Author: TSVP

Teen magazines are usually filled with celebrity interviews, pop culture news, gossip, fashion tips, and other ephemera of interest to impressionable adolescents.  Since the 1940s people have speculated on whether such publications are beneficial or harmful to young people.  “The experience of reading teen magazines,” says John Douglas Bishop in Business Ethics Quarterly, “can result …

Read more “History Reaching You”

Because so few of us alive today have actual memories of the events surrounding the rise of early 20th century fascism in Europe, German Nazism, the Holocaust, and of course the war years themselves, we must rely on the historical record to understand both the material world and zeitgeist of that era. For this understanding, …

Read more “Media Makers as Public Historians”

Public historians–those who preserve, interpret, and share our local history–have a responsibility not only to bring us the facts, but also to help us think more broadly and deeply about history. Today, the historians’ typical tool kit–old photographs, faded documents, stoic roadside markers, and boring “catalog of facts” history lessons–must include new ways of educating, …

Read more “Educate, Entertain, Inspire”

Musician Justin Robinson said of his band, Carolina Chocolate Drops, “Tradition is a guide, not a jailer. We play in an older tradition but we are modern musicians.” The statement prefaces the philosophy behind the band’s artistry. Yes, they play old-time music, but they are modern.  Their instruments are traditional, yet played with contemporary stylings.  They …

Read more “History Influencers”