Final Thoughts On Public History Class

What a semester! Practically living in downtown Lansing's libraries wasn't the worst way to finish out my undergraduate history classes. I had a good time working with everyone on the group project, and I think what we ended up producing was something to be proud of.

This class also contributed to something of a career-path crisis; I liked doing research for this class and for my honors thesis last year so much that I was having pretty significant second thoughts about doing a student teaching internship next year. However, my four hours a week at Lansing Eastern High was a reminder of how much I do look forward to being a teacher, probably still more than going to grad school. I guess I'll never know for sure.

Audience-awareness was another thing that really affected me from this class. I wrote a 60 page paper last semester, but I didn't really think about an audience. I was almost just writing it for my advisor; that seems like a lot of work for one person to read it.

My final project lost a little steam when I ran out of sources just short of what I wanted; the inevitable pressures of the end of a term also contributed to this. I still enjoyed the process of trying to create a little public history.

Lastly, I'll hearken back to my first blog post, in which I discuss blogging. It turns out that I kind of like it. So, while this is probably my last post on this blog, I fully intend to make one chronicling my student teaching internship next fall. It's possible that only my dad will read it; I'll still write it for a wider audience because I like to stay optimistic.

CADL Farming

Yesterday I paid the MHC yet another visit to see if I could get some background reading on the Michigan Masons. Since all of the citations from the MSU library that looked promising were actually at the Library of Michigan, I once again made the trip down to my new home.
I struck out. I got about 100 words of usable information out of four books. Awesome. So when the local history archive opened up at nearby CADL, I went to see if they had anything for me. A certain David Votta was to save me from a worthless trip downtown.
He found a nice picture of Lansing's temple previous to the 1925 one that I'm researching, we found a cool timeline of Lansing history, and he even sent a message to some movers and shakers in the local History community about my project. Lastly, I was able to find a couple of potentially handy newspaper clippings.
Things are moving along, and I might actually have something resembling a final project here by next week!

I'm thinking I should have told the Census I lived at MHC

Not really but I've been there a lot this semester. I went to the library and archives yesterday; from the library I found a very helpful pamphlet published by the Masons to tell their members about their new Lansing lodge in 1924; I did not find (although the catalog said it was on the shelf) another publication about the very involved cornerstone ceremony. Also, they didn't have their circulating copy of the first document, but I made a copy.

I went next to the archives, and despite the concentrated efforts of two archivists we found very little of use. The assessor card was missing in action; all the photographs were of the exterior of the structure. My next move (so both places told me) will be the Capital Area District Library's local collection on tuesday. It may be my last hope for more documentation on the temple.

The Run-Around

Last thursday I went to the Cooley Law School to see if they had anything on their Temple building. The temple building sent me to the Cooley center, who sent me upstairs to the Communication department, (most of whom were missing) and they suggested that I check in the library. "There are historical people there who might know."

All I found was a young Grad student Law Librarian, who was very helpful and found a big PDF written by the founder of the school, which mentions the acquisition of the building. However, she didn't know where to find any documentation or who else to talk to about it.

We found a couple citations at the Library of Michigan (who I thought I already asked about this...) so I'll go there today.

Engineering Reports

On Thursday Kelly and I went to the Library of Michigan once again, this time to retrieve the fabled MDOT engineering reports. It's possible that they will be the most useful resource yet unearthed for the planning and development section of the project.
They have many graphs and charts, they talk about an alternate route, they have maps, and they have huge blue and white aerial photogaphs of the target areas with road plans drawn on them. I don't know if I'm comfortable scanning them, so I think I'm going to hand them off to Dr. K on tuesday.

Unfortunately, it seems that we only have two of the three engineering reports, (1588, and 1588 supplement 2) while supplement one has yet to turn up. It seems that our neighborhood might be specifically covered in this missing volume, but the information in these two reports should still prove to be invaluable.

