Today’s post is by historian and guest writer David Grabitske, who is the Site Manager for the Landmark Inn, a site owned by the Texas Historical Commission. Cliffhangers of History I remember the summer of 1980. I was 10 and it was the last summer my family lived in Maryland. The previous summer the family had gone to Ocean City, Maryland, on a premium of a time share company. The catch was the family had…
Historians are explorers. Their terrain is the past, Vast, deep, complicated. Their tools: Archival materials, Three-dimensional artifacts, Places and structures. Their discoveries are wondrous, Though-provoking, Potentially dangerous, Life-changing. They collect the past, Analyze it, And bring it into the present, So that it remains useful Now And into the future. Historians reanimate the dead. >>> Want adventure? Become a historian!
This post is likely to ruffle a few feathers. Let’s ruffle away, shall we? (If you are a donor to museum collections and you’d like to avoid the ruffling, see the caveat at the end of this post.) “If You Don’t Take It, It Will End Up in a Landfill” I can’t tell you how many times people who’ve donated items for museum collections have said, “If you don’t take it, it will end up…