MURFREESBORO — In
a mere three weeks, some MTSU students have transformed a national historic
site.
The three-week field school took place May 10-31 on Georgia’s
Jekyll Island, where the multimillionaire magnates of America’s Gilded Age
created a retreat fit for royalty.
However, the 13 graduate students of MTSU’s Current Issues
of Public Policy Practice class were hardly there to lounge around.
Dr. Brenden Martin, the class professor, said curators
stated that MTSU students accomplished more in the first week-and-a-half than
all other field schools conducted at Jekyll Island combined.
“They’re begging us to come back now,” said Martin. “I think
it would be a tremendous opportunity to go there again.”
In the three weeks, the students set up three exhibit
projects, conducted four oral history interviews, developed an interactive
multimedia website, developed a booklet interpreting African-Americans’
contributions to local history, initiated a records management training program
for new employees and developed an outreach program for schools connecting
local history to science, technology, engineering and math disciplines, as well
as projects related to archival and records management.
The state of Georgia purchased the island in 1947 and, by
law, is obligated to keep 65 percent of it in a mostly natural state. However,
its uniquely rich history includes Native American and Spanish and English
colonial cultures.
In addition, the Du Bignons, a family of French Huguenots
who moved there during the French Revolution, established plantations and introduced
slavery to the island off the Atlantic coast some 13 miles from Brunswick and
93 miles from Savannah.
In 1888, the descendants of the original Du Bignons sold the
island to a private group of wealthy investors, who established the Jekyll
Island Club for their exclusive use.
Martin said the curators’ main interpretive focus has been
on the millionaires, but his students gave voice to women, servants, children
and other marginalized people.
These were the people who enabled their wealthy employers to
relax in their two- and three-story cottages and enjoy what the privileged
class called “the simple life.”
Students Rachel Lewis and Jenna Stout created a tactile,
interactive display in Mistletoe Cottage to show tourists what the servants’
lives were like.
“Our goal for the exhibit was to show that, yes, there’s
this extravagance that everybody’s attracted to,” said Lewis, “but somebody
still has to make the food. Somebody still has to empty the chamber pots.”
Lewis said Stout and she created a table setting based on
the rather complicated, detailed instructions the servants had to follow. They
also invited tourists to pick up an empty wooden crate, which is heavier than
it appears, to provide some idea of the physical burden of carrying full crates
in the heat and humidity.
These accomplishments are expected to remain part of the
Jekyll Island experience for a long time, enabling tour guides to learn things
they can incorporate into their dialogues with visitors.
Working with curator Gretchen Greminger and Dr. June Hall
McCash, MTSU professor emerita and founder of its University Honors Program,
the budding historians added an experience to their resumes that will serve
them well in the job market.
“They can sell their time in school as professional work
experience,” Martin said.
“It’s extremely gratifying to be able to see something that
you’ve worked very hard on, that your peers have critiqued and have helped you
bring to fruition, up on the wall,” Lewis said.
For more information, contact Martin at 615-898-2643 or brenden.martin@mtsu.edu.
To sample the students’ work at their interactive website,
go to http://jekyllislandmuseum.wix.com/jekyllislandoralhist.
No comments:
Post a Comment