Thursday, June 27, 2013

Colonial Williamsburg P. 2 “Girls Gone Wild: Unhinged Women of the Colonial Era”



If you read my earlier post on Colonial Williamsburg you understand that I was a little disappointed about my lack of child-like wonderment and that I am really into soap. In this post I am going to talk about the ghost tour I went on. If you read some of my posts from last year you will get an idea of how I have been thinking about ghosts and public history. 

News on that front: I am thinking about people’s interactions with the past through spiritual encounters. This includes things like ghost stories, the awe people may feel in the presence of historical objects, buildings or landscapes. This idealized concept of being able to connect spiritually with the past harkens back to turn-of-the-20th century Spiritualism. Though some people debate me, The Spiritualist movement gained its wide spread popularity AFTER the Civil War. It can be said however that it gained steam beforehand if you look to The Fox Sisters and stirrings across the Burned Over District (Upstate New York). I would argue these are unique cases –it was not until after the Civil War that séances became parlor tricks. 

(And I mean literally parlor- as in the room in the house where you entertain guests and tricks- as in fun things to scare your friends. So it’s 1899 you invited some friends over, you have finished up dinner and drinks, and now it is time to contact the dead. It sounds similar to a modern slumber party, even more so considering someone will probably cry and end up being taken home early. You can’t please everyone.) 

So we have the popularity of Spiritualism and séances on the rise, due in part to the massive loss of life in Civil War. Right. Large amounts of people experience unresolved death (Billy never came home, I hope he had a proper Christian burial in Virginia, and his spirit is at rest yadayada) and have a desire for closure.
 I recently read Gary Laderman’s Sacred Remains.[1] He makes the argument that the conceptual understanding of funerals changed after the Civil War from being about a community or united experience of mourning where the body was rarely seen or necessary to a more personal/spiritual experience which involved a personal viewing of the body. Laderman compares the funeral procession that took place across the Northern United States after Washington’s death to the funeral train and numerous (what we today would call..) wakes after Lincoln’s death. People wanted/needed to see Lincoln’s body, but when Washington died they did not. The body becomes an important part of the spiritual experience. The importance he sees in gazing on the body, I argue, is transferable to the objects, lands, and building associated with the dead. This would be the case in situations where the body is unable to be seen, like how we can’t see Washington or Lincoln’s body today. The inclusion of spiritual encounters pushes material objects to the side in favor of a personal experience with the past. What am I saying? People like the idea of encountering ghosts at historical sites because they desire to have a spiritual/personal relationship with the character from the past. (sound familiar…?)
So back to C.W!
It was 6:45pm and my friend and I were entirely too early for the 7:30 ghost tour. We passed the time by watching the William and Mary students jog down Duke of Gloucester Street. We debated whether the W&M students ran funny and did not understand that by running down, a not only public, but tourist laced street we would all watch and judge them as they ran like little T-Rexes, or they were putting on a very effective show.
The tour took us in two different houses, one of which we entered twice. Fashioned like a theater, seats were set-up on one side of the room leaving an open space on the other. After the entire tour group took our respective seat a women in colonial clothes would come in and perform the ghost story. Sounds weird? Performing a ghost story –your right it was. Those of us who were once children recognize a ghost story as something someone tells you (Do you see that bent up part of the cemetery gate? That is where so-and-so tried to escape” Ep!), not someone in period garb describing their encounter with a ghosts, or their being a ghosts, or…well the last one was alright more on that later.
So, its weird. The first woman comes out frantic and theater-scared. She tells us about a guy in town who killed a black boy because he had demon in him, and then she saw the demon, “now” (that would be a C.W. now) she is crazy. I am very easy to scare—the parenthetical description of the ghost story I JUST wrote freaked me out a little. This ghost story did not give me any sort of willies. Why not? It was not a 21st (or 20th) century ghost story. Interesting choice C.W. It was an 18th century ghost story lifted from court records. Which is pretty interesting. This story illustrates an 18thc understanding of women’s susceptibility to the feared spiritual world, the danger black people were in, (on top of being enslaved, the white people might think you are full of the devil and kill you), and the existence of paranormal activity in court records which tells us that the people in C.W. were uncomfortable with the mysteries of their own world (not to say we, today, are not). Neat, okay. Next.
On the second stop the C.W. actor was a ghost. Blerg. Great story though. Socially strange women gets put in “The Hospital” (see my last post on C.W.) then haunts her old house because she was locked out and very unhappy about it. Again, crazy ladies of the colonial era. That aside this woman, real life woman, use to invite people over to her house, have them hop in her carriage, and have her slaves push the carriage back and forth, jump on it, ect to simulate a ride through London. Oh, and she thought she was the Queen, used to steal her friends clothes, and then put multiple hats on and parade around town. What fun!
Last stop, featured a Scottish maid telling us a story about cannibalism in Scotland. It ended saying that she might be a cannibal whose family teaches their kin to eat people –so there might still be people eaters in C.W. (So when you go to bed at night in your C.W. hotel remember the bus boy might try and eat you…. “What’s for dinner?”… “Susan”) It was a really good work of storytelling and attempted to tie in the recent discoveries of cannibalism at Jamestown.[2]
What we learned: There were three types of women in Colonial Williamsburg: The scared, the crazy, and the hungry (who would, of course, argue for a fourth category “delicious”)
These ghost stories were, in some way or another, linked back to 18thc sources and tell us how 18thc people interacted with or understood as paranormal. These stories intended to be 18thc scary. They tell us more about the ever persistence desire of C.W. to be historically authentic. (Oh I see what you did there, you noticed the popularity of ghost stories on historical landscapes and decided to do it to, but Surprise it is C.W.! So it has to be done as if it were the 18thc).
So what does this have to do with Spiritualism at the turn-of-the 20th century? And what does this have to do with how people interact with the past through ghosts? Well you see the C.W. ghost stories were 18thc century because the concept of ghosts as we know them did not exist back then. It emerged around the TOT20C, coinciding with the emergence of spiritualism.[3] This complicates colonial ghost stories because the colonials did not believe in that sort of conceptualization of the dead in the living world. The existence of such tales is a desire to interact with the past on a spiritual level and a post Civil War construction. People want there to be colonial ghosts because they want to experience George Washington or Thomas Jefferson in person. People want them to stay; they want to reach out to their dearly departed historical figures, learn from them and become better for it.
Or not…who knows I’m working on it, I have a lot more to read.



