Monday, October 14, 2013

Working Bibiography

Bibliography

Primary

“Chinese Plan Big Celebration.” The Spokesman-Review, August 8, 1924.


Secondary

Tertiary


“Brian Shute, Ph.D - Speech Pathologist - Remembrance of Executive Order 9066 and the Japanese People in Spokane.” Accessed October 7, 2013. http://www.drshute.com/archives/000107.html.

“HistoryLink.org- the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History.” Accessed October 7, 2013. http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=8120.

Soennichses, John, and Doris J Woodward. The Chinese: Unwelcome Immigrants Who Helped Build the West. Spokane, WA: Spokane Corral of Westerners, 2012.

“Throwback with Jim Kershner | Spokane Public Radio.” Accessed October 8, 2013. http://www.kpbx.org/guide?entry=throwback-with-jim-kershner&id=142.

Images

“HistoryLink.org- the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History.” Accessed October 7, 2013. http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=8120.

        Risaburo Nakai & Co. Store and Pool Hal, Japanese Alley, Spokane, ca. 1913
Courtesy Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (Shiosaki Collection, Image No. L2005-7.1)

Another Step Forward in the World of Digital Media

            Last week it was twitter, this week it expands to Flickr, YouTube, Picasa and Google Plus. Although the huge influx of information was overwhelming at first, and the pull to ‘surf’ into irrelevant content on these sites was tempting, I manage to find my way through to the other side (though I’m thinking of investing in stock in eye drops).
            Flickr was a great discovery and catches your attention immediately, although I will admit to being slightly confused about some things. It seems to be divided into two realms, Flickr Commons and Creative Commons. Flickr Commons was created to increase access to public photographs as well as allow the public to contribute their own considerable knowledge, while Creative Commons is an area for users to submit their own collections.  Flickr Commons content is contributed by various world institutions allowing you to see photographs you would have otherwise never seen unless you were a scholar digging through a dusty records room, seemingly cut off from civilization as you listen to the hum of fluorescent lights for hours on end.  These photographs have information about the content contained and relevant information below, including copyright info stating if there are any restrictions on using them. A couple articles explaining how this site is useful to museums and other institutions looking to share history as well as programs being created for such institutions are Five Ways Museums Are Using Flickr and Curate the Commons.
Flickr homepage screenshot
            YouTube was familiar already, although more from a browser standpoint than an actual uploader. I discovered I already had a YouTube account, which was a surprise because I have no memory of creating one.  Some articles explaining what museums can gain from expanding to YouTube are FiveWays for Museums to Use YouTube and Beyond Launch: Museum Videos on YouTube, the latter of which is quite long but goes more in depth of the benefits of using the online tool and guidelines to keep in mind.
            I already had a Google Plus account, though I only used Gmail and thus never did anything with the other applications, and upon exploring it contains a lot more than I thought it did, which is kind of intimidating.  A good article that compares Google Plus to Flickr is I Have Discoveredthe Purpose of Google Plus!, with the author having definite opinions of the two sites. Google Plus reminds me of Facebook, which I, at the moment, like more.  Google+ at Two Years: AnAssessment compares the site now to when it was created two years ago, and I found myself relating to many of the authors views, such as “It didn't help that when Google started touting its strong Google+ user numbers, the company failed to distinguish between people who have Google+ accounts as the result of being harangued into creating an account via Gmail versus those genuinely engaged in the Google+ social network.”  I was one of those people to suddenly found themselves with such an account when all I wanted was an e-mail, and never really explored it.  An interesting feature I was directed to was the Hangout feature, which reminded me of Skype, though a bit more user friendly.

            All in all, there seems to be many sites that bring museums and historical sites to the public rather than the other way around, a trend that has skyrocketed and seems to reach new levels every day. Even better news is that much of it is free to the public (up to a certain extent), which is good news to a college students wallet.  

