History and Future

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has suggested creating a new set of panels for an exhibition on the struggle for civil rights…in the future. Currently, the exhibition looks at the shift from 1863-1963. Would it be possible for historians to create a panel on 2063 in 2016? To try and determine if this will work, it is important to look at Dr David Staley’s argument in his book: History and Future.

First off, Dr Staley reminds us that as is, historians only study a very small portion of the historical field. Meaning there is so much more to discover than what “history buffs” enjoy reading about (meaning major, textbook historical events). To study the future, we must go outside the realm of what is typical and expected. During the course of the twentieth century, historians would finally begin looking into to these wider historical fields….can one of these include delving into future events?

Societies, as Staley reminds us have different ways of looking at time. Some look at time as something that cyclical. It goes around and around repeating itself and making it easy to try and predict; however this does not mean that that follow this mind set believe they can do anything to change the future. Other societies look at time as something that is linear. Predetermined, but never destined to repeat itself. Considering this, the question we must ask ourselves is: “Can we predict what is going to happen in the future by looking at patterns or is the future something that will remain a mystery until it happens?”

Historians are not the only ones who try to get a glimpse into the crystal ball. Many businesses try to use “visioning” to try and make accurate predictions for their company that will determine their motives and the way they conduct their business. As trying to look into the future became more necessary for historians and financiers, etc., the future began to adopt many scientific methods such as the ‘scenario method’ adopted by Herman Khan. Khan suggested that if one were to try and determine the future they should create a series of scenarios about what may possibly happen. According to Khan, “a scenario results from an attempt to describe in more or less detail some hypothetical sequence of events. Scenarios can emphasize different aspects of ‘future history.” (36) This is similar to the way we might try to determine the history of the future.

The problem with trying to determine what the future will be is that is doesn’t exist someplace else; therefore we cannot use technology or mathematical skills to try to answer our questions. That’s why historians are perfect for this role. The role of this historian is to ask questions and try to answer them using evidence and inferences. Sometimes historians can go and search for the answers to their questions in an archive; but, as Staley states, historians are capable of using literally anything for evidence—it all depends on how they interpret the evidence around them and how they have been trained to ask questions. Another way a historian is a good fit for the job of determining the future is that we are different from a logistician—we know we are never going to find a determined answer. Evidence of the past will always be incomplete—it would be impossible to have a perfect representation of past events; so why not use this method of thinking to try and understand the future by making historical inferences?

When dealing with trying to understand the future, the events depend on the context of the situation. In the case of this museum, the time and events which already took place and our interpretation of them. Staley says “rather than seeking the one true statement about the future, historians of the future should produce many such statements and then subject these statements to a ‘competition among hypotheses” (65) Meaning we are not making predictions about the future; but we will be able to make the attempt to make various arguments about what might happen. Staley uses an example of how this would work. He makes the argument that book will still exist in the future; but possible in the way of smart pages, etc. He uses the evidence that he has in present day that e-books are not in the highest demand and physical books still sell. He is able to make an argument about the future by using the historical method which “is the flow of events is context dependent and unique. A history of the future should be no different.” (62)

Because the past, like the future, does not exist to where we can visit it and be immersed in the events, we must try to recreate and envision; but never try and create our own truth. That is why study of future is not about making predictions or telling stories like a palm reader; but to build and reconstruct something that already has a sort of foundation.

To attempt to create panels for an exhibition on 2063, like Staley suggests I would look at the evidence that I have. How have the events progressed and altered from 1863 to 1963? How have they altered from 1963 to the present? What is currently happening which would have an effect on the future for African American civil rights. We have a lot going on currently that may determine where the fight for African American equality takes us in the next fifty years. Will it change with who is in control of Congress or the White House? It is necessary to look at all the scenarios that could possibly happen. What evidence do we have? Violence toward African Americans is prevalent in the media. We have Black Lives Matter movement making their voices heard on the political stage and in just about a week we will have elected a new president (both of our candidates having vastly different views and relationships to these issues which will cause to try and create a whole new series of scenarios).

Conclusively, these new panels should discuss as many scenarios as we can try and create using this evidence whatever the historians determine and interpret that evidence to be.

