Alumni Voices: Jessie Swigger, Associate Professor, Western Carolina University
Last summer, UT AMS alum Jessie Swigger put out a book called History is Bunk about the historical development of the Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. We recently spoke to Jessie, who is currently teaching at in the history department at Western Carolina University, about the book and her time at UT.Can you tell us a little bit about your book, History is Bunk, and how you came to the project?My interest in public history started when I took Steve Hoelscher's Place and Memory course. My research paper in that course formed the basis of my Master's Report. After comps, I knew that I wanted to continue to work with Steve Hoelscher and to grapple with issues of place, memory, and history.It was around this time that I took a trip to Detroit, where I visited Henry Ford's outdoor history museum Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. I had read about Ford's project and knew that it was one of America's first outdoor history museums, but was struck by what seemed to be its unique landscape. The village mixes replicas and preserved buildings from across the country. Among the many buildings, Henry Ford's birthplace, the Wright brothers' cycle shop, and a replica of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory populate the space along with two brick slave cabins from Georgia, a tenement farmer's house, and a Cotswold cottage from England; an eclectic group of structures, to be sure. I was also surprised that so many people were eager to visit a museum that celebrated Ford given Detroit's economic struggles. I wanted to understand the village and it became the focus of my dissertation.Contrary to my initial reaction to the village, I found that in many ways Henry Ford's conception of preservation was not atypical. Instead, Ford's approach was similar to nineteenth century preservationists who defined the activity broadly. Preservation might mean, for example, creating a replica. The village's interpretation of the past was, however, clearly linked to Ford's own complex, and at times contradictory worldview. The village's history after Ford's death also proved fascinating. New administrators tried to maintain Ford's vision while continuing to attract new audiences. Throughout the village's history, administrators tracked visitor reactions to the site. Using journals written by guides, marketing surveys, and internal reports, I was able to consider how visitors encountered the village and how their responses informed the site¹s interpretive programming. Finally, the archives showed how the site's marketing approach and interpretation were entangled with the history of the Detroit metro area. My book is a substantial revision of my dissertation and uses the village as a case study to examine the many contexts that shape history museums.How is the work that you're doing right now, as a scholar or a teacher or both, informed by the work that you did as a student in American Studies at UT?My approach to teaching is influenced by the work I did at UT as an undergraduate and graduate student. As an undergraduate I took Main Currents with Mark Smith and as a graduate student I was a teaching assistant for Julia Mickenberg, Janet Davis, and Elizabeth Engelhardt. I still have my notes from all of these courses and have consulted them many, many times when writing my own lectures. We are also extraordinarily lucky that our program allows graduate students to design and teach their own courses. I still use much of the material that I developed during my time as an assistant instructor.Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for students in our department about how to get the most out of their time here?The AMS Department does a great job of offering graduate students professional development opportunities. Take advantage of these. Take time to talk to faculty about how they approach research, teaching, and service. These conversations may not help you the next day, but will prove invaluable as you start your career. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there professionally--attend talks, work on publications, present at conferences, and definitely attend all happy hours.
Announcement: The winter edition of The End of Austin is here!
The End of Austin is back in action with its Winter 2015 edition, which features articles, photographs, and video on chicken shit bingo, the light rail, Plaza Saltillo, and lots of other Austin-y things. In case you haven't heard, The End of Austin is an award-winning digital humanities project based in the Department of American Studies at UT that explores urban identity in Austin. This edition features an article on the Colorado River and water in Austin by UT AMS alumnus Andrew Busch and an article by PhD candidate Brendan Gaughen on Dazed and Confused.
Check it all out here!
Undergrad Research: Postcards from Texas
We love to feature student work here on AMS :: ATX, and today we are pleased to direct your attention to a project by Dr. Steve Hoelscher's Spring 2014 Intro to American Studies class, Postcards from Texas. We mentioned this project previously here on the blog, and we're thrilled to show you its latest iteration. The Postcards project is a blog that features photographs and text created by students that reflect on various concepts--previously the American Dream, and this time around, mobility--and what they might mean today.
Here is a description of the project from the Postcards website:
Over the past couple of years, undergraduate students in Prof. Steven Hoelscher’s Introduction to American Studies class at the University of Texas at Austin researched competing notions of American identity in a two-step project. Beginning with the inspirational model of Magnum Photos ongoing Postcards from America series, students were asked to explore one segment of the U.S. visually, through photography. First, each student considered a complex cultural phenomenon—“the American Dream” in 2012 and “Mobility” in 2014. Second, students then recorded their thoughts in the form of a photographic image in Texas. In these original photographs—and in the detailed, unedited captions that accompany them—the extraordinary range of how American cultural life is envisioned comes into full view.What follows are visual documents of the hope and confidence that often come naturally to college students, but also, in many cases, an equal recognition of life’s injustices and uncertainties. A composite, multifaceted picture of modern America emerges from these photographs: of idealism and pragmatism, the political left and political right, acquisitiveness and a rejection of materialism, arguments for traditional family values and LGBT rights, conformity and insurgency. Together, these postcards from Texas—of cotton fields and strip malls, millionaires and homeless men, junkyards and mansions—complicate glib calls for an unproblematically unified America. They also demonstrate the creative energy and thoughtfulness that has always been central to “the American dream”—whatever it means – and to American mobility.
Announcement: Foodways Texas Joins UT AMS!
American Studies is happy to announce the recent addition of Foodways Texas to our department! As many of you know, Foodways Texas and AMS have worked together for a few years now. AMS Ph.D. candidate Marvin Bendele is the Foodways Texas executive director, and our very own Elizabeth Engelhardt serves on their executive board.
Foodways Texas is an organization founded by scholars, chefs, journalists, restaurateurs, farmers, ranchers, and other citizens of the state of Texas who have made it their mission to preserve, promote and celebrate the diverse food cultures of Texas. By joining and supporting Foodways Texas, you become part of a movement to preserve the vibrant foodways of Texas through oral history projects, documentary films, recipe collections, and scholarly research. Foodways Texas highlights the state’s distinctive foods and food cultures at their annual symposium, supporting educational food-based seminars, promoting local food networks, and partnering with universities and other non-profit organizations to educate future generations about Texas food histories, cultures, and emerging trends.They have also worked closely with other centers on campus, like the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, which houses their oral history archive--a growing collection of oral histories, documentary footage, menus, advertisements, cookbooks, and other ephemera from farmers, ranchers, chefs, pitmasters, and restaurant owners from around the state. Several of the interviews were done by members of the AMS community, and they are available online here. Foodways Texas has already released four short documentaries and will show new films at the upcoming conference.This year's symposium, Farm to Market 2014, will be held from March 20 to 22 in College Station. Scholars and professionals will gather to discuss Texas crops, the history of Texas markets, urban farming, and farm labor, among other topics; as well as eat some very delicious and educational food. Foodways Texas also holds biannual barbecue camps in College Station in January and June of each year. Unfortunately, June's upcoming camp is already sold out. As we all know, Austin judges barbecue by length of wait-time, making the barbecue camp the greatest in the state.In honor of our new addition, go forth and snack!