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Digital Storytelling Introductory Post

            School (EWU) started up again last week, and this post heralds the start of Digital Storytelling, a class that already looks to be both interesting and pertinent to today’s media requirements. I say this because it’s the second week in and I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming to the computer in order to set up a twitter account, as well as to brush off this lovely blog and start typing again. This first post is the opening to using multiple digital mediums in order to tell personal and historical stories.
            This week’s reading included Digital Storytelling from Wikipedia, The Value of DigitalStorytelling for the Small Museum, Stony Brook University’s DigitalStorytelling, various projects using the Curatescape platform, Two Must-See Digital Storytelling Projects from Mashable, and Four Inspiring Examples ofDigital Storytelling from Mashable.  Wikipedia’s page on Digital Storytelling gives a broad explanation and various uses in schools, museums and libraries, doing a fairly decent job though you should keep in mind it is Wikipedia and should not be taken as hard fact.  One of the better items on the page is the extensive (for Wikipedia) notes and references section and the external links list.  Another plus to this page is it brings in enterprises using Digital Storytelling outside of the United States.
            In The Value of Digital Storytelling for the Small Museum the author expounds on the pros and cons of using digital media in a museum, and how taking digital media classes has changed the way she works.  An easy read that gives the point of view of someone who actually has firsthand experience with the changeover from typical historical mediums.
            Stony Brook University’s page on Digital Storytelling does a really good job on explaining the subject and gives the seven elements of this technique.  Easy to navigate and understand, this site provides information on useful tools, copyright issues, and steps to create your own digital story.
Stony Brook University Digital Storytelling page.

            There are many projects that use the Curatescape platform to tell their stories, and this site gives a list of 18 various public projects. The Indy Historical, Raleigh Historical and Northwest Pennsylvania links take you to websites that aren’t active yet and provide no real information, though they do give you opportunities to donate.  
           
Bear 71 screenshot. Courtesy of blog 2 must-see digital storytelling projects
The two ‘must-see’ Digital Storytelling Projects from Mashable are Bear 71 and Welcome to Pine Point. Bear 71 is an interactive website/documentary that allows the user to see the interactions between man and nature. Interesting concept, but there wasn’t a lot of guidance for the user and the background music/sounds got annoying. Welcome to Pine Point introduces visitors to the no-longer-in-existence town of Pine Point, and the people who lived there and still reminisce about it.  The format was innovative in a yearbook kind of way, though sometimes the images would cover up the text.  There were lots of pictures, videos and sounds clips, though they would protrude over each other, and were a lot to take in.

            The Mashable list of four examples of Digital Storytelling were Bear 71, Pandemic, Welcome to Pine Point and Rome.  Pandemic was confusing because it was a real time interactive social experiment that is no longer active and so the website was kind of dead.  The link to Rome takes you nowhere, which is disappointing because the description provided sounded very interesting: “a multiplatform interactive narrative experience inspired by the music of Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi (featuring Jack White, Norah Jones and renowned composer Ennio Morricone’s original 40-piece orchestra from Italy).” 

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The Studebaker Shop in Harrington

The Studebaker Shop in Harrington Wa

By Nicolette Reames

      

          Transportation is the key to survival for small towns, and Harrington is no different, depending on first horses, then trains, then automobiles to bring in visitors and residents.  The many businesses that once stood on 9 North Third Street tell the history of the changing face of the automobile business in Harrington. The Studebaker shop is the most current business occupying this piece of property in a long line of automobile businesses in Harrington.  It started out as a livery stable, most likely that of the O.K. Livery Stables owned by the McInnis brothers.  When the livery burned down in 1916, a new building was built on the land, and the first business to occupy it was the Harrington Garage. 
            By the 1940’s it had changed to the Harrington Ford Motor Co, with W.B. Hose acting as mechanic.  The business continued to change and by the 1960’s it had transitioned into the Harrington Motor Co. & Ford Sales with Howard Hose as mechanic.  By the 1980’s the building had become the Grange Automotive Service, also known as the Grange Auto Service Garage.  When that went out of business, the building sat empty for a while before A.J. Barth bought and renovated it in 2011 for his Studebaker shop.  Barth now fixes up run down Studebakers and services old fords, giving a nod to the history of the building.
            The popular shift from horses to motor cars also affected other businesses in Harrington. Stone pillars were built on either side of the north-central highway in 1930 on the approach to Harrington to welcome visitors. In the 1960’s the first drive-in restaurant, the Buy-n-Bye, was built on the north end of Harrington, along with a Chevron Station nearby. In August of 1970 Harrington received its first blinking red stop light, installed at the corner of Main and Third Street, where highways 28 and 23 intersected, in the hopes that it would be more noticeable than the stop sign that had been there previously.
            As the shift to motor cars had an effect on Harrington, so did the highway changes.  Designated in 1913, State Route 28 was one of the first cross state highways in Washington. Also known as the Sunset Highway, it runs right through Harrington and brought with it much needed visitors to the small town.  In 1923 it became State Route 7 and was already competing with Route 2 through Davenport as a major roadway for the small towns that littered it landscape.  The businesses in Harrington reflected the change, and by the 1950s and 1960s, Interstate 90 was created and redirecting traffic around Harrington, taking it off the beaten path.
Ford Ad. Image Courtesy of Larry Cebula.
Harrington Garage. Photo courtesy of the town of Harrington.
O.K. Livery Stables Advertisement in 1903. Photo Courtesy of the town of Harrington.
Advertisements for Harrington Garage. Image courtesy of Laura Glasgow.