Invasion of the Library of Michigan

We got a lot done today. A whole bunch of us went to the library today, and I met with Bernadette when we arrived. She had a huge stack of citations that she thought might be useful, and gave us some pointers on how to use the indices of the Michigan Legislature records.
For about three and a half hours we scoured the library for the books and documents that we brought citations for, or that Bernadette dug up, and we recorded our findings on a big Word document that Christina will be posting. We then checked out the sources we needed to review further and got out of dodge.
We found probably the majority of state published documents concerning the highway from that era.
Bernadette had some trouble with the MDOT library loaning the plans, but she expects them to come in early next week, so I'll run in then to take a look at what she was able to snag.
Overall, very productive today.

Progress!

I talked to Bernadette Bartlett from the Michigan library yesterday, and she was EXTREMELY helpful. She was able to contact the MDOT library, which is not accessible without an appointment. She found a couple documents that we will definitely need (in addition to a number we might) and will be using interlibrary loan to bring them to the MHC so she can duplicate them, and so we can use them at will. She wants some additional citations in order to have better search criteria to find other documents at the MDOT library. I've posted the full email on the wiki, on a new page, which can be temporary if it's a problem but I didn't know where else to put it.

Basically we need to wait for those documents to get to the Michigan library and email her any other titles we can scrounge up.

Today at the Library of Michigan

Kelly, Riley and I went to the library of Michigan today to see if we could find our sources about the planning of I-496. The reference librarians were quite enthusiastic, but didn't seem to be focused enough helping us. (Printing off sheets about other highways, etc.) Despite a thorough search of the online catalog, the plans were not in the catalog. I found a couple of places in the stacks where they had the evaluation studies and plans for a number of highways (mostly MI state roads and a few about I-96) but had no luck finding what we need. Things I learned today:
1. The Library is not well cataloged.
2. MDOT was called the Department of Highways or something during the period we're researching.
3. Two hours get burned fast when you're skimming documents.

I guess we're going to have to go back there a lot in the near future. My question is: Where else could those planning documents be?

More about the Final Project

Several important questions need to be asked about this project:
Who is the audience?
-The audience will be Cooley Law School students, faculty, staff, and any guests in the so-called Temple building who are at all interested in the history of that structure. Given this audience, the most convenient form for the project to take would be - in my opinion - a plaque in the lobby of the building. This way people can take a glance at the history of the building while they're in it!
What is the issue here?
-There are a number of issues. The first is: Why was a huge Masonic temple built in downtown Lansing and later sold to a law school and gutted to make classrooms and offices? This will involve, at least at a superficial level, the history of Mason activity in the city of Lansing, and the decline evidenced by the abandonment of their huge building. Also, what did the building look like on the inside before it was remodeled?
-Why did Cooley want the building, and how did they change the interior in order to use it as part of their school?
-To some extent: Why is there not yet a plaque or other record of any kind documenting the history of this building? According to the National Register of Historical Places is a historically significant site.
-To a lesser extent: What is the mural on the side of the building, who painted it, and what does it mean?

My Individual Project

What I'm thinking about doing for my final project is to resolve the problem that I discovered earlier in the semester when we were asked to blog about historical buildings. As I mentioned in that blog post, the old Masonic Temple in Lansing is now a part of Cooley Law School, but when I went to investigate there was no mention of this fact anywhere on the building. I was hoping to find a nice informative plaque: My idea is to research the history of the building (including finding some pictures of the inside before it was gutted and turned into a college) and design a plaque for them. With any luck, the people in charge of buildings at Cooley will also think that this is a good idea and maybe even make the plaque! I think it could be pretty cool.

The Grand Question: Focus

I know that I probably should have posted about this sooner, but I took Spring Break off (I went to the Everglades and explored a lot of our wonderful Interstate system on the way there and back.) which probably wasn't wise with all the stuff going on.

In any case, without looking at the availability of sources, I think that the second project option (exploring the I-496 controversy) is a much better project. The difference is this: Controversy is more interesting than nostalgia for a bygone neighborhood because (and I hate to say this) I never lived or even visited this neighborhood. I don't know anyone who lived their, so it's passing doesn't affect me, except for the MANNER of its passing.

