Telling Untold Histories: An Unconference for Public Historians
Much of the history I write involves absences, erasures, and silences in the historical record and I am a huge […]
Insights Blog
The Many Meanings of 'Memorial'
Over the last year as I prepared for a comprehensive PhD exam in public history and engaged in research for […]
Redcoats, Hessians, and Smallpox (Oh My): Finding Forgotten 18th Century Histories at the Old Barracks
In the spring of 2011 two historians at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey created a course that brought students to […]
An Auxiliary Nurse's Armistice Day
In November of 1920 Alma Adelaide Clarke had been home from the Great War for over year, but her tireless work on behalf of the Red Cross had yet to end. In recognition of her contribution, she, along with hundreds of other New York Red Cross workers received an invitation to participate in a parade on the second Armistice Day.
Halloween Post: An App for Exploring an Historic Cemetery
This past Halloween weekend the exhibition Sylvan Cemetery: Architecture, Art and Landscape at Woodlawn Cemetery closed at the Wallach Gallery at Columbia […]
A purposefully prosaic approach to digital pedagogy, or stealthing digitally
As a result of my involvement with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), I’m often asked how to introduce students to learning digitally. I have to confess I am tempted to answer, rather unhelpfully, digital pedagogy changes everything changes nothing. The more teaching I do digitally, the more I learn how to teach digitally, but I am always doing the same thing, facilitating student learning. The following tips build on the excellent work done for NITLE by Rebecca Frost Davis, Katherine D. Harris, Lisa Spiro, Kathryn Tomasek, and Adeline Koh and Jesse Stommel at Hybrid Pedagogy.
The Great River-to-River, Vine to Pine, Rain or Shine Walking Tour of Philadelphia: Or Why My Feet Hurt
When I heard about the annual Great River-to-River, Vine to Pine, Rain or Shine Walking Tour of Philadelphia I knew I had to skip a day of schoolwork to go. Even though my feet still hurt days later, it was definitely worth a twelve-hour urban trek for the chance to see several experienced guides in action, to learn about innumerable city sites, to run through a range of small but fascinating museums, and even to listen to costumed interpreters portraying key historical figures including founder William Penn, patriot Dr. Benjamin Rush, and political martyr Octavius Catto.
Through a Lens, Clearly: The Civil Rights Movement in the Camera's Eye
By Gail Friedman It has been more than 50 years since television news and picture magazines began bringing into American […]
A Sad Summer
In the past month and a half, we studiers and practitioners of historic preservation and historic trades lost two important […]
Summer Fruits of the Humanities
Recent observances around the on-going 150th anniversary of the Civil War have highlighted the great popular interest in how war affected the lives of everyday people. New Jersey now has a window into everyday lives during the American Revolution, thanks to the good work of the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area.