Dear Colleague,

Thank you for your interest in the NEH 2007 Summer Institute “African-American History as Public History: South Carolina as a Case Study.” This institute is designed as an introduction to the fields of public history for those who teach or expect to teach history to American undergraduate students, and who wish to include an awareness of public history practices and career opportunities in their teaching or their institution’s curriculum. We hope that you will find the information below useful as you make your decision about submitting a formal application for a position in the institute for the four weeks of July 9 – August 3. We have planned for participants an overview of the practices and issues of public history in the United States through lecture presentations, readings, discussions, and a series of visits to and conversations with staff of the cultural agencies in South Carolina which help to identify, collect, preserve, interpret, and share with a broader public the resources of the state’s African-American history and heritage. As we explore South Carolina African-American History with you, and the work of the state’s institutions and their professional staff in preserving it, our goal is to introduce you to public history: the various fields it encompasses; the intellectual issues and practical skills specific to each of them; the literature that reflects the thinking and writing of practitioners in each and of public history as a whole; and the ways in which the knowledge of those things can be used in teaching undergraduates. You can find out even more details about our institute at www.cas.sc.edu/hist/neh/

INTELLECTUAL CONTENT AND RATIONALE OF THE INSTITUTE

The rise of the field of public history as a recognized disciplinary specialization within university History Departments has coincided with an equally important surge of interest in history outside of the professional world of the academy. Americans are fascinated with their past, and consume “history” in huge quantities: through television programming such as that on the History Channel, in state and national parks where 50% of National Park Service sites have an historical reason for their existence; through a burgeoning growth in genealogical research as an avocation; in the rising numbers participating in military (Civil War and Revolutionary War) historical re-enactment organizations; in the growing interest in preserving historic neighborhoods or converting local historic houses into house museums; in the adoption by many states of “heritage tourism” as a means of attracting visitors. An introduction to public history can provide college and university undergraduates with two important benefits: an awareness of the many ways it is possible to practice interpreting and teaching about the past through a variety of professional career opportunities outside a formal classroom; and an intellectual basis by which they as educated citizens will be able to evaluate the quality of history as it is interpreted throughout our culture in television programming, movies, parks, museums, and local community preservation initiatives.

We believe that good history is about interpretation, and that good public history is first and foremost good history: an understanding of how and why we interpret the past in the ways that we do. That means that public history is not just about the particular skills necessary to present interpretation in a specific venue or institution (museums, archives, historic districts or sites) but about the CONTENT of the history that is preserved and interpreted in those places. In choosing it as our content for this institute, we believe South Carolina is a particularly appropriate place to combine an understanding of African-American history and public history. Many aspects of African-American history and life have left a tangible physical impact on the state through the survival of the landscapes, sites, structures, objects, photographs, manuscript collections, and folk life practices which are the focus of our Aspects of African-American heritage illustrated by important South Carolina public history sites and institutions include:

All of these and more we will explore with you for four weeks by looking at the ways in which cultural institutions like archives and museums, historic houses, state and national parks, state and local historic preservation organizations, and state and local historical societies help to teach and interpret African-American history to an interested public.

FACULTY AND STAFF

The co-Directors of this summer institute Constance B. Schulz and Robert Weyeneth are also the co-Directors of the Public History Program at the University of South Carolina (USC) [http://www.cas.sc.edu/hist/pubhist/] . Founded in 1976, our program has more than 200 graduates, and in 2002 was awarded the Robert Kelley Award for lifetime achievement in public history. Weyeneth teaches graduate courses in the theory and practice of historic preservation, including a preservation field school in Charleston, and historical research methods. As a practicing public historian he has undertaken a diverse range of projects: landscape histories of Honolulu’s historic urban parks, community studies in Washington State, evaluation of Cold War sites in South Carolina, a history of historic preservation in Charleston, an analysis of efforts to commemorate the modern civil rights movement throughout the United States, and reflections on the current vogue for the present to apologize for past injustices. His current project is an investigation of the architecture of segregation. Schulz teaches graduate courses in the theory and practice of archival administration, the history of and use by historians of American documentary photography, and a six-week comparative public history field school in England. She is the coordinator for History of the joint program with the School of Library and Information Science which grants a dual MA/MLIS degree in Archival Administration.
She has taught courses, lectured internationally, and published books and articles on American Documentary Photography, on and public history practices in the U.S. She was selected as a Fulbright Distinguished Lecture-Research Scholar at the University of York, England, in 2000-2001, and as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the University of Genoa, Italy, in 2005.

Several of our colleagues in the History Department at USC will participate with us in the institute’s discussions of Africa-American and public history. Valinda Littlefield and Bobby Donaldson hold joint appointments in the History Department and in African-American studies. Kent Germany, recently at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, is creating an African-American Documentation center in oral history. Lauren Sklaroff is Assistant Professor of Modern American Cultural History, and has written on the role of African-Americans in the film industry. Thomas Brown is Assistant Director of the Institute for Southern Studies, and a scholar of historical memory and the monuments of the Civil War.

