Cultural History Commons^™

You Don't Get A Tour; Come Back Next June, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

A friend of mine and former supervisor said something to me the other day. I deeply respect him; he taught me the very basics of interpretation. But his words shocked me. I still don't know exactly how to process them.

He said something like, "I saw you leading a tour on Friday with three visitors. It takes something to go out there when you know you're only going to get so few people. I respect you for it; I couldn't do it." [excerpt]

The Grizzly, September 13, 2012, Jessica Orbon, Sara Sherr, Rosemary Clark, Austin Fox, Michael D'Amico, Amanda Frekot, David Marino, Chelsea Callahan, Keith Miles, Rayleen Rivera-Harbach, Christine Dobisch, Courtney Scott, Vivek Reddy, Chris Rountree, Olivia Z. Schultz, Jordan Demcher

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

UC Remembers Lindsay Budnick • Greek Recruitment Changes • UC Fringe Returns • Film Fest to Celebrate Cultures • Bear Bucks Defined • CIE Fellows Aid CIE Students • CAB Welcomes New Executive Board and Events • Tree Planting Efforts Along the Perkiomen Creek • Opinion: New Allowances Limit SPINT Events; DNC Speakers Successfully Promote Obama • Season Preview: Women's Soccer • Coach Profile: Kelly Wakeman, Women's Soccer • Men's Soccer Goes Young for Success

The Grizzly, September 6, 2012, Jessica Orbon, Sara Sherr, Larissa Coyne, Rosemary Clark, Austin Fox, Amanda Frekot, David Marino, Emerson Miles Hawkins, Alexa Lamontagne, Rayleen Rivera-Harbach, Michael Klazas, Courtney Scott, Kyu Chul Shin, Chris Rountree, Samantha Salomon, Jordan Demcher

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ursinus Welcomes New Dean • Wismer Changes • Orientation Update • Dr. Heinzl Lecture • Gary Hodgson's Tenure as Campus Safety Officer • Meet Mike Mullin, New R.D. • Gender-Neutral Bathrooms Arrive on UC Campus • Residence Life Offers Support for the Class of 2016 • Opinion: Athletes Frustrated by Dining Changes; Senator Rubio Would Have Been a Better V.P. Choice for the GOP • Field Hockey Looks to Keep Tradition • Under New Coach, Volleyball Begins 2012 Season • Lofty Expectations for Bears Football

Miller, Carl Haskell, 1889-1964 (Sc 2587), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2587. Daily diary and journal of Carl Haskell Miller, Tompkinsville, Kentucky. A manager on the Chautauqua circuit, Miller writes in a detailed but lighthearted way of his family, his life at home and of his travels in the United States and Mexico. He also reproduces some of his personal and professional correspondence, and writes of his mother’s death in 1927.

Football In The Air, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

September is here and that means football is back, both the NFL and the collegiate pros. The student-athletes of the NCAA opened play over this extended holiday weekend with more games than any human being could possibly ingest. There seemed to be excitement in the air on and off campuses across the country and across the Atlantic.

On Sir Charles Bell’S The Hand, 1833, Peter J. Capuano

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This essay explores the cultural context in which Sir Charles Bell’s 1833 Bridgewater Treatise was published by focusing on the work as a culmination of his deep religious faith, his Edinburgh anatomical training, and his occupation as a surgeon at the Leeds Infirmary. It argues that The Handwas not merely an extension of Paleyan natural theology but also an important response to the era’s struggle with the grim physical reality of the supersession of manual labor by automatic manufacture.

Facts, Damned Lies And Statistics: A 55 Year Stumbling Block, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

I have to admit something: when it comes to interpretation, I'm making this all up as I go along. I don't have some magical cache of best practices stored up, waiting to deposit them week after week in posts here on the blog. Most of what I know about interpretation I've stumbled upon, either in the thoughts of others shamelessly stolen and added to my toolbox or as rough experiments based on my so-called common sense. [excerpt]

Hast, Louis H., Sr., 1827-1890 (Sc 2588), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2588. Bound volume of selected works, short biography, and miscellaneous items and tributes to Louis H. Hast, Sr., Louisville, Kentucky. This volume was compiled by his daughter Emma Wilder Hast, and presented to the Filson Club by Lisette Hast, both of Louisville, Kentucky.

Armstrong, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

How does it end for Lance Armstrong? “Not with a bang but a whimper.” Although T.S. Eliot did not know Lance Armstrong, it is an interesting coincidence that Eliot’s 1925 poem, from which this line is taken, is titled “The Hollow Men.” If you were someone who idolized Armstrong and believe now that he is guilty and there is a blot on his entire career, then he will indeed seem as one of those Hollow Men.

