"Local Community Influences on Interpretation at Historical Sites and Museums" is an analysis in how interpretations of historical content are chosen for visitors and to what degree local communities contribute to this decision process. What determines which stories and historical narratives are presented at historical sites and museums? Is the process of determining how to interpret historical events as simple as relating the event to the time and place that corresponds with that particular site? Is it possible that public historical sites and museums reflect the social values and points of interests of the local communities rather than accepted and popular history of American culture? This analysis demonstrates how local communities affect the interpretation through three case studies and through three components - governance, stakeholders, and funding. The simplified version of presenting history at historical sites "because it happened here" no longer becomes viable. Interpretation is affected and these three components demonstrate to what degree local communities contribute.

Since the 1980s, Hispanics have been the fastest growing minority in the United States and have been moving into rural, Southern areas where there have previously not been populations of Hispanics. Studies of these demographic changes have concentrated on how communities impacted by the influx of Hispanics have created or adjusted socioeconomic and political infrastructures to accommodate the linguistic and cultural needs of the Hispanic population. The public-school system is a sociopolitical structure that has affected and has been affected by the increase in Hispanics. Whereas the modern Civil Rights movement had created legal precedence for students' language rights and led to the creation of the federal Bilingual Education Act of 1968, nationalist backlash to this rise in Hispanic immigrants led to the eventual defunding of federal bilingual education programs by the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. This thesis is a policy history of Hispanic growth in the public-school systems in Orange, Lake and Osceola counties in Florida from 1980 to 2010. During that time, the three counties grew and diversified at different rates and made decisions for their English for Speakers of Other Languages programs that correlated with the size of their Hispanic population. This time frame encompasses Osceola's fastest period of growth which led to the creation of the Florida Consent Decree, Florida public schools' framework for remaining compliant with federal and state language policies. Even though federal funds for English acquisition programs replaced funds for bilingual or native language instruction during this time, Hispanic and non-Hispanic teachers, administrators, community or activist groups and parents continued to exert agency in gaining culturally inclusive and linguistically affirming language instruction programs for their children.

The Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church is a historically black church rooted in the South that was established in 1870. The church had been viewed historically as an "old slavery" church, due to its close relationship to the White Methodist Episcopal Church (formerly Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS). The history of the denomination encouraged the view that CME churches and schools had not been active in the Civil Rights Movement. Closer research into the denomination's archives from 1954, when the church changed its name from "Colored" to "Christian" up to the 1970s, when the movement transitioned, challenges that interpretation. From the individual activist leaders across the South, to CME-affiliated historically black colleges associated with the black student movement, and the work of members of local congregations, the CME church can be shown to have been at the forefront of the movement. By focusing on three groups—CME leaders, church affiliated colleges, and a local congregation—this thesis argues that activism took many forms. Narrowly defining what constitutes civil rights activism risks overlooking important figures in the movement and failing to acknowledge the struggles individuals and church communities faced in the struggle to end disfranchisement and Jim Crow segregation. Understanding the role of the CME church in the Civil Rights Movement calls for expanding the meaning of the word activism to include acts of defiance and courage less well-understood.

This thesis examines the creation of South Florida's tri-ethnic racial hierarchy during the postwar period, from 1945-1990. This racial hierarchy, coupled with discriminatory housing practices and police violence, created the necessary conditions for Dade County's first deadly uprising in 1968. Following the acquittal of several officers charged in the killing of an unarmed black businessman, a second uprising in 1980 culminated in three days and three nights of violent street warfare between law enforcement and black residents in Miami's northwest Liberty City neighborhood. The presence of state sanctioned violence at the hands of police in Liberty City set the stage for the city's second uprising. Further, the oftentimes murky and ambiguous racial divide that made people of color both comrades and rivals within Miami's larger power structure resulted in an Anglo-Cuban alliance by the late 1960s and early 1970s that only worsened racial tensions, especially among the city's ethnically diverse, English speaking black population. This thesis project uses a socio-historical framework to investigate how race and immigration, police brutality, and federal housing policy created a climate in which one of Miami's most vulnerable populations resorted to collective violence.

The so-called New South movement coincided with national industrialization in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. In the New South, modernization focused on the development of small diversified farms, mills that processed cotton and tobacco, and small cities that connected the countryside to national markets and provided area residents with mass produced goods. Florida's experience and more specifically development around Lake Monroe in Central Florida complicates and expands our understanding of the New South. Located in what was considered a frontier area, Sanford on the south shore of the lake and DeBary Hall on the north shore illustrate the development of Central Florida in the context of the New South movement. Finally, an analysis of two museums, Sanford Museum and DeBary Hall House Museum, assesses the community understanding of the role of New South in the development of the area and offers suggestions for writing the New South into the story.

