Western Reserve History through Place: Journal 3

January 27, 2011

After the Natural History Museum, it was going to be hard to be back in a classroom again. But, Dr. Stith had some great power-points that explored the Fur Trade and the Revolutionary War period in NEO. Mr. Fagan provided a great introduction to early building style in Ohio, and I am anticipating getting a chance to explore architectural history further. Ned at Landmarks said it well, "learning architecture is only accomplished when you start the journey exploring what you are drawn to first". Otherwise it's a bunch of geometry. Appling social history to architectural developments is why I am into preservation. I love being able to say, see that style, this is where it came from, and this is why we like it!

I am a believer that we don't randomly do things. We may not understand our reasoning at the time, but somewhere deep in our psyche is reason. Education is the process by which we explore the unknown, and we gain insight through this process. I am interested to see my knowledge of the built and natural environment grow, and I am more than happy to write about what I figure out!

Making connections is what it is all about.

I am interested to explore architectural remains, and gain a better clarity about how we can better preserve them. Again, I feel that we should be embracing as much knowledge as possible, and avoid limiting ourselves to certain disciplines.

My main critique about specializations is the limiting quality that it can have on a scholar. Sure, you may know every style known to man, but can you explain the purpose behind these creations? Can you apply historic context? Personally, I am working on this specialty. I love the digging, and I love a good puzzle. I would still like to analyze American architecture in ethnic enclaves. Do we really reflect puritanical England in most of our architecture, or is the more to the story? How much does our education impact our ability to read the cultural landscape? For example, do we see puritanical England everywhere, when perhaps there is something else happening? Something a little bit different, and uniquely American?

Western Reserve History through Place: Journal 2

January 22, 2011

Field trip to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Awesome! For me, getting the chance to go to the Natural History Museum without my children is a dream. Normally, I am jumping around from dinosaurs to woodlands creature displays and back again. I don't typically get a chance to reflect on any of the material. I do get a chance to inspire my children, and my eldest son is really excited and interested in everything… so it's a good feeling to provide your children with such a luxury. Indeed, living in Cleveland is a great opportunity, and I feel privileged to have so many distinct and great cultural resources to share with them.

Growing up in Sandusky we may be made it each museum once, spread out over our primary school years, and I was lucky to have a parent interested in the arts, who brought me to establishments more often than what most school children in the city experienced. Sandusky had two museums, when I was growing up, one being the cultural center at the High School, and the other being a house museum. There was never the push for excelling in school, nor did the course requirements really ask that much from the students. By my sophomore of high school, I was a bored student, who would gladly draw cartoons, and get thrown out of class for daydreaming. I always loved history and science, but since I wasn't in the "accelerated" class (which was determined in first grade by the way), I was not expected to excel in anything. We had unchallenging criteria, but most of my classmates were still either failing out of school or just passing. My grades were all over the place, and I had a "C" average thanks to ranging grades. Luckily, my sophomore history teacher cared, and he took interest in his students, not just their grades, or his marks as an educator for that matter. He saw that I was bored, and he asked if I wanted extra assignments. Extra assignments! I was excited to have a challenge. He assigned me additional reading, and thus begun my career in academia. I remember reading Candid, and I remember finding the paper I wrote some years later. I constantly think back to this teacher, and mentally thank him for showing interest in my intellect. He helped me test into the "accelerated" level for my junior year, and in turn, helped me accomplish my undergraduate and now graduate degrees.

Back to the Natural History Museum, and my amazement at the levels of amazing-ness held within its walls and beyond. While I intuitively love the place, I had no idea the level of prestige attached to it. I am continued pleased to find out little factoids about the Cleveland area and its institutions. We are really lucky to be here, and I am so enthused to have it to share with my children.

The most impactful part of our field trip to the museum was discussing the early native peoples of Ohio. I am a full blooded American, meaning, I have a little bit of everything, but one of those ethnic backgrounds is Seneca. I grew up wrongly identifying my native heritage as Cherokee, but learned around fifteen that I was actually Seneca, from the Iroquois Nation. I found the exhibits informative, and the exhibits really provided an enriching learning experience. I am a visual person, so having models and sketches of villages to back up what Dr. Stith and Mr. Fagan were saying… really enhanced the experience. I was really interested to see the fortifications of early villages, and it is interesting to couple that with the geography of the area. It is fascinating to see how we adapt our built environment to the natural surroundings. I am deeply fascinated in the movement of early peoples to that of our current culture. It is pretty dramatic to see how we adapt natural resources, how industrialization changed this connection to nature, and how we are now struggling to reacquaint ourselves to the simplest of concepts.

I would like more of an opportunity to work with pre-history, and then to be able to apply this to the built environment. I am someone who is always wonder, what else? What else haven't I learned, and what else could I explore? I love to feel like a kid again, figuring out something, and advancing my knowledge.

Western Reserve History through Place: Journal 1

January 20, 2011

Western Reserve History through Place is co-taught by Dr. Bari Stith and Nick Fagan. Dr. Stith specializes in Ohio History, and Mr. Fagan is a graduate of Kent State University with dual Master Degree's in Architecture and Library Science. This course will substitute for Historic Preservation's required course, Issues. I feel that this course will provide me with the time to dedicate to both mastering Western Reserve history and Architectural history specific to the region. Both of these areas will build my capability as a preservationist, and the course will provide me with the pieces of specific Ohio history that I have not had in over fifteen years. I feel that is both imperative as a historian and preservationist to understand your region, and I am lucky to be able to participate in such a course that addresses this directly.

Our first course was a basic introduction to the course and its syllabus. Dr. Stith furthered the class, by beginning pre-history in Ohio, and initiating conversation about history and culture theory. I found the discussion about the Wisconsin Glacier extremely informative. One aspect of my studies that I have wanted to develop is my knowledge about regional history and evolution of the built environment. In my position with AmeriCorps, I complete historic inventories and direct surveys. In writing my survey summaries, I have felt limited in my ability to convey the natural resources affect on the built environment. Yes I have understood the impacts of waterways, and such, on the development of transportation routes, but I have no yet had the time to dedicate to further researching this topic.

In my undergraduate studies, I did take some natural sciences, and geology was one of these courses. That specific course did not touch on pre-history, and I feel that this would have made a dramatic impact on my scholarship sooner. I feel it is rather a moot point to discuss riverbeds, if the development of those riverbeds is never discussed. I understand there is a limited amount of time, but a quick footnote doesn't take an eternity. Now that I have this information, I will be able to better illustrate how natural resources affect the built environment, and I will be better able to advise interested individuals into performing research.

Here is a link about Ohio Soils in Relation to Glacial Impact: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1289

Here is a very limited source about the Wisconsinan Glacier: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2893&nm=Wisconsinan-Glacier

Here is a link that shows a natural resource of a glacial ridge: http://www.metroparks.net/ParksGlacierRidge.aspx

Here is a detail source with decent maps showing historic receding of glacier and creation of great lakes: http://seagrant.wisc.edu/glaciers/

One Issue I picked out of the presentation is merely the lack of application pre-history has on contemporary preservation. I feel that we should insert more of this knowledge into preservation articles and standards. It is really interesting to see how dramatically natural resources do affect the built environment, and I was really inspired by this session. It is really interesting to see how we are taught that different disciplines are so disparate, but in fact, archeology and preservation do feed off one another.