Today in the Humanities... MLK Jr. Day of Service; OccupyArchive; and Colonial History in PG

History, Literature, Philosophy, Ethics, and More Wrapped Into a Regular Blog Feature

We want to know how you served on MLK Day 2012. You can share your story here, on our Facebook page, or by sending an email to MLKDay@cns.gov. Your stories will help us highlight the many ways Americans are honoring Dr. King through service, improving lives, and making a difference in our communities.

- Share Your Story, (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service)

Currently, the archive includes a growing set of collections of webpage screenshots, movement documents, and digital images. These collections were built with a combination of individual contributions and automated feed importing. Now, with the launch of the OccupyArchive.org website, individuals can contribute and geolocate their stories and files from the movement. Together, these materials will provide an historical record of the 2011 Occupy protests.

- "Announcing OccupyArchive.org," (The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media)

Each week, two writing workshops called “Writing for your Health” are offered for people with cancer and other community members in the Nina Hyde Resource Room. One begins at 11:00 am Tuesday during morning clinic and the other in the evening at 6:00 pm. For the morning session, patients are invited to the Resource Room for a brief demonstration of expressive writing while waiting for their appointments.

- "Writers' Group Offers Outlet to Patients and Caregivers," (Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center)

This year, the Chinatown Community Cultural Center will have a full day of program along with live cultural performances on Sunday, January 29th 2012 from 12pm to 5pm. Visitors will be able to browse the many displays that will teach about the traditions for New Year, participate in a hands-on arts and crafts project, and enjoy the live martial art performances and Chinese musical instrument all of which will be packed in throughout the day and coinciding with the parade.

- "Chinatown Lunar New Year Festival 2012: Year of the Dragon," (Chinatown Community Cultural Center)

Each student researches and acts the part of an historic character from the 1860s and traces President Abraham Lincoln's steps as he considered emancipation and its alternatives. These scenes are videotaped and transferred to a DVD for the class to keep. This field trip experience invites students to explore notions of bondage and freedom within the real historic spaces of Decatur House.

- "Paths to Freedom," (The White House Historical Association/Decatur House)

The district, located off Livingston Road between Oxon Hill and Fort Washington roads stretching along the Potomac River, considered to be the area first settled by colonists in the Washington, D.C., region, currently is recognized by the county as a historic site and includes Harmony Hall, a Georgian country house dating to the 18th century.

- "New Chapter in History, Preservation Starts for Fort Washington District," Mimi Liu, (Gazette.net, Maryland Community News Online)

Today in the Humanities... The Giver, Ethics, Soviet Monuments, and 100 Year Old Sound Recordings

Humanities News and Events from DC and Beyond

Children's book author Lois Lowry used to store her rough drafts in the crisper drawer of her refrigerator so that if the house burned down, she wouldn't lose what she was working on. After a book was published, she'd toss her manuscripts in the trash. She figured they had no value.

- "Beloved Children's Books Preserved Thanks to Retiring U Librarian Karen Nelson Hoyle," Maja Beckstrom (TwinCities.com, Pioneer Press)

The Undersecretary for History, Art, and Culture, and the Director of the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum invite you to attend the 27th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Program featuring keynote speaker Harry E. Johnson.

- The Anacostia Community Museum

"Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield," Amanda Poppei. Join Amanda as she uses Dr. Martin Luther King's anti-war work as a springboard for thinking about America's military, the ethics of support for the military generally and for individual troops, and WES's own involvement in conscientious objector status work.

- Upcoming Platforms, (The WES [Washington Ethical Society] Express)

Soviet Monument in Sofia, Bulgaria

The destruction of the monuments of the Soviet past and a buildup of new monuments was supposed to be an indication of the new values that came to the post-Soviet societies after the collapse of the Soviet system. However, not everywhere and not always did it happen to be true.

- "Monument Wars Across the Post-Soviet Space as a Conflict of Memories and Cultures," (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)

That collaboration has resulted in unlocking experimental sound recordings made more than 100 years ago by Alexander Graham Bell and associates. The recordings, now available for listening by the public, can be found at http://irene.lbl.gov/volta-release.html.

- "Library of Congress Helps Unlock Experimental Sound Recordings of Alexander Graham Bell," (Library of Congress)

The How and Why of Community History in Shaw

Footage in DC Digital Museum Archive Shows a Community Determined to Preserve its Heritage and Culture

The collection of the DC Digital Museum is diverse because it essentially reflects the Humanities Council's grantmaking activities since the organization was founded in 1980. Combing through the archive, has been a great way to get to know the city on a very human level. 