Power of place

Dolores Hayden's book The Power of Place  is more like an instructional manual than it is an actual narrative-like text. In her book, Hayden looks at how multiculturalism is conceived and how it helps historians study history by making the invisible visible and focusing on social history.
In section 2 (Los Angeles: Public Pasts in the Downtown Landscape) Hayden looks at the vast amounts of people that make up the city of Los Angeles. She points out that Los Angeles has a very diverse group of citizens with "the second largest Mexican, Armenian, Filipino, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan city in the world, the third largest Canadian city, and has the largest Japanese, Iranian, Cambodian and Gypsy communities in the United States." With the large amount of people it is apparent that they have been able to form their own communities within this giant city and have an individual history of their own and when all of these different cultures and languages blend together it makes for a unique community that is distinctly Californian. Hayden also mentions that because of the extreme diversity of this city, no one has been able to write a comprehensive social history on the urban landscape of Los Angeles. Hayden writes that "many influential writers have been unable to perceive the importance of the city's nonwhite population, unable to recognize that people of color occupy any significant part of the urban landscape. Such writers may go downtown but never or rarely to East LA and South Central. The focus of their landscape analysis becomes houses, swimming pools, cars, and pop culture." With a city that is almost 40% nonwhite the fact that the impact made from those that make up that population has gone largely ignored is evidence that the true nature of the city has not been analyzed. It would be difficult to understand an established culture anywhere without looking at the contributions of the people that live there. Places such as a Chinatown and areas with Mexican inspired architecture would not exist without the presence of the people that were there. Even more alarmingly is that these "nonwhites" who have gone largely unnoticed are the people that bear the largest responsibility for establishing and creating that city before nonwhites had the opportunity to come over.
Hayden has created several programs to make sure that these are being studied and looked at so we can establish a more realistic view of the history of the city. In her section on "The Invisible Angelenos", Hayden makes the attempt and the argument that we need to study these people that have remained invisible in the social history work completed on Los Angeles in order to get a more comprehensive view of the effects they have made on that city.

PH History Project

Zac Barnes and I have been working on the Lone Sailor project along with Dr Gannon for the past three weeks. Most of what we have been doing is researching information on the Navy in Orlando so will be better equipped to be consultants on this project. What the team funding this project want to include in their panels in information on boot camp, history of the navy in Orlando, and information on graduation.

Zac and I have been meeting with Dr Gannon every Monday and she has suggested looking at academic essays on museum walls as well as sending on powerpoints on what information we need to know in order to be better consultants. I know next to nothing about the role of the Navy in Orlando so that is something that I would have to look more into. I do not currently feel like I have done enough preparation to be an adequate consultant on this project. Mark Barnes has also sent Zac and I information on what he has already written on the "Lone Sailor" project. This will be beneficial to us when we are deciding what to include on these panels.

While I have been going through essays, Zac was able to make some changes by going through the PowerPoint sent by the Naval Memorial of Central Florida and Central Florida Navy League. I believe he is trying to make the information flow better.

We also found from Dr Gannon that we need to try and incorporate a new female statue in the future; so, we need to figure out how to make our panels work with these future changes. The new PowerPoint that we received is more helpful than the initial one; but there is not a lot of discussion on this new aspect.

Another aspect that we are having difficulty with is the organization wants information that can be accessed via audio button. This will be helpful in keeping the panels from being too wordy; but Zac and I will have to try and figure out who to have contribute to this audio and what exactly needs to be said. It is possible we will have to conduct some oral interviews. We plan on utilizing Lynn Abrams Oral History Theory  to help us with this.

Being that we do not know much in the way of informative walls, I have been researching public history documents.

Hopefully, by next week we should be able to solidify the information we would like to have included on these walls.

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Disney's Bicentennial Celebration

 I have decided to look at the way in which the Walt Disney Company celebrated America’s bicentennial. As anyone Native of central Florida knows, Disney World plays a large role in what goes on here in Orlando and Kissimmee and you better believe they played a central role in celebrating America's bicentennial!
Dr Crepeau has some items in his collection such as a pair of Mickey Mouse/Paul Revere socks. The significance of looking at Disney’s relationship with the bicentennial Is that if can speak to Florida’s participation AS WELL AS participation on a national and even GLOBAL level. Mickey Mouse is a recognizable image around the world so using that imagery, even with the patriotic overtones makes this something that can appeal to a wide array of audiences. Mickey Mouse, being an international symbol, would have had marketing appeal to people both domestic and international as well as to people of all ages. Disney, being a corporation, took the 1976 event to make money through marketing and various celebrations that took place throughout the park. Being that Disney World had only been in Orlando five years at that point; the bicentennial celebrations served its purpose by bringing in an incredible amount of money to this brand new park and potentially more tourists to the Orlando area.

