Public History Commons^™

Once More Unto The Breach: 2015 Pohanka Interns Engage Public History, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Every summer, we feature posts on the blog that provide a behind-the-scenes view of what it’s like to practice history on the frontlines at some of the nation’s leading Civil War sites. Our contributors – Gettysburg College students doing summer internships under the auspices of CWI’s Brian C. Pohanka Internship Program – share their experiences giving tours, talking with visitors, and working with historical artifacts, educational programs, and archival collections. This summer, we’ve asked our Pohanka interns to reflect on an assortment of questions dealing with Civil War monuments and historical memory, broadening interpretation at Civil War battlefield sites, social …

Memory On Parade: The Gallipoli Centenary And Anzac Day Commemoration, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

On April 25, 2015, record crowds were drawn from across Australia and New Zealand to the annual Anzac Day celebrations. This year’s commemoration was extra special, for it marked the one hundredth anniversary of the First World War’s Gallipoli campaign. Several of my primary news sources reported heavily on the festivities and it all got me thinking again about how people rally around these patriotic, semi-historical holidays even if the holidays are often distorted reflections of the historic events that they are meant to commemorate [excerpt].

Gettysburg College Campus Purchased By Preservation Society, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The articles are satirical pieces meant to imagine the danger of a paradigm of preservation lacking in strategy and judgment. Preservation is a wonderful cause, but like any cause it must be approached with purposeful intent and not simply for its own sake. It is an excellent tool of meaningful historical engagement when done properly; when mishandled, it can do the surrounding region harm without accomplishing anything of value [excerpt].

Striking The Balance: Bringing Peace To The Battlefield Of Preservation, Matthew D. Laroche

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Most Gettysburg residents took note this past winter when the Appalachian Brewing Company’s branch restaurant near the Lutheran Seminary closed. The Civil War Trust bought the land for its historical value; the structure and an adjacent hotel surround the Mary Thompson House, General Lee’s Headquarters during the battle. From the moment of purchase, the plan had been to demolish the buildings, sow grass, and transfer the four-acre lot to the National Park Service as a prized addition to the park. Most onlookers probably think that the tale is told as soon as the land is bought, cleared, and promised to …

Museum Spaces As Psychological Affordances: Representations Of Immigration History And National Identity, Sahana Mukherjee, Phia S. Salter, Ludwin E. Molina

Psychology Faculty Publications

The present research draws upon a cultural psychological perspective to consider how psychological phenomena are grounded in socio-cultural contexts. Specifically, we examine the association between representations of history at Ellis Island Immigration Museum and identity-relevant concerns. Pilot study participants (N = 13) took a total of 114 photographs of exhibits that they considered as most important in the museum. Results indicate that a majority of the photographs reflected neutral themes (n = 81), followed by nation-glorifying images (n = 24), and then critical themes that highlight injustices and barriers faced by immigrants (n = 9). Study 1 examines whether there …

On The Fields Of Glory: A Student’S Reflections On Gettysburg, The Western Front, And Normandy, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

I’m very fortunate to have had no shortage of opportunities to get out into the field and put my classroom learning into practice. I am especially lucky to have twice had the opportunity to travel to Europe. Two years ago, I went with my first-year seminar to explore the Western Front of World War I in France and Belgium. This year, I travelled with The Eisenhower Institute to tour the towns and beaches of Normandy where the Allies launched their invasion of Hitler’s Europe during World War II. Having experienced these notable sites of military history, and having taken a …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2015

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

The Memory Of Battle Surrounds You Once Again: Iowa Grand Army Of The Republic Reunions And The Formation Of A Pro-Union Nationalism, 1886-1949, Peter Bautz

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

Following the bloody years of the Civil War, veteran organizations became a breeding ground for nationalism making and memory shaping. Historians, like Caroline Janney and David Blight, have debated what these memories meant for northern veterans. Did members of the Grand Army of the Republic [G.A.R.], the Union veterans association, reconcile with the South over a shared whiteness, as Blight suggests? Or were the memories of Northerners less reconciliatory, as Janney argues? Using Iowa G.A.R. reunions as a case study, this article demonstrates that Union veterans were shaping a pro-Union nationalism distinct from the Lost Cause. From songs praising the …

The Unfinished Work: Slavery Today, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

2.7 million. That’s an estimate for the number of slaves in the world today. The true number is probably higher, even though the United States abolished slavery 150 years ago. Most of today’s slaves go unseen and unaided, victims of an opaque system of exploitation that conspires to keep them oppressed. [excerpt]

“Two Wars And The Long Twentieth Century:” A Response, Bryan G. Caswell, S. Marianne Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard University and renowned historian of the American Civil War, authored an article in the New Yorker recently entitled “Two Wars and the Long Twentieth Century.” Taken primarily from her remarks in the Rede Lecture delivered at the University of Cambridge earlier in 2015, Faust’s article takes advantage of the proximity of the anniversaries of the First World War and the American Civil War to advocate for a dialogue of greater continuity between the two conflicts. [excerpt]

Friends Of Musselman Library Newsletter Spring 2015, Musselman Library

Friends of Musselman Library Newsletter

From the Director: Open Access (Robin Wagner)