Because the racial implications, the now-antiquated but (at the time) insatiable drive toward progress, and still fresh and exciting spread of the internal combustion automobile, these forces that tore apart the only significant black community in Lansing, THAT is what makes this whole thing interesting. I don't care where the laundromat was, or who worked there, or what it looked like so much as how much the owner was compensated, whether they were able to open another successful business, etc.

Some would argue that these topics are above the audience the museum primarily serves. I would argue that no matter how heavy or light the subject matter is, kids won't read the captions for the artifacts: They might read what the object is, but little more, no matter what the topic is. As long as the objects are interesting, the kids will have fun looking at it. However, those that do read the captions (history nerds like me, kids' parents and teachers, that proportion of adult patronage, people on nerdy dates, whatever) are going to be far more intrigued about this subject if there is some DRAMA! They almost certainly won't have lived in this neighborhood (with some exceptions, of course) and a study focused on reconstructing the neighborhood would be, in my opinion, without context. Yes, this neighborhood is interesting and charming, and it's gone now so we can make it live on in a museum. However, the museum already has vignettes of life in the past; it doesn't have a chronicle of the rending effects of motorization, or the potentially darker side of all that "progress" Michigan was producing in her auto factories.

For the sake of our sanity, we need to do the more intriguing, interesting, and applicable topic whether there is more or less evidence for it, as long as it's fairly plausible. I was very encouraged when Dr. K said that we don't have to have it done until the end of the semester, and when he reminded us that we were making a proposal, not the actual exhibit. We can't let the grand conflict be ripped out of this story!

Motorization of American Cities

Doesn't that title sound promising? This process of motorization, with the grand expansion of American roadways stemming from and contributing to the spread of automobile ownership, is very much the taproot of the I-496 project. However, this book is less a narrative of the spread of highways (which would have been very helpful) than an attempted expose' of automakers lobbying for more urban highways and less electric streetcars in public transit. As the author, David St. Clair mentions, this isn't necessarily the result of nefarious intentions on the part of General Motors; selling more cars is the natural goal of any automobile manufacturer.
Some things that I think might be helpful: Did any of the Big Three's pet lobbying agencies get involved in the construction of I-496?
Also, this book includes a little background on many federal highway laws which we may find useful.
I should mention, though, that the reviews in various academic journals were generally not favorable.

Well Read Authors Give the Reader a Headache

I wish I would have read something like Nearby History before writing all of those History research papers. My poor note-taking probably made my work much more difficult, evidenced by my looking up every note back in the original text before putting it in the paper. Outdated as some of it is, this is nevertheless a very well-reasoned look at research and writing.

As for "Linking the Past to the Universal," the final chapter of the book, I wasn't as impressed. I felt like I was reading lists of books that the authors have read which exemplify the linking of the past to the universal, but they don't very clearly tell the reader how to do it (unless I missed something.) I guess the whole relationship of personal life to community, and that of community to national history is a good concept to work from, but I was still left not really sure how to do it.

Some thoughts on the curious nature of soldiers supporting war.

I was watching Scrubs the other day, and one episode, "His Story IV," reminded me of the Enola Gay stuff we were talking about. I know that we've moved on to Urban Development issues now, but I'll get back to addressing that later this week. In the episode, there was a wounded soldier being treated at the hospital and the nurses and doctors got in a huge argument about whether they supported the war in Iraq, which divided the hospital. What was so interesting was that one of the nurses, Laverne, has a nephew in the marines fighting in Iraq. Obviously, the pro-war contingent rallied around Laverne's nephew.
Why is it that people who know or are related to soldiers seem to automatically support the war? And get so upset when other people argue against it? It seems to me that people with loved ones in the line of fire would be among the first to want the war to end. But that's not how it works.
Instead, people who are always worried about their relatives or friends off fighting in Iraq don't want their potential sacrifice to be meaningless. They can't stand the thought of their beloved nephews fighting a misguided, questionable war, because that takes away the heroic nature of their service.
The same happened with the Enola Gay. The soldiers who dropped the bomb privately struggled with the enormous deathtoll that their mission caused, but for some reason, rather than being reflective about the situation and simply blaming their superiors (who made the decision to drop the bomb) for any wrongdoing, they cannot STAND the thought that their service in the war was immoral or that their role was in fact anything less than heroic.
I think it's a shame that those who are the most hurt by war are the ones who fight hardest in its defense. Just because you flew planes in the war doesn't mean you can't be reflective about the war! Will all of the Iraq veterans be so resistant to reflection as well? Will they argue in favor of Abu Ghraib, just because wrongdoing there would in some way tarnish them?

