How nice to see, upon my return from Detroit, that PH has been noted as one of 80 blogs central to history blogging by Cliopatrician Ralph Luker.  Thanks, Ralph!

It’s a great list, full of blogs I admire and blogs I’ve never read, and I look forward to exploring it more.  I’m happy to have helped to make a place for public history in the mainstream of the history blogosphere.

More symptoms of job market blues:  The public history job market is so bad that a museum thought it was acceptable to include this in their job posting:

“PLEASE NOTE: This position is PART TIME and will remain so for the foreseeable future. If you are NOT interested in PART TIME work, please do not bother applying. This was a major problem for us the last time we hired for this position. With both collections positions open we frankly do not have the time to waste on people who are really looking for full time.”

Two things jump out at me from this post.  Since there is a large pool of folks applying for every history museum job out there  1) Even small historical societies think that it’s perfectly acceptable to put up a hostile addendum to their job ad (don’t waste our time, duplicitous seekers of a livable wage!) and 2) even small historical societies think it’s perfectly fine to conduct a national search for a part-time job in a small town far from possibilities of other part-time employment.  (Though I’m shocked at the language in this ad, I do understand that most small historical societies can’t afford to pay many employees and that finding people willing to move to small towns for these jobs is not easy. ) These are dark days, folks.

The Iowa public history community, probably in low spirits due to all the recent flooding, finally has some good news.  Humanities Iowa is announcing the Iowa History Prize, “a biennial award of up to $90,000, to honor an Iowa history scholar, promote Iowa history appreciation, public discussion and community-based programming.” This is a public history prize–Humanities Iowa’s director Christopher Rossi said that “pure scholarship will not be rewarded”–which can be awarded to anyone working in Iowa history, from museum directors to independent scholars to high school history teachers.  The focus is on giving “untapped and underutilized history authorities” the means and audience to engage the public in Iowa history.  This is the greatest innovation of the prize:  local historians and citizen historians will be empowered to do both basic and cutting-edge public history work.  For historians used to working with very little money, 45K a year could keep several small history centers afloat and enable great exhibits, programming, and digital history work, and really jumpstart public discourse about Iowa history

The Prize is modeled on the Poet Laureate program, which of course appoints a person to be the state’s official poetry advocate; “the Iowa History Prize winner will be become the face of Iowa history for the state,” a “historian laureate.”  (I think we can officially call history the most poorly funded of the humanities when poetry is our model for successful, relevant humanities programming.  Poor Clio!)  In an op-ed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Rossi says that the Prize winner will be “the public’s personal sherpa of historical memory who guides us across the landscape of accomplishment and struggle that make up our Iowa past.”  He notes that Iowa’s state historical society still lacks a director after 2 years, that Iowa history is inconsistently taught, and that Iowa ranks low in support of cultural organizations, including local history societies.  With this Prize, Humanities Iowa hopes to turn around this trajectory and “help scholars and the public interpret the stories that give meaning to our lives, invigorate Iowa history studies, elevate public appreciation of our common past and honor a deserving Iowa history expert as the Iowa public historian.”  I wish them the best of luck!  If this program is successful, it could be a model for historian laureate programs across the country.  The Prize will be awarded in November.  We’ll keep our eyes on Iowa.

The scifi author Thomas Disch died of suicide on July 4.  His work was brilliant, difficult, and formally groundbreaking, especially his 334 and Camp Concentration. Born in Iowa, he spent his teens in Minnesota, and often returned here in his fiction.  His first novel, The Genocides, which I highly recommend, features an earth invaded by giant plants, and a group of Minnesotans, farmers and others, striving to live in the changed and depopulated world.  It’s particularly compelling to read if you’re from the North Shore, which is never featured in disaster tales.  In The Genocides, Lake Superior is sucked up by the plants for irrigation, and Duluth is lovingly and thoroughly destroyed.  The farmers do not survive.  And now we’ve lost Disch himself.

A few fun things to celebrate my four-day weekend:

An interview with Kate Beaton, who writes brilliant history comics, and from whose comics I learned all my Canadian history (sorry, Adam!).

and…

Great Moments in History, drawn on the Etch-a-sketch.

That’s all! I’m spending the weekend with Shakespeare in lovely Winona, Minnesota. I’ll be less scarce in July, I promise. History doesn’t stop just because it’s summer

Update:  Wow, I had to update with this:  Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross get married in Philly! (thanks, Mary)  Happy 4th!

Floods continue to inundate the Mississippi Valley. What’s happening with history and cultural heritage institutions? Read more for how you can help.

NEH has just announced that it will be giving out $1 million in grants for disaster recovery: “Affected institutions in federally designated disaster areas may apply immediately for emergency grants of up to $20,000 to salvage, protect, and treat historical collections damaged by the flooding. Such collections may include manuscripts, historical records, art and artifacts, recorded sound, film and videotape, rare books, photographs, and other materials of cultural or historical significance.”

Here in Minnesota, Historic Forestville, a living history museum run by the MHS, in a state park, had some flood damage, including a washed out bridge, but the park reopened last weekend. The caves will take a while to dry out, so postpone that trip to the Mystery Cave when you’re down in Preston.