Global Perspective: Library Participation in College’s Internationalization Efforts (Lucy Marinova ’12, Munya Choga ’12)

Remembering Gale Baker

Library wins 2014 Best in Show

Summer Reads 2015 Launches

Eisenhower Exhibit

Birds of a Feather: Photography Exhibit (Sandra Blair)

Heads Will Turn: Student Exhibit (Mark Warwick)

Edible Books

Audubon Print - Carolina Parrot (Geoffrey Jackson ’91)

Life in Photos: William H. Tipton exhibit

50^th reunion Gift of First Editions (John E. Rogers, Jr. ’65)

Sharing the Past: Alumni Memorabilia (Jessica Casale ’18, Julia Hendon, Clara A. Baker ’30, Gary T. Hawbaker ’66)

19^{th …}

Business, Education, And Enjoyment: Stakeholder Interpretations Of The Gettysburg Museum And Visitors Center, Ava M. Muhr

Student Publications

An anthropological study of the Gettysburg Museum and Visitors Center undertaken to understand the ways in which the visitor experience is conditioned by their own personal background, as well as filtered through the carefully constructed historical narrative created by museum historians, National Park Service rangers, and administrators. The Gettysburg Museum and Visitors Center is a site in which multiple stakeholders contend to ensure that their interpretations of the museum’s purpose is being upheld. This paper will examine the ways in which these various stakeholders – primarily NPS rangers, Civil War historians, and history buffs – interpret the catalyst(s) for constructing …

We've Got A Movement Down In Selma: Day 5, John M. Rudy

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

"My people, my people, listen. The battle is in our hands. The battle is in our hands in Mississippi and Alabama and all over the United States.... And so as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before committed to this struggle and committed to nonviolence. I must admit to you that there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering...." [excerpt]

Can't Turn Around, We've Come This Far By Faith: Day 4, John M. Rudy

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

"...today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world, that we are not about to turn around. We are on the move now. Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. We are on the move now."

The last time I went to a Catholic Mass was on Easter last year. My head was in a bad place. I felt all alone. Mom was gone. and the landscape of the world looked entirely foreign. Even the Mass itself had changed. New responses replaced old ingrained phrases. My …

The Thunder Of The Marching Men Of Joshua: Day 3, John M. Rudy

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

"Let us march on ballot boxes until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence.... There is nothing wrong with marching in this sense.The Bible tells us that the mighty men of Joshua merely walked about the walled city of Jericho and the barriers to freedom came tumbling down." [excerpt]

Like An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Day 2, John M. Rudy

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

"They told us we wouldn’t get here. And there were those who said that we would get here only over their dead bodies, but all the world today knows that we are here and we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, 'We ain’t goin’ let nobody turn us around.'"

I met Edith today. We were walking down the road and Edith was with us. She didn't say much. She just sort of gurgled, dangling from a sling on her mother's chest. [excerpt]

Walking Through 1965 On An Alabama Highway: Day 1, John M. Rudy

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

"Outside in the backyards I had just passed other youngsters engaged in their game 'State Trooper' in which half the number lined up locked arms, and proceeded to march singing 'We Shall Overcome,' then were set upon and beat down by the others wielding sticks and branches. In situations like these, one must observe the tragedy: that the misdeeds of our immature society are imprinted in the minds of innocent children."

Carl Benkert, Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama, 1965

We were marching down the road. Seriously. We were marching down a rural Alabama highway. Hundreds of us. Marching. [excerpt …

Artifacts As Ambassadors: Sharing Special Collections Through Collaboration With Student Curators, Carolyn Sautter

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Special Collections and College Archives at Musselman Library, Gettysburg College, regularly collaborates with various academic departments to conduct class visits utilizing the primary sources in Special Collections Reading Room. In the last two years, some of these opportunity have grown into semester long student curation experiences both inside Special Collections and in collaboration with Schmucker Art Gallery at Gettysburg College.

The exhibits discussed included:

Slaves, Soldiers, Citizens: African American Artifacts of the Civil War Era

Slow to Heal: The Evolution of Medicine from the Civil War Era to WWI

Owl & Nightingale Players, 1914-2014: One Hundred Years of Drama

Art …

Crusading For The Truth, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Last semester, I received a very memorable critique on one of my more polarizing blog posts. In it, a reader derisively referred to another of the CWI Fellows and me as “truth-driven crusaders” for our commitment to healthy historical engagement. Finding it an appropriate if not excessively romanticized description of the work we do as historians-in-training, my friends and I have since then appropriated the term to describe ourselves. I feel obliged to admit here that the antagonism signaled by the term “crusader” makes me a bit uneasy, but I like to think that we “crusade” against certain ideas, and …

Slavery's End Deserves A 150th Celebration, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War winds down toward its conclusion in the spring, it's difficult not to look back on the four years of this sesquicentennial and wonder why it all seemed so lackluster. Unlike the centennial in 1961-65, Congress decided not to create a national commission. And President Obama took a pass on the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