Sometimes researching and archiving a raw collection can be challenging and surprising at the same time. Earlier this week, we unearthed a couple of VHS cassettes labeled "Shaw Neighborhood History: The Whitelaw Hotel." A search in the old database brought up a record for these tapes that indicated they were copies of a documentary film on the Whitelaw and its relatively recent preservation as an apartment building. It seemed like a great topic for a documentary, and we were eager to digitize it, determine its creators and provenance, and make it available through the DC Digital Museum. 

We were disappointed at first to see that the tapes contained no such documentary. The footage was shot at the then newly renovated Whitelaw, but it was of a planning meeting, led by historians Kathy Smith and Marya McQuirter, involving residents and former residents of Shaw and the greater U Street Neighborhood. The audience had been brought together to discuss a planned history exhibit at what was to become the Thurgood Marshall Center for Heritage and Service; they were discussing how to best represent their memories as a historical narrative .

The footage is not just a record of the collective memories of Shaw community members, it is a fascinating text that shows how people seek to use the histories, preserved through memory, architecture, tradition, and human relationships, to actively pursue social improvement in the places that mean the most to them. 

The clip below represents only about one fifth of the conversation that occurred that evening April 10, 1996 at the Whitelaw. Please leave a comment if you or anyone you know participated in the planning meeting. What role does history have in Washington, DC's neighborhoods today? Is it different than it was 15 years ago?

The museum exhibit based, in part, on this community conversation is housed in the Thurgood Marshall Center for Heritage and Service at 1816 12th St, NW and is open to visitors during the day. Call (202) 462-8314 for exact hours.

The conversation also provided Smith and McQuirter valuable information as they compiled a guide to Shaw's Historical Resources, available in the DC Public Library's Washingtoniana Division.

Today in the Humanities... Igloos; Internets; and Cultural Tourism's Top 12 of 2011

Catch the Latest Humanities Stories and Check Out Some You Might Have Missed

The Kiplingers, a prominent Washington business dynasty, started collecting rare photographs and prints of Washington in the 1920s. They assembled work dating back to 1791, added the work of Civil War photographers Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, and then gathered examples of Washington history through the mid-20th century.

- "Kiplinger family donates its rare depictions of Washington to the Historical Society", Jacqueline Trescott (Washington Post)

The prestigious Carnegie Corporation of New York and New York Times "I Love My Librarian" award goes to D.C. public librarian Venetia V. Demson.  Demson is one of 10 librarians in the country and the first in this region to receive this annual award.

- "Prestigious National Award Goes to DC Librarian," (DC Public Library)

Most of us leave breadcrumbs behind us online. Say you’re shopping online and a pair of leather boots catches your eye. You zoom in, reading reviews. Finally, you refocus and click a link to a Washington Post article. There, in an ad box to the right, are those boots. It’s like they are meant for you, calling out to you.

- "Who Runs the Internet?," Sarah Stankorb (American University, American Today)

One of the few things that we can be sure about in this period of accelerating change is that the monumental advances in communications technology spawned by the invention of the computer and the chip have epochal implications for human learning. A revolution has commenced where science and technology are melding with the humanities.

- “The Revolutionary Implications of the Digital Humanities,” Jim Leach (National Endowment for the Humanities)

Students from the Arts & Technology Academy, a public charter school in Washington, recite portions of Frederick Douglass’s 19th-century speeches in annual contest.

- "D.C.area students compete in Frederick Douglass Oratorical Contest,"  (The Washington Post)

Although there may be extremely cold temperatures outside an igloo, amazingly the inside can be as warm as sixty degrees due to the natural insulation properties of the snow. But igloos aren’t the only type of snow buildings. From hotels to castles to entire villages, people are building all sorts of snow structures around the world. 

- "Buildings Made of Snow," (National Building Museum)

The Top 12 of 2011 DC Insiders list gives you a sample of some of the many different activities there are in the city.

- "Insider's Guide Top 12 of 2011," Sam Edelstein (Cultural Tourism DC Blog)

Today in the Humanities...

Streep for Women's History Museum; Anthropology and Philosophy on the Defensive; DC Government Ethics; and the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards

This new regular feature funnels current humanities stories from Washington, DC and around the world to your computer!

