s and African-American civil Falls Convention, and the M’Clintock House, rights for 27 years, Frederick Douglass, publisher where Quaker activists hosted the drafting of the and statesman, and Quaker minister and anti-slav- Declaration of Sentiments, revised -nd adopted by ery activist Lucretia Mott, Stanton’s mentor and the Convention as its statement of purpose. Each role model. With the character of “a reunion...of became 7 venue for commemorative events. near and dear telatives...which help to sustain Scholars and activists met in panels and roundta- reformers while they battle ignorance and preju- bles at the Stanton House. First Lady and dice in order to secure justice,” it was also an occa- Honorary President of the Girl Scouts of America sion to call for change. Stanton returned to an Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled the new Girl early theme of the women’s rights movement: the Scout badge, “Honor the Past, Imagine the “perverted application of the scriptures” which Future,” with the same logo as the White House denied women equal rights. Stanton spent much of Millennium Council's “Save Our Treasures” tour at the 1870s travelling as a popular speaker, and the M'Clintock House. (See speech page 16.) repeatedly found the Bible useu io refute her argu- Celebrate '98, a consortium of community organi- ments about women’s equality with men. She zations, sponsored a re-enact ment of the 1848 encouraged women to decide for themselves what Convention in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, the Holy Scriptures said about women’s equality, where Mrs. Clinton met with descendants of the sponsoring three resolutions on self-development. signers of the Decla ation of Sentiments. Women’s The first called it the “duty of every individua!” to Rights NHP, Celebrate '98, and Forum '98, a coali- develop herself; the second appealed to women to tion of national women’s organizations, each exercise their own critical thinking in analyzing the 1888 International Council oWfo men. Susan B. Anthony and Euzabeth Cady Stanton seated second and fourth from left, first row. Photo from the slide files oWfo men’s Righits National Historical Park. CRM No 11—1998

See more

The list of books you might like