"Once aware that relics, history, and memory are continually refashioned, we are less inhibited by the past, less frustrated by the fruitless quest for sacrosanct originals. We must reckon with the artifice no less than the truth of our heritage. Nothing ever made has been left untouched, nothing ever known remains immutable; yet these facts should not distress but emancipate us. It is far better to realize the past has always been altered than to pretend it has always been the same... "
– David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country

Thoughts on the project
Museums, classrooms, memories
Putting together the project

Finished book

Final Project Bibliography + Links

Museums and Memories
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's Museum Studies syllabus

"The uses of spatiality: mnemonic uses of space."
About virtual architectures, but still helpful

Serena Lin on metaphor, architecture, cyberspace
See for her distinction between "acute" and "chronic" space in the "intimate architecture" of memory

Martin Segger's introduction to "Toward a Museology of Reconciliation"
See for the analysis of David Lowenthal's The Past Is a Foreign Country

Pierre Nora's Between memory and history: Les lieux de memoires.
I don't like the dichotomies he makes between "history" and "memory," but it's an important intentional distinction to make: the museum v. the memorial

Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia: Andreas Huyssen
Just read the last three paragraphs about modern memory

Interaction and museums: a basic intro

Australian Museums and Galleries Online
Check out the bibliographies to their journals

Syllabus for class taught by Scott Paris at UMich on museum design
Such a lot of references...and so little time

Planned Charleston Museum of Slavery
NYT article on Charleston's planned museum(s) of slavery
US News article on Charleston's planned museum(s) of slavery

Other Museums
US Holocaust Museum
Jewish Museum, Berlin
Museum pour la paix, Caen
Japanese-American National Museum exhibits
Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian
Smithsonian list of African-American museums/historical centers
See: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Museum of African American History, National Underground Railroad Museum, River Road Museum (very good), Chattanooga African American Museum (somewhat disturbing)
National Museum of Civil Rights
Take the interactive tour!
National Museum of Civil Rights
Check the mission statement
Campaign for Learning Through Museums and Galleries
The Museum of the Cherokee

Natchez, Mississippi
Natchez tourist info
Historic Houses in Natchez
Note the absence of the William Johnson house from the list.
Natchez National Historical Park (contact Bill Justice, chief ranger)
Postcards, old photos, Natchez nostalgia
Historic Natchez Foundation
Natchez Trace: Park Service info

Teaching the history of American slavery (a mixed bag)
One site’s discussion of teaching slavery
Africana .com (Encarta) has a great discussion board and info section
National Park Service Underground Railroad site
Social Studies on a state-by-state basis
The painful absence of a coherent picture emerges. Note that there’s an ‘official’ Holocaust teaching guide, but nothing for slavery
Johns Hopkins Museum of Slavery Site
Songs, historical links, rationales, story of Olaudah Equiano
PBS Documentary
Online simulation of the effect of the slave trade on African/American demographics

Historical resources for graphics and narratives
Slave narratives on-line (at Chapel Hill)
WPA Slave Narratives
WONDERFUL Smithsonian exhibition on slavery
more AMAZING Smithsonian research
more Smithsonian stuff: The African-American Mosaic
www.academicinfo.net has tons of links