[1] Gary Ladermen, Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Towards Death, 1799-1883. (Cambridge: Yale University Press, 1999)
[2] See this for the news on the Jamestown Cannibalism - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130501-jamestown-cannibalism-archeology-science/
[3] TOT20C –Turn of the Twentieth Century

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The National Museum of the Marine Corps



Last year at the National Museum of American History I was surprised that the museum decided to call the military action at the turn of the twentieth-century “War of Expansion.” I was not surprised because I felt differently, I was surprised that the nationally excepted (which I think we can safely assume because the museum is a NATIONAL museum) story about the turn of the century wars…you know…accurate. Now they did not make a judgment call, they did not say “this was misguided…we probably should not of done this…” but of course if they said that it might bring up issues about our current wars which is another (very very similar) bag of issues.
So flash forward (backwards?) to this afternoon. I expected to see a lot of pomp and celebratory exhibits about how great the Marines are,have been and forever will be. A place that really supported and protected the idea of the brand of masculinity that comes with marine identity and character. BUT I was surprised, for at least half of the exhibits. 
The ones that focused on  (as the Smithsonian called it) the “Wars of Expansion,” tell a story about how American economic, market, and political interests lead to the Spanish-American War,  the Philippines, South America and the like. WHAT! That does not sound so heroic? That sounds like an aggressively violent global policy. The exhibits were, as an undergrad described “a lot of reading,” but if that does not scare you away you would read paragraph length explanations of the events you would find carefully written descriptions of the wars. They explained that the wars were caused by American “envy” over European Empires, or escalated because of “greed” or “pride.” Now, it would be false to say all these terms are used in the same sentence, sign or exhibit, but they are used to describe the reasoning for the use of Marine military force and speak loudly about how we have come to understand these wars…and perhaps give us an idea of what 100 years could do to our understanding of the wars we are in now. Additionally, if you are not into reading..or you know have a “friend” who does not like to read, the paragraphs are surprisingly easy to ignore because there is a lot of gun type-collections, hats, and different kinds of uniforms to distract you.

