North Carolina Museum of the Coastal Plain - Sample Portion of Timeline

The samples below are taken from a timeline that I researched, created, and fabricated while at East Carolina University. In the course titled "Field Lab: Museums and Historic Site Development," my classmates and I worked to create and install the first exhibits at the newly opened North Carolina Museum of the Coastal Plain. The museum opened in May of 2010. Our class worked to build the museum from the ground up and we did everything from painting the floors, to building walls, and creating and installing the exhibits.

My major assignment was to create and develop a timeline that spans the history of the North Carolina Coastal Plain from pre-history to the museum opening. The link provided will include some sample labels from the timeline. 

Click here for the PDF of the timeline

History Colorado - Educator's Trunks

This teacher's manual and the lesson plans included were developed and created by myself and two other classmates. Together we brainstormed and developed the three lesson plans as well as the grandmother's story in the trunk. After this we each wrote our own versions of the teacher's manual and lesson plans.

Click here for the PDF of the Educator's Manuel 

"Reservations: Southern Ute Culture Before and After the Reservation System" Exhibit Brief

Exhibit brief completed for my historical methods in museum studies class while at Colorado State University. The research in the brief builds on an early historiographical paper completed in the beginning of the semester. In addition to creating the brief, I also created a brochure to promote the exhibit.

Click here to access the PDF of the brief 

Rendezvous in the Rockies

First of all let me say, man time flies in graduate school! It has been non-stop studying and reading since August 20th. Well Tuesday offered the chance to both take a break (kind, not really... at least I got out of Fort Collins for the night) and go to Vail for the chance to interview some old-timers in the U.S. Forest Service. Overall, a great, fun, and interesting experience.

I had to opportunity to network with the Chief Historian for the Forest Service, who is one of the three Chiefs in the Forest Service. We also were paid a huge compliment by Patti Limerick, who is one of the foremost western historians in the U.S., who impressed by the work me and my fellow classmates was doing in Vail.

Things I learned from my interviewee's:

1. Vail was developed as a ski town and resort by the Forest Service (I got to interview one of the main dude's in implementing the recreational side of skiing in Colorado)

2. The Forest Service in Alaska is heavily involved with its community.

3. Ask a forester a question and they can talk for at least 30 minutes on one given question!

Below is a picture from my room, sorry for the weird glares, they are because of the case on my phone. Jon and I will have to take a trip there sometime soon that way everyone can see more of the beautiful outdoors!

"The Greatest Good"

In a little under three weeks, I will be going to Vail to conduct a series of oral histories of former Forest Service employees. It is truly a unique opportunity to hear some amazing stories from some of the people who ran a significant branch of the government.

To prepare for our interviews, my class was given copies of "The Greatest Good: A Forest Service Centennial Film," which chronicles the history of the Forest Service and a few of the controversies it's been embroiled in throughout its history. The film discusses the struggle of the Forest Service in balancing the demands of conservation and logging.

Overall, a good documentary that gives an insightful look at the history of the organization and its internal struggles to provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people. If you enjoy Ken Burn's style documentaries then you should add this to your list.

Semester long, Read Along...

For those of you who might be interested in joining me in reading some of the books I've been assigned this semester. Feel free to post a comment with your opinion on a book or what you might be interested in reading. Also, should time permit with all my assignments, I want to try and post some reviews of the books. I've arranged the books in the groups that I will be reading each week.


Here they are:

Week One:
- The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hamalian
- Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America's House Museums by Patricia West
- Telling the Truth About History by Joyce Appleby, et. al.


Week Two:
- Peace Came in the Form of Women: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands by Julianna Barr
- The Gender of History by Bonnie G. Smith



Week Three:
- Second Thoughts on Colonial Historians and Native Americans by James Merrell
- Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition by James T. Kloppenberg
- Museums and the Future of Collecting by Simon Knell



Week Four:
- Silencing The Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouilliot
- Mysteries of Sex: Tracing Men and Women through American History by Mary Ryan
- Exhibitions in Museums by Michael Belcher



Week Five:
- The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
- Contesting Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives by Susan Sleeper-Smith

I think those will keep you busy for awhile, and to think that's only half the list! I still need to pick out another book to read for my American History reading seminar in week five, but it was long and a lot of the titles looked interesting.

Hope you all will join me and enjoy :)

The Couch Fiasco

So when we relocated to Raleigh we made the choice to load up the cars with as much as possible and rebuild our home when we got out here. I have been scouring craigslist for most of August trying to find the perfect couch to go into our living room.

About a week and a half ago, we went and looked at a couch at one house. After 30 minutes or so of trying to get sofa number one out of these people's house we gave up and went home empty handed. Nearly a month later, I found another couch worthy of purchase.... seriously there's a lot of ugly couches on the Craigslist out here.

Anyways, so I'm emailing the Craigslister back and forth for a week while in my orientations for graduate school. And said CL'er insisted that the couch had to be gone that week! So between my all day orientations M-F from 8am-5pm and Jon's schedule which is mostly night shifts.... the scheduling was going to be tight.  So this girl and I agree that we would pick up the couch Thur evening after Jon got home from work. We find the house, see the couch, and instantly realize that bad boy isn't going to fit in or on our car. So we talk things over with the girl and she agrees to drop the couch off at our house in the morning. We pay her in good faith and go home.

When we get home though, Jon starts measuring to see if the couch is going to fit through the door frame and through the hallway of our apartment. He makes a judgement call that the couch isn't going to fit. Problem, right? So I text back our CL friend and see if it would be possible to get our money back, i'm so sorry, this is really embarrassing, yada yada yada. No response..... We wait until the next morning and I try calling our CL friend. No response....

Then about five minutes later, I get a text from the girl saying she doens't have the money and she's already spent it and that we can try and resell the couch if we want to or she can sell it and give us our money back after it sells. And I was like, no it's fine just bring the couch over and we'll figure it out. Well then, she starts talking about bringing the couch to us next week which is when Jon got on the phone with the local PD. To make a long story short, the cops called our CL friend and told them to bring our couch as agreed upon or we could take them to civil court. Needless to say, in a short while the couch was laying outside of our apartment. After a lot of lifting, panting, flipping and contorting we got the couch into our living room without any major causalities. And here world, behold the couch that caused our First Fort Collins Fiasco: