In the fourth installment of “Field Notes: Public History in the GAPE,” Marcus P. Smith shares how the Du Bois Freedom Center interprets the life of author, scholar, and civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) in his hometown of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The region, known as the Berkshires, is rich in history, culture, and natural beauty. As Smith explains, the Du Bois Freedom Center helps ground visitors of all ages in the Berkshires’ Black cultural heritage using the places that shaped Du Bois’s upbringing.
Field Notes: Leslie B. Jones and the Preservation Society of Newport County
In the third installment of “Field Notes: Public History in the GAPE,” Director of Museum Affairs and Chief Curator Leslie B. Jones speaks to her work at the Preservation Society of Newport County, also known as the Newport Mansions. Located in Rhode Island, the Preservation Society stewards eleven historic properties, including iconic Gilded Age properties like The Breakers and the oldest and northernmost topiary garden in the country. The Newport Mansions are among the top visited arts and cultural institutions in New England, educating hundreds of thousands of guests annually.
Field Notes: The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums
In the second installment of “Field Notes: Public History in the GAPE,” Historian Joshua Dubbert, with support from Communications and Marketing Manager Kristina Smith, discusses the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums. Located in Fremont, Ohio, the organization interprets the life, career, legacy, and times of America’s 19th president, Rutherford B. Hayes. The site offers a variety of public tours and programming throughout the historic Spiegel Grove estate, including special offerings for America’s Semiquincentennial. Dubbert and Smith speak to the site’s unique history and scope, as well as how ongoing research is continuously building a fuller portrait of the Hayes family.
Field Notes: Liz Ferry and the Driehaus Museum
Located in Chicago, the Driehaus Museum engages guests through architecture, art, and design within the 1883 Nickerson Mansion and the 1926 Murphy Auditorium. In this installment of “Field Notes,” Guest Services Coordinator Liz Ferry shares how the Museum’s rich interpretational scope, talented staff, and growing network of institutional connections help preserve these truly unique spaces and tailor the guest experience for maximum engagement. Driehaus Museum Executive Director Lisa Key will join other museum leaders on June 6 for the Closing Plenary of the SHGAPE Conference.
“A Place Among Original Investigators:” Walter Wyckoff, Alfred Pierce, and Me
My research is on the Princeton sociologist Walter Augustus Wyckoff. Readers may recall that Wycoff gained a fair amount of fame at the turn of the 20th century through the publication of his two-volume investigation, The Workers: The East and The Workers: The West (1897, 1898). My dissertation traces the connections between Wyckoff’s work and that of authors like Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair. It is also the first biography of Wyckoff. I show that Wyckoff’s motivation to investigate the working class came from the influence of his “Third-Culture Kid” (TCK) upbringing, as the son of missionaries in India.
On Nippers, Nipper-Napping, and the New York Public Library
In the weeks that followed, Nipper and I worked together—I poring over phonograph industry periodicals and he at projecting his trademark canine bemusement. I occasionally glanced up from my copies of Phonoscope or Voice of the Victor to meditate on my colleague’s recent brush with disaster. How had the statue come to be in the lobby of the Library? And how had it accrued value (or agency?) such that someone would risk their safety and good name to steal it? This business of Nipper-napping, I determined, was a strange enterprise indeed, and one worth trying to understand.