Sources for this stop: Harrington 100 Years; Historic Revival in Harrington, The Spokesman Review, Oct 6 2011; Harrington in the Heart; Washington State Department of Transportation.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Civil Wargasm...and you know, other stuff.


            This week’s book reading was Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horowitz, pages 145-281, covering chapters 7-10. Chapter 7, Tennessee At the Foote of the Master, Horowitz tells us about his visit with Shelby Foote, known for his writings on the Civil War.  During the interview, Foote talks about his own personal experiences and how they correlate with the Civil War, giving his opinions on race, the confederate flag, and his admiration of Nathan Bedford Forest, the Klu Klux Klan’s first Imperial Wizard.  Foote prefers imperfect Forest over virtous Robert E. Lee because “I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.” (p 156)
Shelby Foote. Photo courtesy of University Press of Mississippi

            Chapter 8, Tennessee The Ghost Marks of Shiloh, is about Horowitz’s visit to the battlefield at Shiloh.  He met travelers with personal family history with the battle and those who just had a passion for it.  One of the men he met, Bryson Powers, said “If they’d ever had a chance to talk instead of shoot each other, maybe that whole bloody mess would have turned out different.” (p 164) Horowitz also met Stacy Allen, the park historian, who spoke about the park’s history, revisionism, and tendency for people to forget the gruesome realities of war.  Another interesting character he met was Wolfgang Hochbruck, from the University of Stuttgart in Germany, whose interest in the Civil War also started when he was a child.
            Chapter 9, Mississippi The MiniĆ© Ball Pregnancy, tells of Horowitz’s trip to Vicksburg and his visit with Joe Gerache, a Civil War enthusiast specializing in the medical tools and knowledge of that time. Gerache’s most prized collection piece is the 9000 pound Parrott Gun, which was the Confederacy’s riverside cannon, he found in flower garden on land he purchased.  Horowitz’s makes sure to note that some of what we think is factual is actually made up of both fact and hearsay, like the story of a minie ball that passed through the reproductive organs of a young man then hit a young woman, resulting in her pregnancy.  He also remarks on the separation of black and white history of the Civil War, and how that is still in effect today. “Everywhere, it seemed, I had to explore two pasts and two presents; one white, one black, separate and unreconcilable. The past had poisoned the present and the present, in turn, now poisoned the remembrance of things past.” (p 208) Chapter 10, Virginia and Beyond The Civil Wargasm, is about the authors week long power-tour with Robert Lee Hodge through Civil War sites, dressed in Civil War garb and eating similar food of the day.  They hit as many sites as quickly as they could, keeping record of where they went and what they did. 
Civil War Field Hospital at Battle of Savage Station. Photo courtesy of  Sonofthesouth.net.

            The video of Ken Burns talking about the road to making his Civil War documentary was eye opening on what it took to compile historical photos without the use of internet, and the handling of a controversial subject.  He talked about trying to convince sponsors to support his project that was conceived to be too long on too broad a subject to retain people’s attention.  He also spoke about how documentaries have become a lucrative way of presenting history. 
            

