Notes for the section of Public History and the Environment

1. Rebecca Conard, "Spading common ground: reconciling the built and natural environments"

-- Irvine Ranch
-- human intervention in constructing "wilderness" in modern world:
   self-concious artifice;
   definition of quality of the modern landscape
--story of an undocumented Mexican squatter
--separation extremes:
   places we live and the places we want to be
--places lies in-between:
   collaboration among historic preservationists, environmentalists and land managers;
   entrenched ideas
--appropriate landscape settings
   stuck on image
--baggages of:
--historic preservation:
   high style architecture and great-name associations
--environmentalists:
   idealized wilderness
--public land managers:
   conflicts with the preservationists and environmentalists
   insensitive bureaucrats
--compatible between the sustainability and stewarship and the continuum
--protecting the natural environment and preserving important elements of the built environment:
   national park system needs to meet public demand, political necessity, notion of national park
   --Stephen Mather
      infrastructure-->tourism-->public support
      wilderness and Indians' efforts in shaping the landscape
   --New Deal programs
      tourism overburden and greater conservation projects
      design to manage people
   --recreation rather than conservation in 1930s and beyond
      demands for redress by wildlife experts
   --value of the historical architects within the Park Service in 1970s
      illogical categories of land and resource types --> rigid pigeon holes
   --lack of professional deference
     distrust between historic preservation and natural resource conservation
     agreed-upon goals
--lack of professional and institutional arrangements among preservationists,              environmentalists and land managers in collaboration
--historic stone piers
   fundraising effort
   "enable" or "disabled" professionally
--knowledge
--the tangibles of human life by social and cultural historians
   blueprints for interpreting material cultural in historical and environmental contexts.
--physical structures in telling stories
   economic development through recreational use as well protect the natural resource base
--local history construction
   built environment into the natural environment
--agriculture
   heritage eduction and heritage tourism
   Silos and Smokestacks project --> Cedar Valley Special Resource Study by NPS in 1995-->the project kept growing-->create momentum and attract political support--:Silos and Smokestacks saga

2. Glassberg David, "Interpreting Landscapes"

--landscapes
   products of human interaction with the natural environment over time
--analysis of natural setting
   powerful natural forces-->environments
--economic forces in shaping landscapes:
--principal determinants over time
--amplified by new technologies of transportation
--natural environments --> landscapes of leisure and work
--sacred landscape
--nature with religious significance
--site of memorable historical events
--political values
--historical landscape
   creators' attitude toward the past
   passively and actively preserved landscapes
   prevailing racial, class, ethnic and gender relationships: dominant individuals and groups
--interpretation of landscapes by environmental and public historians
   physical description
   social characteristics
   investigation
--convergence of social, economic and political forces
--interrelation of places within regions and across the large society

Landscapes and Environmental Perception
--shape of the land and meaning given to it by past generations
--landscapes are product
--interpretation both by local residents and outsiders, past and present

Public History and the Interpretation of Landscapes
--public historians in three professional situations:
   expert testimony
   expert in preservation strategy
   expert in landscape interpretation to the public
--programs and exhibits
--dialogue with various communities
--address the larger social and economic forces shaping the landscape