Every now and then we like to share links to articles and blogs that we’ve come across while keeping up with history and preservation news. This week, we’ve picked five interesting stories or topics that crossed our path to share with you.
1. First, Jessica Leigh Hester brings us the story of archeology in Victorian-era trash sites in England with Excavating Stories From Victorian-Era Trash Dumps from CityLab. From the article:
“By digging up part of a doll’s porcelain face, or a medicine bottle, [Tom Licence] can imagine how daughters spent their days, or what ailments afflicted the patriarch. ‘You can work out what sorts of illnesses they had, what sorts of luxuries they enjoyed,’ he tells CityLab. ‘You can match the objects to the people.'”
2. If you are traveling this weekend and you’d like to see some sights along the way, check out Eight Scenic Drives for Virginia History from Virginia’s Travel Blog.
3. Alicia Puglionesi investigates the fanciful faux histories and the role of the railroad in the proliferation of the peculiar Virginia attraction of “show caves” in The 19th Century ‘Show Caves’ That Became America’s First Tourist Traps at The Atlas. From the article:
“The discovery of these subterranean wonders in the 1800s spawned a genre of local lore and popular fiction–call it ‘the romance of the cave’–in which crystal caverns became theaters for passion and politics.”
4. Did you know the Metropolitan Museum of Art has made many of their publications free to read online or download? Visit their website metmuseum.org to search their publications by title, author, keyword, thematic category, and/or reading format.
5. Why does historic preservation matter? Emily Wynn interviews Christina Butler, Professor of Historic Preservation at the College of Charleston, about the hows and whys people become interested in – and passionate about – saving our buildings and our stories for future generations. From the article Preserving History May Be Our Biggest Asset at Odyssey:
“If we erase the palpable part of our history, the buildings that we have spent our lives in, we lose more than just materials and money. We lose tradition, culture, and a road map that our ancestors followed to get to where we are today and, in turn, we lose where we are going and why.”