Like Gas Masks? They got your gas masks right here…
The WWII and more recent war exhibits were more in-line with what I expected; celebratory. But no vet wants to go to a museum and made to feel bad about their service. These exhibits had more personal stories and more artifacts (guns, packs, MREs, ect), they were less intended to educate the public about the issues and more there to aid in grandpa’s stories. (ex: “See Tommy Papa used a gun just like that to shoot the bad guys.” “Oh look at this Sally, I had a pack just like that.” “Lil Jimmy look at this photo—I  use to handsome like this guy.” “Marie, come look at the tank Grandpapa drove in Nam.” You get the idea). They also help promote recruitment, these exhibits tell stories about how the Marines helped people, were brave, good, and just. It should be noted that I am not being negative, these are all necessary elements of recruitment and commemoration- however I want to point out the different ways in which the wars were explained and approached. 
Marines at Harper's Ferry...you know John Brown...

So on to the dioramas--- I don’t see a lot of dioramas used in museums anymore, but wowie were these dioramas great. Life-like wax people running, sweating, making faces, and little tiny scenes of naval battles, forced perception, painted landscape –really nice stuff. If you like dioramas this is the place to be. If overly patriotic versions of military history make you want to pluck your eyes out with the 18th century bayonet, then you’ll be fine here, no worries and if you feel so inclined there ARE bayonets for eye removal... If you want to see a lot of 20th century War paraphernalia, tanks, plains, ect, you will be happy here. If you like seeing Grandparents, again this is the place to go (old men with pin hats..oh ya they are all over the place). 
"Ooo finally something for the ladies.."

Friday, June 21, 2013

Colonial Williamsburg- Pt. 1 “For the Love of Soap”