From the summer of 1975 to a few weeks after July 4^th 1976,, Disney parks in both Orlando and Anaheim put together an elaborate parade titled: America on Parade. Included in this parade where all the nationalistic favorites Americans had been inundated with in 1976. Parade floats went beyond just the typical American Revolutionary period by including Christopher Columbus discovering America, Pilgrims celebrating Thanksgiving with the Native Americans, and settlers heading west on the Oregon Trail. Disney even pulled out song team Alan and Roger Sherman to write a song specifically for the bicentennial celebration. One of the interesting things about this parade was that it not focus a lot on the typical Disney imagery one would expect from a spectacle at a Disney park.

The beginning float of the parade shows the three Disney characters: Mickey, Goofy, and Donald in revolutionary regalia. A lot of this imagery will be included on the merchandise sold to commemorate the event as can be seen from the front of the park guide map that were regularly being distributed.

   

Also included are images from Dr Crepeau's collection:

   

This is example of one of several admission tickets from the Doctor's collection for guests to see "America on Parade". When the park first opened, a lot of attractions were experienced via tickets as opposed to the way guests experience the attractions today.

This is an example of a name tag that was worn by a Disney cast member. As you can see, the name tag was made specifically for the bicentennial celebration. This is an example of Disney trying to include their celebration in all of the minute details.

Here are some images included from the park’s parade. Fortunately, due to the touristic nature of the location, there are a lot of good images available.

This is Christopher Columbus on his ship “discovering” the New World

The First Thanksgiving complete with giant turkey, surrounded by American stereotypes of pilgrims and Native Americans getting ready to sit down and eat together.

Here is what appears to be George Washington’s continental army on parade. In front of them is Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin who is flying his kite. Not very visible in this picture is the key attached to the bottom of Franklin’s kite.

Betsy Ross sewing the very first American flag!

Disney had a large section in their parade dedicated to the new frontier in celebration of one of their themed lands, “Frontierland”. Here is a steamboat captain sailing his way through the park.

The float here depicts a group of Forty-Niners possibly on their way to California to pan for some gold. 

Fictional characters such as Tom Sawyer were depicted as well. Not pictured are the various other floats the followed including a group of varsity students, giant sandwiches to depict how much Americans love to eat, Thomas Edison inventing the light-bulb and a grand finale of Disney/American classics such as Snow White and her Seven Dwarfs followed Winnie the Pooh and Dumbo.

Below I have included a link to watch the entire parade on YouTube. Unfortunately, you are unable to hear the song written specifically for the event and I have been unable to find a good version of that. 

Here is a YouTube video of the entire parade: "America on Parade"

Oral History Theory

In her book, Oral History Theory,   Lynn Abrams describes the practice of oral history as a method of research that is distinct from other historical endeavors due to its collaborative approach in which the researcher must instigate and lead interviews and from these interactions, historical documents are created. In other words, oral history is unique in that it forces the historian to, in some cases; interact with their subject in a personal way which is beyond the level of other fields. Oral historians go out and look for interesting people as opposed to documents and analyze each person’s personal memory of the past. It is an effective approach to studying history because the interviewer has the ability to ask their subject any question they want and get an answer in return. With documents, the historian obviously has what is offered to them and cannot manipulate the information they receive in the same way. When I refer to this manipulation, I am referring to the fact that the historian can ask any questions they would like and phrase the questions in a way which will hopefully get them their full response.

According to Abrams, you can study a group or an individual and learn from their previous experiences they may not have been documented and each interview is the result of a dialogue. According to Abrams, the interviewer must keep in mind that “subjectivity and intersubjectivity are present in every interview.” Just like interpreting anything else, the interviewer must keep in mind of the subjectivity of their subjects and take what they learn with a grain of salt. Like everything else, each person you might interview will answer your questions and participate in the interview process with a touch of bias whether they do it on purpose or not. One of the things that will affect the content of the information you receive is whatever cultural background the content of information comes from. Abrams also reminds us that the oral history document is the result of a three way dialogue: “the respondent with him or herself, between the interviewer and the respondent and between the respondent and cultural discourses of the present and the past.”

In her book, Lynn Abrams introduces us to a multi-step interview process for conducting an oral history interview:

                -the original interview

                -recording of the interview

                -transcription and interpretation of the interview material

Abrams makes the argument that the interviewer will want to be as precise as possible when transcribing the interview. It is not beneficial to record the information as the historian receives it because everything is interpreted differently by different people. The speaker’s rhythms of speech, dialects and sentences are important in conveying their meaning. To back this up, Abrams says “unless the sheen of social science was added to the oral history practice, including the careful and accurate transcription of interviews and faithful representation of the spoken voice, then the method was depicted as literary and creative rather than as historical and reliable.” In summary, it is not the historian’s job to interpret what they heard but to record what they heard for other to interpret the meaning themselves.

