Site Visit Projects, History 121 and 122
Your site visit essay project must be based on an actual visit to a historic site. To prepare your essay you should research the background of the events or persons surrounding the site. How you choose to focus your essay will depend upon the site you choose. For example, if you select the Jefferson, Lincoln or FDR Memorial on the Mall, your research would include learning more about the person whose historic contributions are celebrated at the site. For something like the World War II Memorial or Gettysburg, you would want to narrow your focus, as those topics are large. It is always a good idea to visit the web site of the place you intend to visit in advance so that you will know what to look for. Use the links below and others you find through Google, etc.
For this essay you should get background from the assigned text and documents as appropriate and do extra research as needed. You should include in your source list the date of your visit. Your essay should give a brief description of the site (not too detailed, as I have visited almost all of them), but most important, you should describe what struck you as interesting. You might address the following:
Most important, your essay should be about your own subjective response to the site. I encourage you to take pictures and collect any information that may be available in the form of handouts, brochures, etc. You may include pictures with your essay if you wish.
To get a perspective on this, here is an exchange from an interview with James McPherson, one of our finst Civil War historians:
Q: Shelby Foote says he wouldn't dare write about a battle unless he'd gone to the battlefield. There's something almost transporting about seeing the topography and sensing the air and the atmosphere.
A: I've had that experience, too. I do have that experience every time I go to a Civil War battlefield. It's not only the topography. When people are describing Shiloh, for example, [they] say that they are aware of the ghosts there. There is a kind of emotional empathy with the people who fought and died there that you can't really experience unless you go physically to the place. It's not something that can be rationally explained. It's a kind of psychological bonding that one achieves through the physical presence of actually being there.
The most powerful example of it that I ever saw was back in 1987, when I took students, Princeton undergraduates, to Gettysburg, as I've done many times. And one of them was a young woman who had written her senior thesis with me that year, on Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who was the commander of the Twentieth Maine at Little Round Top and the subject of the novel Killer Angels and the movie Gettysburg. He's now one of the great icons and heroes of Civil War buffs. Anyway, we went in May after the senior thesis had been turned in. We walked the route that the 15th Alabama had used when it attacked Little Round Top and attacked the 20th Maine. And when we got to the 20th Maine Monument at Little Round Top, she broke down in tears. And so did several other people. The emotional empathy that she experienced, and obviously others did too, really overcame her. And I've seen it happen at other times as well
As most of you are probably in the Northern Virginia-Washington DC area, there is much to choose from, much of it in Washington itself. You could spend several hours on the Mall in Washington and observe a number of interesting historic memorials: The Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, World War II Memorial, and Korean War Memorial. Also in the Mall area is the Smithsonian Institution, including the National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Archives and the National Museum of the American Indian. Part of the Smithsonian also includes the new Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport. If you visit the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court or take a tour of the White House, you will get a strong sense of American history as well. Many other attractions in Washington are suitable for site visits, including the Holocaust Museum, the Frederick Douglass home, Ford's Theater, the DAR Constitution Hall, and the Library of Congress and Arlington House and Cemetery.
Note: The National Museum of American History has been closed for renovation until 2008. Many of their exhibits will be displayed elsewhere, including other parts of the Smithsonian in Washington. See the Museum web site for more information.
Here are a few links to historic sites in and around Virginia. (Note: A Google search will give you additional web sites.)
Sites in Washington, DC
Outside of Virginia, of course, are hundreds of museums and memorials on all the major topics of modern American history. (More links TBA)
Pennsylvania
The Carolinas
Historic Sites by State
If you are not in the Northern Virginia area, you have two choices. You can find a site on your own for your site visit project, or I can help you locate one. Below are some starting points to help you find a historic location to visit.
The state capitol buildings often contain extensive materials and exhibits on the history of the state, and many are new history museums. Also, state capital cities often have historic museums and visitors' centers that can steer you to interesting historic locations in the capital city or in the state.
San Antonio, Texas. The Alamo, River Walk, Imax Theater, and other attractions.
MORE TBA