For the past few posts I have talked about the popularity of sense in Public History, eating, smelling, touching, hearing, seeing, (and the 6th ghosts of course). This post I am going to talk about some aspects of Colonial Williamsburg. Some sensual –some not.
Before last week I had never been to Colonial Williamsburg, as a Public History student I have read quite a bit about C.W. I had a good idea of what I was about to see there –I was wrong. It could have been the recent storms, maybe some people could not make it into work?, or the general slump C.W. has experienced since 9/11, or it was the fact that my company and I decided against buying the $40+ ticket price to have the “full experience” –I have been told that C.W. carefully hides their interpretations and performances from the non-full-ticket-paying-public now after years of accidentally giving out entertainment and education for free. It is a very good possibility all three of those are true and applicable to my experience. No matter the excuses I stand by my description of C.W.  as “like a sad Renaissance fair…”
Where are the people in costume? I asked myself. Is this not the famed Duke of Gloster Street? Is this not the magical place that Handler and Gabel knocked down a few pegs? Where are the little girls dressed like American Girl Dolls? Where are the little boys with muskets terrorizing the little Feliciti? I expected a lot more, perhaps I should have paid a lot more.
BUT-What I paid for- I generally liked.
The folk arts museum is AMAZING! More ceramics than you can shake a stick at.
First:
The entrance to the folk arts museum is through the, I use this term colloquially, Insane Asylum. The Asylum consisted of three small rooms, but they were both powerful and informative. One was an 18thc patient room, complete (and by complete I mean only consisting of) a bed/pillow, blanket and chains. There were scratch drawings on the wall and a recording of a man yelling about his royalty, while, presumably, a doctor/caretaker attempted to dissuade the ranting man. In the opposite room you saw the doctor’s apartment room (it also may have been a more recent version of a patient room, I was unsure because I was rather excited), which an actual (off the floor –this was no Ordinary) bed, a desk, and a fiddle. The last room, which spanned the length of the two, featured items from the institution along a time line which split the theories of mental care up into three or four forgettable categories. The exhibit traced the emergence of a care and rehabilitation based medicine from its early beginnings as a storehouse for the socially unfit. Very interesting and very cool. It did a fine job drawing people in with the romance (perhaps spectacle?) of a mental institution and was then able to tell a story about the evolution of mental care. Blaming the past for its apparent wrong doings is far too easy, and C.W. was able to take the drama and intrigue of human suffering that attracts guests and turn into an educational experience about the history of professional mental medicine. See? Very neat.  Mental institutions are notoriously creepy places, we can all think of an abandoned one we sought to visit or avoid in our youths. C.W. used this intrigue to tell a much different story. Though the exhibit included the haunting ratings of a patient, the inclusion of the exhibit on the evolution of care de-mystified and de-demonized the people who spent all if not most of their lives chained in the hospital. Well done C.W. well done.
Second: Out of the hospital/asylum/institution exhibit we immediately descended into the Folk Arts Museum, which lay below the recreated hospital. This place also was neat. Their ceramics gallery was simply wonderful –a beautiful collection. Though we have some training in appreciating the deeper qualities in ceramics and material culture, the exhibits were just too lovely to think about. We marauded through the exhibits on ceramics, furniture, wood signs and the like as if we were shopping for sofas for our own homes. (Both “OO”s and “AAh”s were present). We did appreciate the clear explanation of the ceramics, their defining characteristics and their unique fabrications. But we had also turned our brains off and proceeded to drool over our favorite ceramics (Cauliflower and Pineapple wares 4 evah!). 

We spent the remained of our day walking through C.W. looking for anything really. Our museum ticket included a tour of the house the Rockafellars stayed in –which was literally horrifyingly boring. Stay away ye be warned. We perused the stores, and smelled the soaps, and smelled the soaps, and smelled the soaps, and smelled the soaps, and then bought all the soaps. Though the streets of Colonial Williamsburg are sprinkled with horse shit (road apples if you like) the assortments of sweet smelling soaps and herb gardens successfully masked the order of freshly trodden previously planted poo. Authenticity! Right? If you go to C.W. and don’t complain about the shit smell you are kidding yourself, and you pretend ability to not to notice or care about it will only make you look pretentious. Inappropriately pretentious at that, are we to think you are better because you DON’T mind the shit smell, well good for you, I bet that opens a lot of door in your career.
We soon ventured into the modern side of town for early dinner at the Cheese Shop and coffee. We went into all the stores and picked up some books, patches…soap, Touristy things. Then we wondered over to C.W. to take part in our trip’s main event –the reason we drove to C.W. from Fredericksburg, you thinks its soap, but it was not.( though we did buy soap at this point in the day) Our official Colonial Williamsburg Ghost Tour “Ghosts Among Us” was slated to start at 7pm
To be continued….

Thursday, June 20, 2013

St. Mary’s City




The sun sits closer to the earth at St. Mary’s City. In all my experiences there it is hot place. Hotter than hot. The kind of weather that makes me, a Floridian citizen, think “My god it is warm here.” It is not quite a swelter but the air moves when it wants to, which is to say not that often.  I imagine St. Mary’s City is not boiling during the winter, fall, and spring months, but it is now summer so molecules are moving and the air is sizzling. This is a fact of life; this is a fact of St. Mary’s City. Which I consider one of my favorite summer field trips.
St. Mary’s City is simply wonderful. And when I went a few weeks ago my experience became exponentially better….I got sit in on tours for school children. What an excellent opportunity to experience public history in action-- And because I went with the USF Ferry Farm Field School Students, my advisor and my USF/GEWA Forensic Anthropology co-workers the air was ripe for conversation. (The air was also hot, stale, and slightly musty)
For background- St. Mary’s City was Maryland’s original capitol, it was Catholic but notably religiously diverse. (and racially if you happen to read their place marker celebrating the first Black person in Maryland..yes that exists). Fast forward- Since the 1970’s St. Mary’s City has hosted many archeological field schools. There are a lot of reconstructed buildings, some of them filled with objects, settings, and other fun building accompaniments, others are wooden structures, outlines of buildings, like a stick drawing. (It creates a peculiar but not upsetting visual landscape). There are farm animals, tobacco fields, and a ship, a rather neat ship. There is also a building with an uncovered dig site in it, that is phenomenally neat, but we did not hit it this time around so I will not talk about- but trust me it’s neat.
Alright, School Tours at St. Mary’s City