                Abrams does not that sometimes there are exceptions to that rule. For example, when she was conducting an interview of people from Shetland Island, she noted that their vocabulary was almost incomprehensible to her and it was necessary to make some slight edits to the meaning wouldn’t have been completely lost. While speech patterns are incredibly important, if they hinder the historian from obtaining the full meaning, it is acceptable to make some edits which are in itself, not a simple task.    Another important part of the interview process is making a physical observation of the speaker. “In the interview itself some quite concrete signs are read by either side: dress, accent, demeanor and body language provide signals which are interpreted by both parties. Respondents may also communicate their attitude towards the interviewer and the interview process by the preparations they have made (or not).”  Additionally historians must approach their interview with “openness” and let those that they are interviewing ultimately determine the direction of the project.

                Ultimately the role of oral historians is to decode data and establish a connection between individuals and general narratives, personal and public experiences, and the past and present. Abrams mentions a study by Allesandro Portelli in which he privileges the names of the interviewees over the historian because the speakers are the ones that are creating the history while the historian is there to write it down and maintain it for the future.

Celebrating the Revolution with...socks?

 “For many years colonial pageantry was limited to a few cities…but 1976 has changed everything!” According to American Legion magazine “…10,000 or more Americans are ‘dressing colonial’ every weekend.” The bicentennial became the year that Americans would try to figure out what the Revolutionary generation and that event in history meant to them. For Robert and Vincent DeForrest of the Afro American Bicentennial Corporation, they “…had experienced the revolution in their own lives. Weknow is it is a continuing thing. And we believe much of the leadership for continuing the American Revolution in recent decades has come for Black Americans.” As opposed to America’s centennial, a lot more people had reason to celebrate being citizens of the United States of America. Since 1876, women had gained the right to vote and African Americans were in the midst of battling for their own civil rights. This appeared to be the perfect time to celebrate the birthday of this country. “…expressions of commemoration reflected a new cultural emphasis on the individual and his or her role in society and several recent changes in American society merged with an emphasis on the self to make historical commercialization newly acceptable.” (9) What is “historical commercialization”? What is the best way to “sell history”?
1976 marked the 200th anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and what better way to have celebrated than paper towels, t-shirts, and Frisbees? Dr. Crepeau’s collection of Bicentennial Junk is a perfect example of what Tammy Gordon refers to in her book: “The Spirit of 1976: Commerce, Community, and Commemoration” as the effects of a ‘buycentennial sellabration” (6) that seemed to rage in the first half of the 1970’s. The Bicentennial celebration was a perfect time for consumers to “sell “history as “commercialism quickly became a central feature of the meaning of the celebration.” (54) This had been attempted a decade before during the centennial anniversary of the Civil War; however, Confederate flag images did not just have that certain appeal for most Americans. The American Revolution and the imagery that came along with was an excellent opportunity to make history “junk” appeal to the majority of Americans, “…marketers and retailers challenged the sanctity of American history…by putting founding myths and symbols on such ephemera as paper plates and grocery bags.” (3) It turned out that for many corporations and even the federal government that the American Revolution was about to have a major impact on the American economy once again. In order to make the effect and appeal to most Americans, images of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (slave owners) were used to appeal to white consumers while images of Crispus Attucks (African American Revolutionary war figure) were used to appeal to black consumers. “The sellabration drew on longstanding ideas about the American Revolution but repackaged them for different consumer demographics.” (65)
For major companies such as the Franklin Mint, McDonald’s and Disney, “…the bicentennial was that….’an opportunity, not only for America to support the Revolutionary spirit abroad in the world, but to lead the way once again in the struggle of people against systems of exploitation and oppression.” (ABC 2).
It is at this point where I will talk about one of the items in Dr. Crepeau’s collection: the Mickey Mouse/Paul Revere socks. As someone who has been part of this corporation myself for around six years, I know that the Walt Disney Company will use every opportunity afforded them to make a profit via consumer goods and the one image that may sell even more than the Revolution in Mickey Mouse. This and other products released by Disney during this celebration was a perfect example of how marketers tried to make the American Revolution appeal to more than just white people or historically interested people. Including popular non historical figures ups the appeal and makes the product acceptable for people of all colors, backgrounds and ages. It is a product that any American could wear and show their support of the bicentennial even if they just bought it because of the cartoon character included on the socks. This would be a good product to include because it is relatable and it might be something that people still have. More than likely the burger wrappers and newspaper ads and soda cans will more than likely have found their way to the garbage by now; but these socks might still be available to most Americans and it is something that comes out of the Bicentennial celebration that Americans can still relate to.