Restoring Women S History Through Historic Preservation

This essay collection draws upon work presented at three national conferences on women and historic preservation held at Bryn Mawr College in 1994, Arizona State University in 1997, and at Mount Vernon College in 2000.

"As editor Page Putnam Miller explains, "Historic structures can be a catalyst for studying and remembering the past." Reclaiming the Past integrates recent developments in women's history and historic preservation in order to illuminate the historic significance of many structures and sites associated with the lives of women in the United States. The homes of Willa Cather, Sarah Orne Jewett, Zora Neale Hurston, Clara Barton, and Susan B. Anthony; Dumbarton Oaks, designed by landscape architect Beatrix Farrand; the Madame C. J. Walker Building in Indianapolis, home of the Walker Manufacturing Company; Wesleyan Chapel at Seneca Falls, New York, site of the 1848 Women's Rights Convention; the Shirtwaist Triangle Factory; Hull House: these represent only a sampling of the variety of landmarks and resources examined here." "In an introductory chapter, Page Putnam Miller outlines the urgent task of identifying and preserving these historic sites. The contributors then focus on seven arenas of activity: architecture, arts, community, education, politics, religion, and work. We discover that as activists, preservationists, designers, and architects, women have long been involved in historic preservation, as well as in the thoughtful design of domestic space - the home itself. As artists and writers, women often interpreted their household and immediate surroundings. Women have also left their mark on material culture through community activism, religious and educational activity, and work." "Less than 5 percent of national parks, national historic landmarks, and state historic sites commemorate women's life and activity in the United States. The use of historic structures to reconstruct and understand their accomplishments has garnered relatively little attention. This volume is an effort to stimulate the recovery and use of these resources - to grasp the spirit and the passions that animate women's history." "The contributors are Gail Lee Dubrow, Joan Hoff, Barbara J. Howe, Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Barbara Melosh, Jean R. Soderlund, and Lynn Y. Weiner."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A complete guide to interpreting women’s history. Women’s history is everywhere, not only in historic house museums named for women but also in homes named for famous men, museums of every conceivable kind, forts and battlefields, even ships, mines, and in buckets. Women’s history while present at every museum and historic site remains less fully interpreted in spite of decades of vibrant and expansive scholarship. Doing Women’s History in Public: A Handbook for Interpretation at Museums and Historic Sites connects that scholarship with the tangible resources and the sensuality that form museums and historic sites-- the objects, architecture and landscapes-- in ways that encourage visitor fascination and understanding and center interpretation on the women active in them. With numerous examples that focus on all women and girls, it appropriately includes everyone, for women intersect with every other human group. This book provides arguments, sources (written, oral, and visual), and tools for finding women’s history, preserving it, and interpreting it with the public. It uses the framework of Significance (importance), Knowledge Base (research in primary, secondary, and tertiary sources), and Tangible Resources (the preserved physical embodiment of history in objects, architecture, and landscapes). Discusses traditional and technology-assisted interpretation and provides Tools to implement Doing Women’s History in Public. Using a hospitality model, museums and historic sites are the locales where we assemble, learn from each other, and take our insights into a more gender-shared future.

Significant historic and archaeological sites affiliated with two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history in the United States are examined in this unique volume. The importance of the preservation process in documenting and interpreting the lives and experiences of queer Americans is emphasized. The book features chapters on archaeology and interpretation, as well as several case studies focusing on queer preservation projects. The accessible text and associated activities create an interactive and collaborative process that encourages readers to apply the material in a hands-on setting.

"Authorized Heritage" analyses the history of commemoration at heritage sites across western Canada. Using extensive research from predominantly government records, it argues that heritage narratives are almost always based on national messages that commonly reflect colonial perceptions of the past. Yet many of the places that commemorate Indigenous, fur trade, and settler histories are contested spaces, places such as Batoche, Seven Oaks, and Upper Fort Garry being the most obvious. At these heritage sites, Indigenous views of history confront the conventions of settler colonial pasts and represent the fluid cultural perspectives that should define the shifting ground of heritage space. Robert Coutts brings his many years of experience as a public historian to this detailed examination of heritage sites across the prairies. He shows how the process of commemoration often reflects social and cultural perspectives that privilege a conventional and conservative national narrative. He also examines how class, gender, and sexuality often remain apart from the heritage discourse. Most notably, Authorized Heritage examines how governments became the mediators of what is heritage and, just as significantly, what is not.

Over the last four decades, women's history has developed from a new and marginal approach to history to an established and flourishing area of the discipline taught in all history departments. Clio in the Classroom makes accessible the content, key themes and concepts, and pedagogical techniques of U.S. women's history for all secondary school and college teachers. Editors Carol Berkin, Margaret S. Crocco, and Barbara Winslow have brought together a diverse group of educators to provide information and tools for those who are constructing a new syllabus or revitalizing an existing one. The essays in this volume provide concise, up-to-date overviews of American women's history from colonial times to the present that include its ethnic, racial, and regional changes. They look at conceptual frameworks key to understanding women's history and American history, such as sexuality, citizenship, consumerism, and religion. And they offer concrete approaches for the classroom, including the use of oral history, visual resources, material culture, and group learning. The volume also features a guide to print and digital resources for further information. This is an invaluable guide for women and men preparing to incorporate the study of women into their classes, as well as for those seeking fresh perspectives for their teaching.

The first collection of essays on public history in the American West.