This thesis examines history and preservation at coastal cultural heritage sites threatened by climate change and explores climate adaptation strategies at two sites on Florida's Atlantic coast. Current climate change models indicate the planet may see as much as 1.1 meters, or four feet, of global average sea level rise by the year 2100, requiring site managers to intervene by using adaptation techniques to improve resilience and guard against the loss of cultural heritage monuments. Understanding the history and importance of these sites to the surrounding communities and their numerous stakeholders is the first step to ensuring these sites remain resilient in the face of a changing climate. This project uses GIS mapping software, publicly available elevation and tide data, and publicly available sea level rise projection tools to evaluate areas vulnerable to sea level rise and the associated effects at Fort Clinch on Amelia Island in northeast Florida and Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse on south Florida's Atlantic coast. These two cultural heritage sites include both protected natural areas as well as examples of built environment that hold cultural significance for a number of stakeholder groups. While these two sites share similarities, climate change adaptation will look different at each. At Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse nature-based adaptation solutions like the current living shoreline project can provide a low-impact way to control erosion and improve resiliency at the site. Because of the coastal dynamics of Amelia Island, however, this type of adaptation project would not be effective at Fort Clinch. In the case of Fort Clinch several natural and anthropogenic factors contribute to an ever-present erosion problem which will worsen as sea levels rise. The changes that occur at these sites and adaptation efforts to respond to those changes will present future historians with opportunities to interpret the changes in the landscape for the public.

This thesis project incorporates podcasts and high resolution digital imagery visualizations into a single online exhibit to democratize archival material on the web. It employs contemporary new museology and digital history methodological frameworks, and utilizes the burgeoning medium of podcasting to increase public understanding and interaction with an historical period. For this project I have partnered with the Florida Historical Society and have utilized original materials from their collection relating to the colonial fur trade in Florida. The study of the North American fur trade has recently expanded to include more information about the indigenous societies engaged in the trade through closer examination of primary source documents, and this digital exhibit, hosted by the Florida Historical Society, created a series of module entities to achieve that end. The exhibit consists of three sections, each exploring a different aspect of the traditional discourse surrounding the colonial American fur trade in Florida, including the voices of indigenous populations and their agency in trade negotiations. Each podcast has aired as part of the Florida Historical Society's weekly radio magazine, Florida Frontiers, which is broadcast throughout the state, and is archived on the Society's website. The exhibit enhances the scholarly discussion on public history and digital history, while utilizing new media such as podcasts and interactive digital maps to create a more immersive user experience with primary source material to answer questions concerning the colonial fur trade in Florida. The project has combined new mediums of historical interpretation with traditional museum methodology and historical analysis to create a multi-faceted, unique digital experience on the web.

This thesis explores the visibility of women in traditionally masculine Scottish national narratives as evidenced by their physical representation, or lack thereof, in the cultural heritage landscape. Beginning with the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England, a moment cemented in history, literature, and popular memory as the beginning of a Scottish rebirth, this thesis traces the evolution of Scottish national identity and the tropes employed for its assertion to paint a clearer picture of the power of strategic selectivity and the effects of sacrifice in the process of community definition. Following the transformation of the rugged Celtic Highlander from his pre-Union relegation as an outer barbarian to his post-Union embrace as the epitome of distinction and the embodiment of anti-English, anti-aristocratic sentiment so crucial to the negotiation of a Scottish place in union and empire, this thesis hones in on notions of gender and peformative identity to form the basis for an analysis of twentieth and twenty-first century national heritage dynamics. An innovative spatial study of monuments and memorials in the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh highlights the gendered inequity of memorialization efforts and the impact of limited female visibility on the storytelling potential of the cityscape. Such a perspective not only adds a distinct visual component but also brings my study full circle by exemplifying contemporary discussions on the role of gender in narrative-setting, the sociocultural relevance of monuments and memorials, and the nature of representation in public spaces.

Zugl.: Darmstadt, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2008

Publishing books and catalogs has long been the domain of large museums and historical societies that have an equally large budget. While large organizations can commit vast amounts of time and resources to publishing, many small organizations cannot. Before recent technological advances, small museums and local history organizations were unable to participate in the publishing of books and catalogs easily. However, today, there are several viable options for these organizations to begin publishing. This research aims to highlight the ways that small organizations in the Upper Midwest have been utilizing technological advances and strategic partnerships to publish. Using these tools and partnerships, independently published books, catalogs, and other publications can be academically sound, including peer review, while also being affordable and easily created.