Other faculty and staff on our campus will also help to lead sessions in the institute. Lynn Robertson is Executive Director of the university’s on-campus McKissick Museum and directs the Museum Studies Certificate. Saddler Taylor, Curator and Director of the Southern Folklife Collections at McKissick, manages an archives and materials culture collection which includes sweet-grass baskets, films and recordings of gospel and blues musicians, and documents an extensive range of African-American folk practices in the region. In addition, campus archival staff from the South Caroliniana Library, the South Carolina Political Collections, and the News Film Library will share their expertise and collections with participants.

During the first two weeks of the institute we will also be visiting and drawing on the expertise of staff members of the rich mix of cultural institutions in the greater Columbia area. These include the South Carolina State Museum, the State Historic Preservation Office, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History at the state level; and Historic Columbia Foundation and the Columbia Downtown Development Corporation at the local level.

Three consultants with national expertise have agreed to participate in the institute: Dr. Dwight Pitcaithley was from 1995-2005 Chief Historian of the National Park Service (NPS) and is now part of the public history faculty of New Mexico State University. Dr. Marie-Tyler McGraw, also retired from the NPS, served as Dr. Pitcaithley’s assistant historian, and was the principal scholar responsible for research and writing the report and text panels for the reinterpretation of Fort Sumter. Dr. Thomas Hanchett is Senior Historian of the Levine Museum of the New South, where he conceptualized, curated, and guided to completion the award-winning exhibition and program “Courage: The Carolina Story that Changed America” documenting the South Carolina desegregation cases which became part of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.

SCHEDULE AND ACTIVITIES DURING THE INSTITUTE

During the first two weeks, the institute will be headquartered on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Content and activities will focus on 1) presentations on public history practice; 2) discussions of African-American and public history literature; and 3) site visits to cultural institutions whose holdings preserve and interpret African-American history. In the mornings we will meet in seminar rooms on campus, with lectures and discussions focused on introducing participants to issues and practices in five of the areas of public history: Museums, Historic Preservation, Archives, Oral History, and Film. Each afternoon, we will follow up the institute’s morning sessions with a visit to a related public history institution which preserves or interprets African-American history. We will provide transportation via the campus “Shuttlecock” buses to all off-campus site visits and tours. These will include visits to two nearby antebellum plantations, Kensington Mansion and Redcliffe Plantation State Park, as well as a driving tour of historically black urban communities in Columbia to examine the architecture of segregation, and Columbia’s historic African-American cemetery.

We will start off the third week with three days in Charleston, where we will examine how that heavily-visited city does (and in some cases does not) explain its rich African-American history to tourists who flock to its historic nineteenth century neighborhoods. We will visit the Avery Institute, a cultural center for the African-American community in the city and region located in an historic reconstruction era black school. Staff of Historic Charleston Foundation will lead visits to two of their properties. The first, the Aiken-Rhett House, is the most intact townhouse complex in Charleston, with some of the best-preserved urban slave quarters in the Southeast providing a vivid record of slave life in an urban antebellum household. The second, the Nathaniel Russell House, is in the process of reorienting its interpretive story to include more information both on its eighteen century household slaves and on Russell’s ambivalence about – but persistence in – his role as a slave-trading merchant. A daylong session at Fort Sumter’s new visitor’s center, a panel discussion with Dwight Pitcaithley, Marie Tyler-McGraw, and retired site ranger and historian John Tucker, and a boat trip to the island Fort, will focus on the role of slavery in the origins of the Civil War, and the controversy over the National Park Service’s decision to include slavery as a cause of the war in the interpretation of all of its battlefield parks. On the way back to Columbia we will stop at Drayton Hall to see how this eighteenth century National Historic Landmark is including African-American history in its educational and interpretive programming.

During our final week, in addition to summarizing our experiences and discussing how they can contribute to designing public history syllabi and curricula at the undergraduate level, we will take day-long visits to two communities close to Columbia, each featuring different aspects of African-American interpretation and preservation. To the west, in Aiken and Edgefield, the Bettis Academy founded in 1882 by a former slave, and the Schofield Normal and Industrial Institute, founded in 1868, are now museums interpreting the roles of freedmen in developing educational institutions during Reconstruction. To the east, Camden, which has previously based its understanding of its historical importance on its Revolutionary War role, recently commissioned a study by Bob Weyeneth’s Historic Preservation class of its African-American heritage which has become the basis for an historic walking tour and plans for a museum.

