Updates! and Notes on the Zen of Archiving

So it's been a while. Busy couple of weeks. Not a lot of good news floating around the archives, but on the up side, March 13 is the first Saturday of four that we'll be open with extra hours (8:30-5pm). Take advantage while you can!

It's contest season for those of you who are interested in the National History Day program, and for those of you who want to participate, they always need people to volunteer, whether as judges or simply to post signs. Odds are that there's a contest in your region, going on now. Or very soon. And of course, there's the state contest here in April. Start looking here.

Now, onto the zen of archiving. "Zen" being used loosely here, of course.

I've been chewing over the dichotomy of archival work, specifically that of public history. On one hand, as a professional, you're obligated to protect and defend, as it were, the records that constitute the known history of said particular locale (in this case, a state). On the other hand, you are summarily required to provide access to these records. Very often, these two demands are at odds - excess handling, copying, usage, etc. tends to destroy documents over time. But locking them away in a climate controlled, sterile environment for all eternity is (while perhaps best for preservation) contrary to everything the historical community stands for (knowledge and truth seeking), and in this case, possibly illegal (hence the public in public records).

Trying to find a happy medium, then, is the best one can presumably achieve. But how does one define balance between destruction and preservation, access and exclusivity? At what point is the line drawn, and a decision made: to prioritize preservation over access, or knowledge over future existence, or worse yet, that no one cares? Is there a way to do it all?

Teaching American History (Instead of "Sports 101")

“History is like an amusement park. Except instead of rides, you have dates to memorize.”

Marjorie Bouvier Simpson


Flash back to the 11th or 12th grade, and you and your classmates are sitting before your high school's assistant football coach. On this day, he is your “history teacher,” and he is supposed to lecture on the causes of World War I. You have read Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August to prepare for the lecture. Your “history teacher,” however, is so excited about Friday’s game that he breaks out the projector and shows grainy film footage of a night, ten years before, when he blew out his knee. He rewinds the film again and again to show the exact moment a white helmet crashed into his leg and negated a scholarship offer from a “big time college program” (if you can call Mars Hill a “big time college program”). The bell rings and you stumble to your next class wondering if Austria-Hungary would have been better served by an emperor with the attention span of your history teacher/coach.

Sound familiar? Well there is a program designed to ensure that budding young historians do not suffer at the hands of poorly-prepared teachers. For the past three years, SCDAH has been a co-sponsor of the Teaching American History in South Carolina program, which provides professional development support to teachers by offering a series of 10-day summer institutes, which take place in the Pee Dee, Upstate, and Midlands. A history professor, or master scholar, leads the course, and provides content instruction in American history. Participants also take part in master teacher workshops and cultural institution presentations. Classes are held at local museums, libraries, and historic sites across South Carolina, and all activities utilize local primary source materials or objects relating to the periods or themes being studied. Participants conduct primary-source research and create original lesson plans.

The program’s goal is to ensure that our state’s history teachers offer accurate and engaging curriculum to their students, instead of regaling them with tales about how they “won the big game” (which is more than Kaiser Wilhelm II could say). For more information about Teaching American History in South Carolina, please contact Don Stewart at stewart@scdah.state.sc.us or 803-896-6224, or visit the website at www.teachingushistory.org.