Monday, February 18, 2013


            One of the book readings this week was pages 168-187 in The Power of Place Urban Landscapes as Public History by Dolores Hayden, which was chapter 7 entitled Rediscovering an African American Homestead.  It was a breakdown of how the memorial for Biddy Mason was planned and established on Spring Street in Los Angeles in the late 1980’s. 
             The other book reading was pages 1-144 in Confederates in the Attic Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz, which covered chapter’s one through six.  This book is about Horwitz’s travels around the South and his experiences with Civil War history, the people who have a passion for it and how it’s remembered today.  
            Never mind the slavery, have you dipped a candle yet? was an interesting take on how house museums and historic sites leave out certain historical facts and events in order to not ‘rock the boat’.  The author uses examples of Southern plantation house museums downplaying the role of slavery to get his point across. Sites that are making an effort to include slavery in their interpretations are also mentioned.
Horton Grove slave quarters at the Stagville State Historic Site. Photo courtesy of  the Stagville State Historic Site webpage The Structures.

            Another web reading was A white man remembers slavery in the Shenandoah Valley from Cenantua’s Blog.  It was a posting of a letter found in the local newspaper by the blog author Robert Moore. The letter was written by Jacob H. Coffman and was published in the Page News and Courier on January 1, 1932.  Coffman writes about his experiences with slavery, and concludes with how some of the slave holders he knew seemed to reap consequences that were a result of their slave holder status.  He also mentions some slave holders who were ‘nice’ to their slaves.
            The web reading Retouching History: The Modern Falsification of a Civil War Photograph by Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite Jr. discusses the claim by Yale historian David Blight that Neo-Confederates are trying to change history by saying the Civil War wasn’t about slavery and that thousands of African Americans willingly joined the Confederate army, some even alongside their masters.  It uses an example of a picture of black Union soldiers that had been doctored to look like a group of black Confederate soldiers and is being sold by a pro-confederacy online store www.rebelstore.com as an authentic historical artifact.
            A website we visited this week was Sons of Confederate Veterans.  This website took on a different view of the Civil War than just about everything else out there.  A quote from their home page is “The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South's decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built.”  The rest of the website is in the same theme. It offers research assistance on genealogy projects, history links supporting Confederate views, and a store where you can buy anything from southern music to children’s books on the Civil War.  This website defends that the Civil War was not about slavery all the while iterating that President Lincoln and the North were not about slave rights, and didn’t want to give slaves their freedom either.  They brush over the realities of slavery in the South, and while they don’t deny that there was slavery, it never goes into any depth on the issue.   There are links to report ‘Heritage Violations’, which are defined as an attack on the Confederate Heritage represented by their flags, monuments or symbols.
Sons of Confederate Veterans logo. Photo Courtesy of Sons of Confederate Veterans website.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Urban Memories


            This week’s reading was the first half of The Power of Place Urban Landscapes as Public History by Dolores Hayden.  It consists of three chapters; Contested Terrain, Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space, and Place Memory and Urban Preservation.  Chapter one, Contested Terrain, talked about controversies surrounding urban landscapes and what historical landmarks therein to preserve.  A thought provoking quote from page 7 in the book is “Centuries of neglect of ethnic history have generated a tide of protest—where are the Native American, African American, Latino, and Asian American landmarks?  Gender involves similar, interconnected questions. Why are so few moments in women’s history remembered as part of preservation?”
Suffrage Statue of Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and  Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Photo courtesy of  the National Women's History Museum

            Chapter two’s title is Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space.  It spoke about how urban landscapes have many layers of social history, based on race, gender, ethnicity or economic standing.
            Chapter three is entitled Place Memory and Urban Preservation and it addresses the memories that are connected with places.  By fully delving into a complete social history of multiple buildings it allows the possibility of better reaching the public.  This can be challenging, as “All of the participants in such a process transcend their traditional roles”. (p 76) It requires being able to step outside your comfort zone and work with people you don’t usually have contact with.  
Photo courtesy of Louisville.com