by Chuck Arning
Traditional Nipmuc drumming captivates the crowd on Grafton Common in commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the establishment of John Eliot’s second praying village at Hassanamesit. Photo by Don Clark / Grafton News.
History can make its presence known in just about any public space. Consider the commotion on Grafton Common in Massachusetts. It seems that in May of 1654, the general court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony approved John Eliot’s request for an Indian praying village at Hassanamesit (Grafton, Massachusetts). Centuries later, the discovery that the original landscape, still wooded, was up for sale brought an unusual coalition together to ensure that this rare and significant landscape would be preserved forever. Some remarkable archaeology has discovered that the Nipmuc presence continued on this landscape well into the 19th century, long after the Nipmuc people were thought to have vanished. The celebration of the preservation of the praying village at Hassanamesit was a result of many hours of community members getting together, forging new relationships, doing some of the tough work of overcoming old history, and making new history.
A traditional Calumet Pipe ceremony opened the celebration, then the story of Hassanamesit (as it relates to the 17th century as well as its importance here in the 21st century) came to life through storytelling, singing of the Bay Psalms, and native Nipmuc drumming. A people long denied their identity was now part of a modern-day community willing to embrace their story and build on it. Sharing stories and spaces, often difficult ones, can still manage to bring diverse communities together.
Not in My House!
On Monday Night Football, you often hear the chant by the hometown crowd, “Not in my house!” In the world of history, cultural heritage, and natural resource sites, this chant is all too familiar. Heritage interpreters tend to get a little territorial when it comes to telling what they think of as their story. (It’s our house; it’s our story and we’re the ones telling it. Period.)
In the world of public history, at innovative sites, particularly in heritage areas, that old model of “Not in My House” is being tipped on its head. Not only are stories being shared, but the places where they are told are shared spaces with a variety of voices telling the story. How did this happen? How was it possible to not only open interpretive sites to multiple stories, but to multiple perspectives as well? And what management strategies and practices have contributed to this change in behavior?
Heritage areas were designated by Congress as “large-scale, community-centered initiatives focusing on conservation and historic preservation that required collaboration across political jurisdictions to protect nationally important landscapes and living cultures.” Managed locally, the goal was to preserve the physical character, memories, and stories of the area that were representative of our national experience. This was not an easy task. There were difficult barriers to break down; often these same communities were in direct and contentious competition for limited resources, new markets, and workers. Different perspectives were common, though not all were given equal airing.
Yet somehow, through a variety of partnerships initiated by innovative interpreters and leaders, these individuals began to see how sharing their stories and their sites made their stories richer and their sites stronger, more relevant to their audiences. So, how did all of this happen?
First, it is important to acknowledge that the world, as we know it, has changed. Numbers of visitors to interpretive sites have been declining, and the reasons are not just a bad economy, high gas prices, 9/11, or some unique local culprit. It has far more to do with changes in how we process information and how we, here in the 21st century, learn. Now, this is not my great analytical skills at work, but rather the thoughtful reflections of Cary Carson, the recently retired vice president of the research division at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
In a November 2008 article in The Public Historian: A Journal of Public History, Carson talks about three major changes in how visitors view their museum experience. They are:
- Visitors want to be transported back in time to experience history first hand.
- Once effectively back in time, they no longer want to be just spectators, but participants, fully engaged with the historical figures, both common and well known, of the day.
- It is the storytelling that they come for—not just to be back in time, not just to be participants meeting the people of the day, but to be engaged in the story.
While the development of new technologies certainly plays a role, the fact is that learning has evolved. For those of us who grew up in the Vietnam era, watching the nightly news brought us right from the comfort of our living rooms into the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta. It changed us and changed how we processed information forever. Not only did we feel like we were there, we acted as if we were. The intimacy of the nightly news gave us a view of the world that provoked many into action. The moment energized us through the evolution of technology and a strong story.
My understanding of what the bottom line is for Cary Carson is that storytelling (something all interpreters do) “is the powerful medium in which learning takes place.” While that is not terribly revolutionary, there are many places where good stories are being told but visitation is still dropping. So what gives? How do interpretive sites incorporate the other aspects of Carson’s three-legged stool (transportation back in time, participation, and story) into the equation? And how does this connect to the concept of interpreters telling stories at multiple sites as a means to engage the public?
Program at the Old Mill
The engineered landscape of ascending mill dams and mill ponds surrounded by mill villages is the dominant characteristic of America’s early industrialization found throughout the Blackstone Valley. Photo by Tom Saupe/Alternatives Unlimited, Inc.
The answer is that sometimes success derives from simply trying new approaches and through today’s buzz-word, partnerships. My organization, the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, participated in an event that illustrates this point.
This past fall, various states developed programs to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the foreign slave trade. In Massachusetts, a program initiated by the Mass Foundation for the Humanities, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, promoted screenings of the highly acclaimed documentary Traces of the Trade. The documentary chronicles members of the DeWolfe family as they explore their family’s history, focused on their ancestor’s involvement in the largest slave-trading dynasty in the United States. The documentary traces their journey of awareness back to Africa. It is powerful material.
The focus of Blackstone River Valley NHC’s program on the abolition of slavery was to discuss the business of slavery as it was connected to the Massachusetts economy prior to the Civil War. The key was not just to show “Traces of the Trade,” but to provoke people to consider the issues of how elements of the Northern economy participated in the slave trade through a discussion that talked about slavery, manufacturing, and individual awareness.
The goal was to bring people to a site where strong visuals help convey a sense of place. We wanted to involve as many partners as possible. As a heritage corridor, the Blackstone River Valley NHC does not own any buildings or land. The site works through partnerships to tell the industrial history of our nation as it is revealed here in the Blackstone Valley. The landscape of the mills and mill villages is still a prominent feature of the valley’s landscape.
