history museums pragmatic historian

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – Reexamining Stereotypes Through Historical Details

Over the weekend I watched “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” on Netflix. This is the new Coen Brothers movie that they call an anthology because it contains six unrelated stories. Well, except they are related in that they are all westerns and feature death and lonely people. As I don’t know where I’m going to end up with this post, I’m giving you a SPOILER ALERT right now. If this is a movie you want…

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history pragmatic historian

Where Historic Buildings Go to Die

A few weeks ago, my husband and I met up with friends for a social evening out. During the course of conversation, our friends told us about a visit they had paid to a site that had many historic buildings — not a historic site because all these buildings had been moved to the site from somewhere else. Because there were so many buildings, it became obvious they were not all being fully maintained. Our…

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history pragmatic historian

Domicology and Historic Preservation

As I sit down to write this post, a number of thoughts related to the historic preservation of structures are flitting through my mind. I’ll try to focus on one of them here and perhaps tackle others in later posts. I read an article the other day on The Conversation that introduced me to a new word: Domicology. Domicology was coined by the Center for Community and Economic Development at Michigan State University. It “is…

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