Unpublished sources.

According to the "Unpublished Documents" chapter of Kyvig and Marty's Nearby History, (mentioned in my last post,) there are over 4 billion pieces of paper in the United States National Archives.
Any archives we'll be searching through won't have quite such an abundance, but it does put into perspective the almost nonsensical amount of documentation people (and especially the government) have left behind.
A look at the U.S. Census records is probably in order, since we're dealing with the displacement of a large number of people in the path of I-496. Demographic information of all sorts can be gained by wading through these records, however unenviable a task it may be.
I actually used the MSU archives once. I was writing a paper for a US history class and I was thinking of using some personal letters that showed up in an MSU library. What I found (after filling out a form and donning some white gloves) was almost illegible, totally unusable for a 10 page undergraduate research paper, and ultimately I was embarrassed at wasting the archivists' time in retrieving it for me. (For the record they were very nice and helpful.) I'll bet some people in our class (maybe even I) will be going in their in search of other records before March is over.

A Historic "Shrine"

I decided to pay a visit to the Masonic Temple in Lansing. Built (I guess) in 1901 by the "prominent" masonic community of Lansing, it a beautiful Neo-Classical Revival building with nice columns flanking the entrance on the facade. It was purchased by Cooley Law School in 1974, and the inside was gutted (with the exception of the lobby) to turn large halls into classrooms and offices. Also, the south side of the building was amended with a large mural depicting (I assume) the namesake Mr. Cooley and others.

Despite being a registered Historical Site, there was absolutely no information about it at the site. I walked in and talked to the receptionist, but there was no plaque to be found and no insight into the history of the building. It is now a part of the law school, and so the only historical significance appears to be the architecture. That doesn't seem to be very significant to me at all.

Beginning my journey in Local History

I read the first three chapters of Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You. Our old friend Robert Kelley popped up once again, so we know that Kyvig and Marty have at least some grounding in modern, disciplinary Public History. Nearby History read like a how-to book on researching local history, and I think especially that the lists of questions in "What Can Be Done Nearby?" will be a very nice tool to reference as we begin our research on Interstate 496.
(I found on Wikipedia they mention an ironic situation concerning the namesake of the highway, R.E. Olds. Apparently the highway is named for him, and yet his house, which was on the National Register of Historic Places, was destroyed to make way for it. The citation looks legitimate, although I was unable to corroborate it on the NRHC website, probably because the house has been destroyed nearly half a century.)
This will be a very different than my sixty-some pages of history written last semester, about a group of people I never got to meet in a country across the ocean. This feels so much more alive already, and we haven't interviewed a single person yet!Matthew Miller's Article for the Lansing State Journal is an obvious place to start our research. I read this and was impressed by the "traces" he found in his research. I look forward to finding out more about his sources. I see a lot of interviewing, but as a historian I wonder: How much corroborating did he do? Probably more than is obvious (where do you document such things in a newspaper article?) but I wonder what other directions we're going to have to go in in order to give this issue a full historical examination. Trust, but verify!

Other things I'm wondering about:
What were the other location options considered for the new highway?
How was public transportation affected by this new road?
*What did Matt Miller know about but omit from his article?*

Jobs for historians?!