Known for her film work, Meryl Streep is going off script to rally for a National Women’s History Museum by the National Mall in Washington, D.C. She’s donated $1 million to the cause, but money isn’t the only requisite. Congressional approval is required for the location.

- Meryl Streep Rallies for New Women's History Museum, Joan Altabe (examiner.com) 

2011 featured pernicious political posturing over what we know and how we discover it. Florida Gov. Rick Scott told the state’s universities that they should be educating students in areas “where people can get a job in this state.” Accordingly, he intends to invest higher education dollars in physical science, math, engineering and technology departments, and let the humanities, arts and social sciences go fallow. Scott singled out anthropology as an example of a job-less education, saying, “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so.”

-  Knowledge Punched by Pundits in 20ll, Leonard Krishtalka (ljworld.com)

“Perennially, departments of philosophy are under attack,” said Andrew Light, the George Mason University professor who organized and monitored the panel discussion. “We’re always looking for better ways to sell the major.”

- Philosophers Debate Meaning of Meaning at Annual Conference, Monica Hesse (Washington Post)

The D.C. Council will take a second and final vote Tuesday on the sweeping ethics bill that has dominated its agenda the past few months.

- Previewing the Final DC Ethics Reform Vote, Mike DeBonis (Washington Post)

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, invites applications for the 2012 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards.

- National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards, (Juvenile Justice Information Exchange)

History and Community in LeDroit Park

Can Local History Projects Mend Collective Memory?

It's hard to imagine that densely packed Ward 1, with its rows of federal style townhomes and gleaming new luxury condos, was once the target of developers looking to establish subdivided and suburban-style gated communities, but in 1873, LeDroit Park was conceived as just that. Filmmaker Ronald Smokey Stevens recently completed a documentary as part of the DC Community Heritage Project that surveys the history of the neighborhood from its exclusive beginnings, through its illustrious decades as the locus for black culture in Washington (and perhaps the United States), to its current challenges and successes. The film, Preserving LeDroit Park: an historic DC Community, is available in full as part of the Humanities Council's DC Digital Museum, but it can also be purchased at http://www.preservingledroitpark.com.

Stevens' film exemplifies the value of historic preservation and public history. It not only tells the story of LeDroit Park, but it tells the story of a man who's regular rounds through the neighborhood carried him past the Robert and Mary Church Terrell House, and how these encounters with the past inspired and empowered him to find out more.

Mary Church Terrell, Stevens' tells his viewers, began fighting for Civil Rights using civil disobedience tactics long before Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., or the Freedom Riders. In 1950 Terrell and a group of activists sought to test the District of Columbia's anti-segregation laws by entering a de facto white-only restaurant. When they were refused service, they filed a lawsuit which, by 1953, led DC courts to rule segregation in eating places unconstitutional. Though many longtime residents of LeDroit Park and Washington, DC likely know of Terrell and her groundbreaking work, her story may be news to families who have recently made the neighborhood their home. By helping to popularize the story of Terrell as well as those of Anna J. Cooper, Walter E. Washington, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Duke Ellington, and the other notable residents of LeDroit Park, Stevens can help build a sense of community pride and appreciation of a common past.

Photographer David Corry, interviewed for the film, believes that creating this sense of community will be an ongoing challenge for LeDroit Park, but one that can be overcome. The perceived lack of a sense of community caused by gentrification and demographic shifts can be remedied by public history projects like Stevens' film as personal connections to place and time are developed for newcomers, and rebuilt among long-term residents.

The film is produced well, making use of Stevens' oratory skills, authoritative historical research, illustrative photographs, and stock video footage. It is brief, but informative, and well worth the 17 minutes for anyone interested in Washington, DC history.

More information on the notable residents of LeDroit Park can be found in Kim Roberts' online exhibition Wide Enough for Our Ambition.

Still Looking for that Perfect Holiday Gift

M.O.M.I.E.S TLC 's Children's Black History Calendar May Be Just What You're Looking For

M.O.M.I.E.S TLC is the outstanding organization which annually produces "The Children's Gallery of Black History," an interactive museum exhibit designed to bring history to life for kids. The mobile gallery travels around DC, and can be brought to an school or youth group near you! For more information, click here, email Nicole Howard at nicole@momiestlc.com, or call 202-545-1919.

M.O.M.I.E.S TLC is currently offering their Children's Black History Calendar for only $15. The proceeds go to support the organization, and their mission to "use cutting-edge techniques to cultivate our children's talents."