Hold on, it’s not closed yet! But on the verge of its 200th anniversary the historic Burtner House near Natrona Heights is struggling to stay open to the public. Like so many small historical sites such as local history museums and community heritage societies, the Burtner House faces challenging times due to a lack of …
Trafficking in “the past” has long been the obvious realm of historians, and it is where the public most expects history to be. To understand our past we turn to old artifacts and people, past events and happenings, and bygone ideas and antique ways of being. Walk into most historical museums and the smell the …
The BBC has pioneered the use of digital media as a means to examine cultural and social issues of our time—often through first-person reporting, perspectives, and narrative histories. As we see in this insightful video short, “Glasgow’s Slavery Streets” (aka, “Glasgow’s Slave Trade Past Is All Around Us”), the BBC takes on the issue of …
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 …
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, …
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, …
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 …
“Anthropology demands the open-mindedness,” said social scientist Margaret Mead,” with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder . . . ” Understanding and appreciating our amazing social traditions–from how we bury our dead to how we prepare holiday meals together–is “doing anthropology.” At The Social Voice Project, we celebrate history and people …