Ridiculous, you say? I was encouraged by the concept, although Robert Kelley's "Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects" is now over thirty years. old. A quick jump to Google reminded me that this was the same Robert Kelley who quite nearly founded Public History as a separate sub-discipline, and has a Public History memorial scholarship in his name at UC Santa Barbara where he created his Public History graduate program back in the 1970's. So this paper presents the thoughts of academic Public History's father in its early years. He himself defines Public History as a nonacademic field, where the questions are asked by others and the research does not occur in Universities, and he was spreading this from his graduate school at a University.
Now, I realize it's a false contradiction. After all, Public History in Kelley's view has existed all along, but Kelley was among the first to formalize training for this unique application of the historical craft. Also, according to Ian Tyrell in Historians in Public, Public Historians largely used to be interested amateurs, associated with local and state historical societies rather than Ph.D.'s. Kelley may have been on to something when he decided that these Public Historians could be more formally trained, prepared for the specific task ahead of them.
I love the concept. The skills of a historian are needed everywhere; in companies, in government, to give a more reflective perspective on the past and better inform decisions for the future. I wonder, though, how successful these "fabian" efforts of change concerning the historical profession have been? I don't know of any historians working for Dow Chemical in Midland (where I'm from) which may be a reason for their incredibly short-sighted decisions of late. Are there Ph.D.'s working in Lansing, in the historical district or elsewhere? I don't know where all these Public Historians from UC Santa Barbara went, unless they simply created Public History programs at other Universities, which is completely contrary to the spirit of the discipline.

Washington Public Schools and History

I was interested in looking at the state standards for History Curricula in the state of Washington because I am related to a few teachers there. It's also my favorite state that I've ever visited and a place I'd like to eventually live (although I'm pretty flexible, really.)

As with the Michigan Department of Education's website, it is a confusing and illogically constructed website. I had to search a little for the standards since the link on the American Epic website no longer works, and I found that the standards were very broad in a general sense:
1.Understands historical chronology.
2.Understands and analyzes causal factors that have shaped major events in history.
3.Understands that there are multiple perspectives and interpretations of historical events.
4.Uses history to understand the present and plan for the future.
Then for each grade level (I looked at 11th, for no particular reason) it outlines the specifics of these four requirements. In the case of the chronology students are expected to understand in 11th grade, it seems to be American History from the revolution to the recent past. As one would expect, the Causal Factors that need analysis are ones related to this period of American History.

Considering these four broad categories (and still fairly broad requirements therein) it seems like, judging by only this that teachers in Washington have a fair amount of flexibility in teaching History. These are certainly not the detailed lesson plans that might plague other states.

These four also seem to be a fairly sound approach to History from a disciplinary perspective, at least for High School level students. Chronology is important, but Washington's Board of Education also values analysis and using multiple perspectives, not simply the "Best Story" approach to History education that often leads to a more Heritage-centered curriculum. If Washington teachers really do have the students investigate history in the way that these standards suggest, it seems that Washington may be ahead of the curve.

The History Channel

When I flipped through the schedule for the History Channel today, I noticed that many of the shows on that channel are now 2 hours long. Thus I had few options; the only shows on during a six hour period were "Monster Quest" (a show about monster legends, not terribly historical) "Modern Marvels," a show about Indiana Jones examining the facts and fictions of archaeology, and another archaeology show titled "Real Tomb Hunters." This was on at the time, and since none of the other options looked any better, this is what I decided to watch.

A common phrase in this show is "...just like the movies..." as it tells the stories of archaeologists who who risked their lives during digs. One story involved an archaeologist who was a spy for America during World War I, while searching for Mayan tombs in Mexico and Guatemala. Another story concerned another Mayan researcher who, with the help of the Guatemalan military, tracked down and arrested looters who stole a relic from his site. Other stories concerned firefights, hostage situations, and other harrowing events. The final story was that of John Pendlebury, a British Archaeologist and spy who was killed during the Battle of Crete.

It was this last segment concerning Mr. Pendlebury that caught my interest the most, because of the discussion about Nazi archaeology. This is the History Channel I remember from a few years ago, when every show seemed to be about the Third Reich. It also resembled a historical documentary more than the rest of the episode, which focused more on the heroism of the archaeologists and the cruelty of the looters and more closely resembled an episode of 20/20.

