As a person working in a local museum who has had disaster preparation and recovery training, I think a lot about the safety of our collections. There are items in our museum that cannot be replaced because they are one-of-a-kind. Two Bandolier Bags & a Ledger The two Ojibwe bandolier bags are such items. One of them was gifted by Chief Shab-osh-kung to Nathan Richardson for Nate’s legal work against timber thieves on behalf of…
In my post “Making a Bucket List of History,” I mentioned taking “regular nostalgia trips through my collections of photos, books, music, fiber arts supplies and projects, and my writing notebooks.” When it comes to nostalgia trips, most of them arise in a haphazard fashion. People will be going about their business and something, be it a place or a sound or a scent or a phrase or an artifact, will instantly send them packing…
When I started The Pragmatic Historian, I knew there were plenty of other pragmatic historians out there using history for practical purposes and I wanted to be able to feature some of them here, either through guest posts or interviews. My wish has come true. This guest post, which draws on history from the days of the U.S. Revolutionary War, was written by David Grabitske. I’ve known David for probably 20 years, meeting him through…
The Origin of the Bucket List It can be difficult to pin down the origins of terms that arise in the popular culture. Such is the case with the term “bucket list,” which has come to mean a list of things you want to do before you die. Slate’s June Thomas tried to follow the trail of the term in her 2011 article, but needed to add an update to it in May 2015. Apparently,…
As a longtime museum worker who has observed many children within a museum setting over the years and the parent of 3 adult children who all show an interest in various aspects of history and love visiting museums, I have a few insights about how to cultivate an interest in history in children. For your convenience (and to play nicely with Google’s algorithms), I present these insights in list form, however none of them is…