Blackstone River Valley NHC has more than 23 years of experience with working in partnerships, so both the Northbridge Historical Society and the Worcester Historical Museum were eager to sign up. We needed a historical industrial site where a National Park Service ranger could do a walking tour of the area prior to viewing the film. Such a site wasn’t difficult to find, because the heritage corridor had just assisted, along with many others, Alternatives Unlimited, Inc., in the restoration of an old mill. Alternatives Unlimited offers a spectrum of residential and vocational services to people with developmental and psychiatric disabilities. The company’s mode of operation is to focus on what we have in common, not about what separates us. Such thinking makes them an ideal partner. Its site has a theater and a meeting area, and is located right on the Mumford River, a major tributary of the Blackstone with a dam and a restored 1826 brick mill with a foundation that includes remnants of a late 1700s foundry. It was pretty clear that this was the place to tell this story.
Alternatives Unlimited was eager to bring members of a much broader community to its site (part of how partnerships can work). On a cold, late fall Saturday afternoon, 36 people joined me as I led a fairly typical walking tour of the mill and mill village. The story that we wanted to tell connected the foundry, where, during the embargoes of 1807 and 1809, heavy hoes and scythes were made and sold directly to Southern plantation owners for use by their slaves.The capital raised from their entrepreneurial efforts then allowed the Whitin family to build a cotton textile mill, now the restored 1826 Red Brick Mill.
With refreshments in hand, seated comfortably in the theater, the group watched the film. The film is powerful. It elicits emotions from those involved in the film as well as those seated in the audience. Following the film, we were fortunate to have an animated discussion facilitated by professor Seth Rockman of Brown University. The group recognized that 21st-century values do not always translate to a 19th-century world. Viewers were struck that slavery was one of the factors that contributed to America’s transition into a manufacturing powerhouse. Modern-day visitors to this site had the opportunity to discuss difficult, sensitive issues in a restored historic mill where these long-ago events played out. Participation, sound partnerships, and planning made the program memorable. Participants talked about what they had experienced. It clearly impacted them. Participation, however, was the key. I think Cary Carson just might be on to something.
Visitors Benefit from Partnerships
Dr. Stephen Mrozowski demonstrates the significance of finding an urban drainage system at the homestead of Peter Muckamuag and his wife Sarah Robbins, clear evidence that the Nipmuc presence upon the landscape goes well into the 19th century. Photo courtesy National Park Service / Blackstone River Valley NHC.
What else draws people out to experience something new? Sometimes traditional approaches in a new environment can work incredibly well, such as telling stories in someone else’s house, or in this case, yard. The Worcester (Massachusetts) Historical Museum is in the process of moving its museum to an old mill site and joining with the Worcester County Visitor’s Bureau and the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, to create a fun, informational museum site. However, in these difficult times, raising the $32 million needed to establish the museum is no easy task. So while the shovels may not be breaking ground soon, it doesn’t mean the site cannot be of value for visitors. The challenge was to promote awareness that this future museum site was going to be a special place. Interesting things will happen here. You and your family will want to be a part of it.
So, what about developing a traveling ranger campfire program where various partners (that important word again) use the very traditional ranger campfire to tell a wide range of stories right at the future site of the new museum? Sounds like fun and it was. People, regardless of where they live, love campfires. Urban dwellers face a more difficult challenge in finding opportunities for campfires, so when the opportunity arises for visitors to bring lawn chairs and blankets to sit around a campfire, who wouldn’t want to go?
The real beauty here is that these sites are not limited to stories of history alone, as fascinating as they may be. Public history partnership bases can include a wide range of stories and organizations that can best tell those stories. Cary Carson’s basic point was that people love a good story. So, we pulled together a fantastic group of storytellers from the Worcester City Public Library, the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, the New England Regional Indian Council, an actress from the Foothills Theatre, and a National Park Service ranger to tell some stories on a hot August evening, right in front of the old mill where the new museum and visitor center was soon to be. Visitors were thoroughly entertained. And, even more amazing, the campfire turned into a cooking fire, so marshmallows and s’mores were had by all.
Successful programs result from sharing. All of the organizations involved in the program could have easily told their stories at their own sites, but they knew that by joining forces and sharing a space, they could make a bigger impact, from a program perspective as well as a family one. Crowds now have a reason to visit the library to find more cool stories, or to visit Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary to learn more about the horrible dangers of the Asian longhorned beetle (talk about chilling Halloween stories), or visit the next pow-wow of the New England Regional Indian Council. These partnerships benefit visitors and organizations alike. It is all about sharing stories and sharing spaces.
The essence of sharing stories at other people’s houses is that everyone benefits. It fosters relationships and interpretive opportunities that enhance the efforts of all the participants. Importantly, it brings together all the elements that enrich the visitor experience because it brings together all the groups that do public history. Partnerships create great visitor experiences through collective wisdom, collective creativity, and collective ability to pool resources. Visitors will discover that once-familiar sites are overflowing with many stories and will return again and again because excitement happens there. Fun activities, provocative reflection, and good stories that are well told can be the mainstay of a high-quality site that simply provides a space to create a shared experience that the visiting public wants.
Many sites will struggle trying to make this happen, but collectively, the richness of our resources, the diversity and vitality of our shared stories, and the wonderful, diverse spaces that we now have available to us will make these sites places where visitors want to come again and again.
For More Information
National Park Service. “What’s A Corridor?” John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. Online at www.nps.gov/blac/parkmgmt /whats-a-corridor.htm.
Carson, Cary. (2008).The End of Museums: What is Plan B? The Public Historian: A Journal of Public History, 30. National Council of Public History and the University of California Press.
Chuck Arning is a National Park Service Ranger at the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.