But the most surprisingly lackluster remembrance was the one that just slipped by us - the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States. [excerpt …

We Will Now Rejoin Your Civil War (Already In Progress), John M. Rudy

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

I celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a mouse and keyboard. I love diving neck deep in historical documentation for no good reason. Falling down the research hole can be so much fun, particularly when it's looking for one elusive piece of evidence. [excerpt]

Gettysburg: A Town Built On Tourism, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In my most recent blog posts, I’ve adopted a rather unforgiving stance on the rampant consumerism that pervades the town of Gettysburg. Essentially, I have argued that the borough’s tacky gift shops sell odious little trinkets to gullible tourists and profiteer from the public’s morbid obsession with war and death. But while I firmly believe that this zealous consumerism is a persistent threat to healthy historical engagement, there is another side to the issue that demands to be recognized: Gettysburg kitsch is part of what has made Gettysburg into a town brimming with opportunities to broaden the public’s historical consciousness. …

Lost: Sesquicentennial Sanity. If Found, Please Contact Borough Of Gettysburg., Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

If you were in Gettysburg during the summer of 2013, you surely encountered the ubiquitous 150th Gettysburg logo branded on everything from promotional materials to souvenirs. The latter – tacky at best and irreverent at worst – filled the town to the point of excess, making some of us wonder how many people completely missed the point of the sesquicentennial. Anniversaries exert a powerful force on the American historical psyche, but it is dubious whether Gettysburg’s celebration exerted an appropriate one. The sesquicentennial was a wonderful opportunity to refocus on the events of July 1863, but sadly many businesses in …

Gettysburg’S Faustian Bargain, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

A question to the reader: have you ever visited Gettysburg? Presumably most of the Gettysburg Compiler’s audience will answer in the affirmative. A follow-up question: have you ever purchased a souvenir from one of the town’s abundant gift shops? Perhaps it was a kepi or a cork gun for your child? Or maybe a bottle of “Rebel Red” wine? Or some tacky trinket or faux antique?

Let’s face it: we live in a consumer society in which there is nothing too sacred to profit from. And, sadly, the Battle of Gettysburg is no exception. [excerpt]

George Gordon Meade And Barnegat Lighthouse, Brianna E. Kirk

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Tucked away off the coast of central New Jersey on the small stretch of land called Long Beach Island is a little piece of Civil War history. It is here that a largely unknown monument highlights a figure so well known by those four hours away in the small Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. I have been visiting Long Beach Island since I was young, and yet had no knowledge of this Civil War connection that had been staring me in the face until my mother enthusiastically shouted to me, “Brianna! Gettysburg!” As I climbed the sandy hill towards a monument …

Soldiers Past And Future: The Civil War And Great War Meet In Gettysburg, S. Marianne Johnson

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Gettysburg, a town already so intimately acquainted with war, was the scene of particularly interesting historical encounters. The still too present memory of the Civil War impacted the way Gettysburgians viewed the Great War. Many veterans of the Civil War were still alive, although very old, and it was not uncommon for The Gettysburg Times to run headlines about the death of a prominent Civil War veteran right alongside coverage of the war raging in Europe. [excerpt]

History Abroad: How Do Denmark And The U.S. Measure Up?, Louis T. Gentilucci

Student Publications

By viewing bias itself as a product of history, educators and scholars can understand it better in their own times. By studying the historical path of the United States and Denmark, scholars can see that the nature of history can have subtle but important impacts on common education. Even when educators are aware of potential bias, history itself warps its dissemination.

New Semester, New Stories..., Heather L. Clancy

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Greetings, fellow Civil Warriors!

As Managing Editor of the Civil War Institute’s student blog, The Gettysburg Compiler, I would like to welcome everyone to a new semester of exciting debate, original research, academic discourse, and on-site reporting on all things Civil War. This academic year, we look forward to expanding the range of both topics and perspectives explored on our blog as we welcome Matt LaRoche ’17, Megan McNish ‘16, Ryan Nadeau ‘16, Jacob Ross ’15, and Cassie Wells ‘16 to our team of fellows/writers. [excerpt]

Pohanka Reflection: Special Collections & Archives, Musselman Library, Gettysburg College, Bryan G. Caswell

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

The reading room of Gettysburg College’s Special Collections is one of those singular spaces where the denizens of academe encounter the uninitiated yet insatiably curious members of that nebulous group known as the public. Indeed, many summer afternoons on the fourth floor of Musselman Library witness researchers diligently pouring over primary source material and rare books while intrigued visitors study the numerous displays of artifacts with equal dedication. While my duties in Special Collections are mostly confined to working with the collections themselves, I have upon occasion received the opportunity to observe our visitors as they interact with the history …

O'Er Silent Fields, Bryan G. Caswell

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Followers of the Compiler may remember a piece I wrote in the early autumn of 2013 on the last stand of the 16th Maine Regiment of Volunteer Infantry on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. As I am living in Gettysburg this summer while I work as a Brian C. Pohanka intern in Gettysburg College’s Special Collections, I of course could not miss the chance to hike up to the location of that stand on Oak Ridge to pay tribute to those boys from Maine. [excerpt]