Over all, I found the episode far more interesting that I anticipated, but it struck me as far less academic than I wanted. The subtitle says it all: "Snakes, Curses, and Booby Traps." Obviously, the drama of archaeology is more interesting than the discoveries made at the dig, and while this may be true for the wider audience, it is an example of the focus of the History Channel shifting to more sensational topics.

My thoughts on Heritage

While I'm not one of the extremists that Lowenthal warns about in The Heritage Crusade, I've always had an anti-Heritage stance as a student of History. My definition of a tradition is "Using previous actions as an excuse to continue doing something in a way that would otherwise not be the best." It's a little harsh, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't value highly the Heritage we have received if it only leads to the continuation of injustice.
My cultural heritage is rather irrelevant to me. What have I gotten from my Norwegian forbears? Blonde hair, a reddish beard, and perhaps a taste for fish and sturdy sea-legs. Am I more inclined to mine coal or complain about British rule because of my Welsh blood? Is my German heritage any use to me except for off-color jokes from my Jewish friends? This sort of cultural heritage is irrelevant to me. I'm an American, raised in the upper-middle class of a town in Michigan, and THAT is the cultural heritage which made me who I am. I agree with Lowenthal that much of who I am is in imitation of or contradiction to my parents, and my grandparents only in the ways that they influenced my parents. While I'm not one of the extremists that Lowenthal warns about in The Heritage Crusade, I've always had an anti-Heritage stance as a student of History. My definition of a tradition is "Using previous actions as an excuse to continue doing something in a way that would otherwise not be the best." It's a little harsh, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't value highly the Heritage we have received if it only leads to the continuation of injustice.
My cultural heritage is rather irrelevant to me. What have I gotten from my Norwegian forbears? Blonde hair, a reddish beard, and perhaps a taste for fish and sturdy sea-legs. Am I more inclined to mine coal or complain about British rule because of my Welsh blood? Is my German heritage any use to me except for off-color jokes from my Jewish friends? This sort of cultural heritage is irrelevant to me. I'm an American, raised in the upper-middle class of a town in Michigan, and THAT is the cultural heritage which made me who I am. I agree with Lowenthal that much of who I am is in imitation of or contradiction to my parents, and my grandparents only in the ways that they influenced my parents.
Reading about inheritance reminded me of running jokes in my family concerning estates and wills. One is that I will inherit my Maternal Grandmother's huge collection of Hippopotamus items. There are thousands of them, and it seems that the reason they are going to me is that I was the last one to express my interest in NOT inheriting them. I don't have a passion for large marine animals of Africa, what use is this heritage to me? Another running joke is that I won't receive my share of my paternal grandparent's considerable wealth if I don't produce a son named Edward. (I'm the third Edward in my family, but I'm not Edward III because we have different middle names. Thank goodness.) These two examples illustrate how much I identified with the negative impacts of personal heritage as discussed by Lowenthal.
Heritage in general has always made me uncomfortable. Be it the heritage of slavery and inequality in this country, the heritage of American meddlings in the affairs of other states, the creation myths of a common man's revolution against the British - these things all result in aspects of our society which I don't like. I'm no slave to heritage: I think the best solution to many of the political problems of today isn't an amendment or two, but a Constitutional Convention. We should not be so eager to allow the continuation of ineffective, inefficient or outdated systems simply because we're proud of our Heritage of self-government. (Maybe I am an extremist.)
I might be rambling a bit here, but my point is that maybe people shouldn't spend so much time reveling in their glorious past, but to use these events to logically inform their actions today while not feeling obliged to follow in the footsteps of their forebears.

Better Living Through Chemistry (and a little Historical Fiction)

The Cavalcade of America was an old radio show sponsored by the DuPont Chemical Company between 1936 and 1953. I listened to the Buffalo Bill episode on the Internet Archive, and it was unashamed of its sponsorship.

