Wikiversity

Public humanities

Public humanities is the work of federal, state, nonprofit and community-based cultural organizations that engage publics in conversations, facilitate and present lectures, exhibitions, performances and other programs for the general public on topics such as history, philosophy, popular culture and the arts. Public humanities programs engage everyone in reflecting on diverse heritage, traditions, and history, and their relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of life.

Federal Writers' Project Interviewer

The resources listed below are examples of Public humanities work conducted at Wikiversity.

Friday's featured articles edit

Different articles are featured here each day of the week. Visit again tomorrow to discover new public humanities resources.

 
Picking fruit at the John C. English seedling grove in Alva, Florida. Sampson English (left) was grove foreman for the Owanita Citrus Association.

Learn more about the Florida citrus industry worker Horace Thompson at Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories

Charley Ryland

At some point in his early adulthood, Ryland began working as a coal miner in Alabama. Due to a mining incident, he lost sight in one of his eyes. Ryland was married at an unknown date. He and his wife had seven children, three sons and four daughters. Due to some unknown problems occurring in his home state, he moved his family to West Virginia where he would continue to work in the mines. He described his life in this state as "comfortable," and would continue to live here for some several years. However, around 1918, his wife contracted pneumonia and died. He only worked for a short while after this, then left West Virginia to return home to the Coosa River. All but one of his children stayed in West Virginia. Two of his sons also worked as coal miners and his four daughters married coal miners.

Learn more about Charley Ryland at Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories

H. Gaston Carney

Gaston and his brother Marshall enlisted to fight in WWI in September 1918- a month later his journals began. Though Marshall lied about his age to join, and ended up fighting in the trenches of France, Gaston never saw the battlefield and dealt with the life of an inactive soldier abroad. Over the course of several months, Gaston wrote in five journals that matter-of-factly described his daily life from his journey to France until is return home in March 1919. During his time in the camp and quarantine, after an influenza outbreak at the beginning of his service, Carney wrote about the bitter cold weather, lack of sustenance and food. His entries said things like “men still dying – can’t get anything to eat or drink – still starving” [1]. Carney also wrote a lot about the YMCA and the relationship the “Y” had to the soldiers, including recreational activities set up by the “Y” in their camp. Carney and his troop were not returned home until over four months after the armistice in November 1918.

Learn more about H. Gaston Carney at World War I -- Life Histories

Elizabeth Keckly

Elizabeth Keckly was a remarkable individual who was born into slavery in 1818 just south of the major market center of Petersburg, Virginia. She learned her craft – sewing – from her mother, who was an expert seamstress enslaved in the Burwell family. When Reverend Burwell, Keckly’s master and half-brother (they shard a father) relocated to Hillsborogh, North Carolina, in 1832, she soon followed. Six years later, Anna Burwell, Keckly’s mistress, started a school for young girls in the family home, with an already over-worked Keckly charged as the sole servant. In the Burwell household, Keckly was subject to physical and sexual abuse. She gave birth to her only child, a son, as a result of being molested by a white acquaintance of the Burwells.

Learn more about Elizabeth Keckly at The Crafting Freedom Project

Featured learning projects edit

Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories edit

 
"Negro farmer talking with warehouse man about price he received at auction for his tobacco" Durham, North Carolina: November, 1939

The Federal Writers’ Project was funded by the federal government under the New Deal during the Great Depression in order to support written work during desperate economic and social times. A number of different projects were undertaken for this initiative, among them was the Folklore Project which consisted of interviewing everyday people from all walks of life from across the country. This page is dedicated to making these life histories public to a worldwide audience, thereby giving these people a permanent place in the online historical record. These life histories detail the complexities of race, gender, class, and the general turmoil of the Great Depression. As such, they are ripe for further historical investigation and analysis. Further, the actual process by which these life histories were created is not without many problems. These life histories are not oral histories, but rather the writer's interpretation of the lives of the people who gave the interviews. As such, these life histories, like all pieces of historical evidence, must be interrogated to understand how they were created, what type of information is included, and what is left out. Below are links to some of the student projects.

Life Histories edit

Learn more at Federal Writers' Project - Life Histories

World War I -- Life Histories edit

 
Students' Army Training Corps induction in November 1918 at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Using the archives at the University of North Carolina's Wilson Library, students examined the life of one individual connected to World War I. These individuals ranged from soldiers to activists to medical personnel and well beyond. Using primary documents such as diaries, letters, and memorabilia, students not only documented the life of these individuals, but also examined the social, political, and cultural contexts surrounding each individual's life during the war. Below are links to some of the student projects.

Life Histories edit

Learn more at World War I -- Life Histories

The Crafting Freedom Project edit

 
The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia, a lithograph by Samuel Rowse published in 1850

The Crafting Freedom Project focuses on the development of lesson plans for teaching about little-known, but significant nineteenth-century African Americans. Our focus is on 3rd-8th grade lesson plans. Phase I of our multi-phase project concerns the development of instructional materials and lessons that feature the following women Freedom Crafters: Frances E. W. Harper, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Elizabeth Keckly, Edmonia Lewis, and Sally Thomas. Phase II. (Spring /Summer 2008) will be expanded to include these freedom crafters: Lunsford Lane, Henry "Box" Brown, and William Henry Singleton. These individuals have received much scholarly attention in recent years and are historically significant, yet remain little known beyond the academy. They—and thousands of other African Americans like them—crafted freedom by purchasing it, through active resistance to slavery, through their art and creative expression, and through their spoken and written words.The purpose of this Wikiversity project is to involve classroom teachers, professional educators, scholars, and other interested parties in the process of creating unique, rich, and innovative curricula for teaching students about the lives of these remarkable Americans. This Wikiversity learning project is being used as a development environment. The lesson plans that emerge from this project will be available on a website for educators, targeted especially to elementary and middle grade teachers.

Learn more at The Crafting Freedom Project

Developing learning projects edit

Pillbox, Shako, and Cap edit

These writings follow the life of a London family living in Victorian and Edwardian times; they deal in particular, with the enlistment and actions of Albert Edward Kearey, b1889. The Keareys’ were originally from Gaelic Ireland - from northern Tipperary, emigrating at the turn of the eighteen hundreds. His ancestor, settled at first in Westminster, then Paddington, finally Kensal Green. Albert volunteered - to be a recruit in the local Volunteers, The Kensingtons. Through meritorious behaviour, awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal [DCM], and Mentioned in Dispatches [MID], with clasp [London Gazette, 11 March, 1920], eventually, over a period of almost thirty years, became their Regimental Sergeant Major. In WWII he was promoted to Major, second in command of the 17th London Division, with orders to attend to the protection of north London.

Learn more at Pillbox, Shako, and Cap

References edit

  • Quay, James; Veninga, James (October 5–7, 1989). Making Connections: The Humanities, Culture and Community. National Task Force on Scholarship and the Public Humanities. Racine, Wisconsin: American Council of Learned Societies. Retrieved 25 Jan 2016. We think it more useful and more accurate to consider scholarship and the public humanities not as two distinct spheres but as parts of a single process, the process of taking private insight, testing it, and turning it into public knowledge.

See also edit

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