We sat in the Ordinary (basically colonial motel) for three tours, each lead by a different guide. The first tour guide explained how the accommodations in the Ordinary were better than sleeping outside. You can imagine seven year old being turned off by the idea of sleeping in a “rustic” motel, on a mat on the floor with other guests. Naturally the guide capitalized on the well trodden idea that the past was a hard place to live in, and we have it just so freaking sweet now.
Now that’s what I take issue with.  Tour guides (not just one) like to play up the idea of how hard life was “back then”, but they fail to realize or teach the children that this was a good system, and it worked for many years (decades).
  Sleeping on the floor, yea that works, this was pretty nice for them. We don’t need to talk about “they did not know any better than to think sleeping on the floor was okay,” because 17th/18th c people knew it was okay to sleep on the floor, it was okay it was normal.
 I don’t think we need to explain the past to children in comparison, honestly we don’t need to teach them to compare themselves to others, especially when you expect them to feel superior to others. The goal here is not to have the children think “Wow I am SO much better than these colonial folks, I am so lucky.” No no no, their worked, this was the good stuff. AND people still live this way. People still share bedrolls and sleep on the floor. It is not hard to see that guides are creating a continuum in the children’s mind where they see themselves as an evolved form of Marylanders. “Early Marylanders slept on the floor with strangers I don’t, I’m better, I’m better off” or worse “I could not do this, this is impossible for anyone to handle this type of living, how odd, how quaint” (though they would prob. not say quaint). The people who grew up in the colonies knew, understood and lived within this system, this was life, this was normal this worked, it was not hard, it was normal, it was life.  There are plenty of problems with our society now that we are encouraged to ignore in favor of comparing ourselves to a past we cannot possibly fully comprehend. We are not perfect we are not the society perfected from the past’s mistakes, we are just as messed up as we can cast the past as.
Now let’s take this one step further-let’s go there. Together.
So what is meant when a dichotomy is created between the living conditions in St. Mary’s City historical recreations and 2013 school students? Well you are saying people don’t live like this now. (I say) Oh but they do! So what does this say of the people who live this way? It says they are not civilized, they are behind. Jeepers! Why do people not live like this now?  Why don’t we share beds, and space with strangers. Who else shares space with strangers, communal living….oh communism Eek! Thank God we are live in the fully evolved capitol world that is the US of A!
All sarcasm aside, the image that is portrayed in the interpretation of colonial spaces as subpar is generally false. The people who occupied these spaces did not see them as half-decent replacements for the wilderness. Ordinarys like the one in St.  Mary’s City were frequented by the people who were able to stay there, not the desperate. And it was not unpleasant, it was normal, it may have been nice. We as the comparative future should not look down upon the past in pity, they were doing just fine, they survived that is why we are here to dig up their trash, faun over their stuff, and talk crap about their living conditions.
Other things about St. Mary’s City
            Best Smelling Gift Shop! And that is not a direct comparison to the pigs I had saw before going in the gift shop. The store smelled clean and wonderful, independent from prior smells.
No one is around when you go into the recreated historical buildings. You can, as long as no one is around to tell you “no”, touch EVERYTHING! When do you get this opportunity! Touch it, smell it, trying it on. I love it. The past is sensual at St. Mary’s City.