The life of William Frederick Cody was presented through a collection of vignettes, featuring dramatized conversations between Cody and others at different points of his life. These included moving west with his wife (an apparently fragile and dependent woman) fighting Indians, and the early stages of planning his Wild West show. Obviously, no records of these conversations exist so the authors Cavalcade essentially wrote Historical Fiction. I like Historical Fiction as a rule, for capturing the spirit of an era and creating an interest in events of the past, but keeping this in mind Cavalcade isn't history at all; it's drama.

The most startling of the short stories was one where Cody was talking to someone about the "Battle" of Wounded Knee. (I always thought that was a massacre.) Cody said how it was so unfortunate what happened there, and if only he could have been there he could have stopped the violence. "The Indians would have listened to me!" The whole section was just so weird and seemed so ungrounded.

Much of the information given in this Cavalcade installment was true. He was a scout for the army, a Pony Express Rider, an Indian fighter and a world famous showman. Clearly the heroism of Indian killing and forcing them to be a part of a wild west show has been rejected over time. The main problem is that this is all conveyed through dramatized fiction that shouldn't be mistaken for history.

The Search for an Audience.

I don't think that there is anything "wrong" with history. It has experienced the same specialization that every other academic subject has. The western University system of professors and graduate students constantly rethinking old problems and researching previously unexplored topics, the collective body of human knowledge has increased drastically. However, as a result of the requirement that the academics at universities be constantly breaking new ground, so much work has been done that no one can be an expert on the subject as a whole. As a result, the trend of specialization inevitably occurs. So nothing is "wrong" with history that isn't wrong with math, where the last person to truly have mastery over the entire subject died before America abolished slavery.

Since the specialized and specific nature of modern historical inquiry makes it irrelevant to the reading public, historians and their institutions need to make some kind of a compromise. Groundbreaking research in a specialized field is important to the advancement of the field, but historians should also be encouraged to try and apply these new concepts to a broader view of history. Otherwise, no one will read about it. Historians need to find a way to then reintegrate their newest conclusions into more accessible books.

The issue does not lie solely with the nature academia. The fact is that for all the knowledge and research skill that a historian may have, they don't have to be good writers to be published. While using the full arsenal of the very significant English language makes one look smarter and more educated, it also can kill prose if it's not used well. The problem with most history books that I've read in my undergraduate history classes is that they're not interesting. I once had to read an entire book about hops farmers in three counties of upstate New York during the nineteenth century, even though the class was about all of American History up to reconstruction. It's true that this is an example of incredible overspecialization, but it was also just not written in a compelling way. I've also read countless books on subjects that legitimately interested me, but often they're a constant battle with the sandman because the historians who wrote them are not well trained in prose!

I guess that most people read books about history by Journalists because journalists write with the goal of people reading it. Historians often seem to write with something else in mind. Now, I have read books by Historians by choice, outside of any class. Often they are more general in scope than the books my professors assign, and are probably less respected by the academic community, but they are still authored by professors. I'm probably unusual in doing this, I certainly don't invest an inordinate amount of my time to it, and it isn't my "first resort" in learning about history. More often I learn about history from the internet, which is far more dependable than many give it credit for. So long as sources are cited, and I can look at the bibliography, I feel okay about refreshing my memory about the Napoleanic Wars or the Punic Wars or the Cola Wars from Wikipedia. In the end, those boring books written by academics are cited frequently by wikipedia's authors, who can boil it down to the broad overview that I want on a subject for which I have only passing interest in.

So I've set this thing up.

Right! So I had my first lecture of HST 480 with Knupfer today and this isn't going to be your average history seminar. Having just finished writing my 60 page senior-year honors thesis, I have to say that I'm not disappointed that we won't be living in the east wing of the MSU library.

Before this assignment, I've always hated blogs, and been of the opinion that about 4 people write blogs for everyone that reads them. I've also had very little exposure to them, so I'm probably wrong. I guess I'd better change my attitude for the sake of this course. Who knows? Maybe I'll like it.