A detailed description of the entire schedule is available on our web site; if you are thinking about applying but don’t have access to an internet connection, please ask for a hard copy of that schedule. Because participants will be visiting historic sites and traveling throughout the four-week period, we do not anticipate that they will complete research or produce a paper. We will ask them to keep a daily journal of their impressions and reactions to the sites we visit and the staff who speak to us. Each participant will receive a packet of curriculum materials which we have developed for our basic introductory graduate courses in our respective fields, and of the undergraduate public history internship which we teach. We will invite participants who wish to do so to prepare syllabi or curriculum plans to be shared with the group for comment. We plan to set up an email site for exchange of information, comments, and suggestions during the institute, and will maintain it after completion of the institute so that participants can continue to stay in touch and exchange ideas regarding research and teaching.

TRAVEL, HOUSING AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS, AND LOCAL AMENITIES

During the four weeks of the institute we’ve arranged for participants to live in dormitory apartments on the early-nineteenth century historic “Horseshoe” center of our campus. Each apartment is air conditioned, and has 4 bedrooms which share bathroom and full kitchen facilities. Legare Hall in which the apartments are located is one of the older buildings on the USC campus. It is located near the university’s libraries and other facilities, and the nightly rate will be between $30 and $40. In addition, we have reserved a limited number of apartments in the Whitney, a highrise “long-stay” apartment hotel a mile from our campus; two-bedroom, two bathroom fully equipped apartments with kitchens and a washer-dryer, and full breakfast each morning, are available at $110 nightly; costs could be shared by two participants who prefer not to live in dormitories. Both housing alternatives are convenient to moderately priced restaurants, and campus food service facilities will be serving reasonably priced meals through the period of the institute. Participants will be “Visiting Scholars” while on our campus with identification giving access to libraries and computing facilities, and we have arranged for access to the state-of-the-art facilities at our new Strom Thurmond Wellness Center for a reasonable separate fee.

We have arranged for a hotel in the historic center of Charleston to offer a conference room rate of approximately $150 (including taxes) per night which could be shared by two persons for the three nights we will be in residence in that city. The rate, which includes a hot breakfast and parking, will also be available for those wishing to go to Charleston for the weekend preceding out course activities. There are a number of fine historic B&B s in the central city, and rates for these range upwards from $80 per night. (This is high tourist season in Charleston, and alternative less expensive lodging is available outside the center of the city but will require a car, and parking in the center is expensive.)

For travel within the city of Columbia and to nearby destinations described in our Schedule we are arranging transportation on one of the university’s “Shuttlecock” campus buses, and will also make provision for transportation to and within Charleston for those who will not have their own automobiles. Participants are welcome to bring their own vehicles, and parking will be available in both venues.

Columbia is a mid-sided city, home to state government and the main campus of the state university. Both the State Capitol grounds and the University of South Carolina central campus “Horseshoe“ are important nineteenth century historic districts. Columbia has an attractive modern airport served by several major carriers, and we will make every effort to coordinate a shuttle service to meet participants who arrive by air. Fine restaurants, an active night life scene with live music both in the “Five Points” area near the campus and the “Congaree Vista” area between the downtown and Congaree Riverfront, the Columbia Museum of Art, and walking paths along the river, and downtown parks offer a variety of recreational activities within the city. The Nickelodeon features art and alternative films, and several local theatres offer live dramas during their summer schedule. During the course of the institute we will visit many of Columbia’s cultural institutions. Yes, it is normally hot here during July – but everything indoors is air-conditioned. You will be comfortable, and will find interesting things to do outside of the intensive daily activities.

APPLICATION INFORMATION

A full description of the NEH Summer Seminar and Institute program and the application process, provided by the NEH staff, is attached as a separate document along with this “Dear Colleague” letter, or is enclosed if you are receiving the letter by physical mail. Please read this document carefully, as it gives complete details of who is eligible, how to apply, what kind of documentation to provide, and what the selection process is. We have summarized below a few of the points in that document.

Application Process: The application package consists of three copies each of a completed application cover sheet, a detailed resume, and an application essay, and two letters of recommendation. You must fill out and submit electronically to NEH a cover sheet which you will find at http://www.neh.gov/online/education/participants/ Fill out the cover sheet as directed by the prompts. When you are finished, be sure to click on the "submit" button. You must also print out the cover sheet and add it to your paper application package. Applications must be postmarked no later than March 1, 2007 and should be addressed to

Essay: We cannot stress enough the importance of the essay you submit as part of the complete application packet. It will be a key element in our selection process. Include any personal and academic information that addresses the following points: your interest, both intellectual and personal, in any of the fields of public history or in African-American History; any previous experience you have had in a public history project or institution that will help you to make a contribution to the goals of the Institute; what you hope to accomplish by participation; and the relation of the subjects of this institute to your teaching.

Stipend: All teachers selected to participate in the Institute will be awarded a fixed stipend of $3,000 to help cover travel costs, books and other research expenses, and living expenses during the four weeks of the Institute.

WHEW! This has been a long letter. We hope that it contains the information that you need. If you have any questions, please contact us at NEHinstitute@sc.edu . We look forward to meeting you this summer.

Sincerely yours,
Constance B. Schulz and Robert Weyeneth, Co-Directors
Public History Program, University of South Carolina