The King Of Rock, Roll N' Interpretation, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Last week was "Elvis Week" in Memphis. I don't know that because I follow Elvis. In fact, I really can't stand Elvis Presley's music. About as far as I can go down that road is listening to "Suspicious Minds," every so often. Nothing else really speaks to me. [excerpt]

"...Our Hearts Tell Us There Is Something Else Out There.": Prowling The Halls Of The Mib, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

In the basement corridor of the Main Interior Building in Washington, D.C. is the most beautiful painting I've even seen. I've gotten the chance on a couple of occasions, while visiting the Department of the Interior Headquarters for meetings and whatnot for work to wander down outside of the cafeteria to see the mural. It is pure beauty, mostly forgotten and ignored by the folks who work in that building everyday. I get these weird looks while I stand in awe of the massive canvas, like I shouldn't stop and stare. I don't care. I take pictures. I gawk. My …

Olympics, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

So it has ended. A bit over two weeks, a fortnight of intense athletic competition with spectacular performances, highs and lows, and way too much national naval gazing by the host nation and by NBC on behalf of the USA. That said, it was at the sporting level a wonderful two weeks of competition.

Transcript Of The Kiwanda Fish Company, Kristina Hogevoll, Martin Knopf

All Story Transcripts

This story is an excerpt from a longer interview that was collected as part of the Launching through the Surf: The Dory Fleet of Pacific City project. In this story, Kristina Hogevoll briefly describes her family’s first fishing company in Pacific City and then describes, in great detail, the work involved in their second, larger company, the Kiwanda. Marty Knopf describes how the Kiwanda Fish Company looked out for all the fishermen and how that contributed to the special Pacific City dory community.

Thinking Fourth Dimensionally: How Battlefields Become Deloreans, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

I have written before of my intense love for Back to the Future III. Part of the reason that film resonates with my movie-going soul is my abiding love of the 19th century. Part of me wishes I could hop into a Stainless-Steel Delorian and visit the past for a short stint. I'm pretty sure I'm too much of a pansy to last very long in the world of latrines and muddy water, but I'd love to see the past for even just one fleeting moment. [excerpt]

"Round Eye" At The Wall: The Power Of What We Call Things, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

I went on a battlefield tour this weekend with Garry Adelman. It was an amazing experience, as any tour with Garry is, because he delves into how we conceptualize landscapes just as much as what happened on those landscapes 150 years ago. My mind was churning the entire time. Of anyone, both those who work for those places and those who just generally love those places, Garry (and his partner in crime Tim Smith) is tops on the list of most effective living time machines. Like always, Garry got me thinking on 15 different levels, and I'd wager that the …

Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth And The Rise Of Popular Premillennialism In The 1970s, Cortney S. Basham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

How people think about the end of the world greatly affects how they live in the present. This thesis examines how popular American thought about “the end of the world” has been greatly affected by Hal Lindsey’s 1970 popular prophecy book The Late, Great Planet Earth. LGPE sold more copies than any other non-fiction book in the 1970s and greatly aided the mainstreaming of “end-times” ideas like the Antichrist, nuclear holocaust, the Rapture, and various other concepts connected with popular end-times thought. These ideas stem from a specific strain of late-nineteenth century Biblical interpretation known as dispensational premillennialism, which …

Lincoln Speeches, Allen C. Guelzo, Richard Beeman

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

As president, Abraham Lincoln endowed the American language with a vigor and moral energy that have all but disappeared from today’s public rhetoric. His words are testaments of our history, windows into his enigmatic personality, and resonant examples of the writer’s art. Renowned Lincoln and Civil War scholar Allen C. Guelzo brings together this volume of Lincoln Speeches that span the classic and obscure, the lyrical and historical, the inspirational and intellectual. The book contains everything from classic speeches that any citizen would recognize—the first debate with Stephen Douglas, the “House Divided” Speech, the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural Address—to …

Captivity, Adoption, Marriage And Identity: Native American Children In Mormon Homes, 1847-1900., Michael Kay Bennion

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Indigenes of North America's Great Basin developed a way of life based on the available resources the Basin provided. Their culture and customs provided a stable means of understanding and interacting with nature and men. Their myths elaborated on expectations, hopes, and fears, in real and metaphorical ways, as evidenced by stories of the trickster Coyote. As Great Basin bands contacted Europeans, they adjusted their resource gathering based on new technologies, such as horses and guns, as well as their myths to cope with change. This process entailed some adjustment in their perceptions of the world around them and …

Fifty Shades Of Blue And Grey: Civil War Torture Porn?, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Over the past few days I've been thinking about violence. We are a culture of violence. We idolize blind rage and violence, we normalize it and worship it....

We, as a collective American culture, promote violence, normalize it as the proper reaction to any given problem and outright encourage it. [excerpt]

Punishment, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

After the Freeh Report was issued there was an outcry demanding that the NCAA do something to punish Penn State University. Many called for the death penalty. Others complained about the failure of the NCAA to act immediately. Then on Monday morning when the NCAA President, Mark Emmert, announced the judgment and punishment of Penn State the outcry was that the NCAA acted too quickly. It was a rush to judgment by Emmert and his colleagues. What happened to due process?