The Cedar Rapids Public Library, right on the river, had some serious damage to collections: there’s an interview with a library spokesperson. The library’s website notes: “Please do not return flood damaged books. Fines and fees for flood damaged library materials and overdue materials are waived until further notice.” These flooded library pictures are tragic. (via jessamyn)

Heritage Preservation has a disaster resource page, with links to damage response information and ways to get teams of crack conservators to come in to your institution as collections first responders. This should be particularly useful if you’re affiliated with a flood-damaged museum or cultural resource institution.

****Want to help out affected museums with a donation? I will match donations to the Iowa Museum Association for flood relief by PH readers up to $200. We all know that small museums run on a shoestring. Without help, some of these institutions may never be able to recover. Please send checks to Iowa Museum Association, 1116 Washington Street, Cedar Falls, IA 50613. Leave a note in the comments or drop me an email to tell me you donated.****

Here’s a message that’s been circulating from the Iowa Museum Association about how to help (and here’s more tragic photos from their blog).

…While we are still receiving damage reports, it is important to begin getting supplies and help to those who have been allowed back in their facility.

Mail and delivery services as well as e-mail, telephone and cell phone communication, are spotty in some areas at this time. For that reason we have decided to concentrate delivery of supplies to two main areas at this time. More will probably be added as we are able to determine where the need for help exists.

The organizations in Cedar Falls/Waterloo and in Cedar Rapids have been or are starting to be allowed back in their buildings. In some clean up and recovery has begun. You will find attached a list of items (flood-clean-up-supply-list1 [pdf]) that I am aware of that have been vital to beginning this process - if you know of others please let me know and I will add them to the list. The supply items listed are merely suggestions - if you would like to donate money, a fund has been set up by the Iowa Museum Association which will be distributed to those affected. Funds may be sent to IMA at the address below. If you would like to donate your time and talents, you will need to contact the individual museums and see if it is safe for you to travel to that area and how you can best assist. Again, my personal experience has shown that it takes many hard-working volunteers to begin the recovery process, so “helping hands” may be the greatest blessing you can offer.

The two collection points have different volume needs based on facilities identified to date that are in need of assistance.

In Cedar Falls/Waterloo, affected museums are the Ice House Museum, the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum, the Waterloo Center for the Arts and Hope Martin Theatre.

In Cedar Rapids, affected museums are the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, the Science Station, Ushers Ferry Historic Village, Seminole Valley Farm historic building complex and the Mother Mosque of North America museum.

The collection point in Cedar Falls will be the Cedar Falls Historical Society, 308 West Third Street, Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613.

The collection point in Cedar Rapids will be Brucemore, 2160 Linden Drive SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52403.

Please ship all supplies via FedEx or UPS. In each box, please include your name, contact information and a complete list of supplies you are sending.

Area museums will be asked to send a representative to the two collection points to pick up supplies that will aid their recovery efforts. Donated supplies will be available to any museum or cultural organization that needs them, not just those listed above as identified to date.

Thank you very much for your offer of assistance!

Iowa Museum Association
mailing address: 1116 Washington Street
Cedar Falls, IA 50613
(319) 239-2236

The art museum and libraries at the University of Iowa seem to have made it through the flood. (photo courtesy UI News Service) The buildings have taken on water, but collections have been moved to high ground. According to a post on the ACUMG-L, the university libraries enlisted “an army of volunteers” to move books out of their basement. No library collections items were damaged or are in danger. The entire U of I Arts campus has been hit hard by the flood. Thankfully, the U of I Art Museum had a disaster plan, and put it into action:

The UI Museum of Art has a disaster plan which was implemented last week. On a proactive basis the fine arts insurance company, Lloyds of London, has provided an emergency response team with fine art expertise. Three out-of-state conservators have been on-site preparing objects to be transported off campus as needed. Professional fine art packers and shippers are assisting museum and university staff. We have security staff on-site 24 hours a day. There has been no significant intrusion of water to the facilities.

The U of I has set up a flood relief fund.

A report from the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is up on the National Trust historic sites blog:

“The Grant Wood Studio is fine and the situation at the Museum of Art is very much under control. The flood waters stopped several feet short of the Museum, but we received about 9 inches of water which backed up through drains in the basement of the Museum wing. By tonight (Sunday), all of that water should be pumped out.

“As the water began to appear and rise in the basement (I literally do not remember which night that was), we reacted immediately. Thanks to an incredible group of staff and volunteers, a considerable amount of artwork was removed from art storage into upper floor galleries or was moved to higher places within art storage. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and we believe that some artwork remained as low as 15 inches off the ground.”

Water is being removed from the building and a team of conservators came in today to assess the damage. Also, they can’t use any volunteers at the moment.

Minnesota museums seem to have made it through the flood just fine. I’ll keep you posted.

Since I moved down to a floodplain, here in Rochester, Minn., I’ve been worried about local museums in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.  Cedar Rapids, of course, was totally under water, though the flood is receding.  But the museum there are been severely damaged.  The National Trust is reporting that the historic house museum Brucemore is okay, and possibly the collections of the art museum and Grant Wood museum, but the art museum, the library, the science center, the Czech and Slovak Museum (above, on Friday) and the African-American Museum were under water.  Here in Minnesota, in Austin the Spam Museum was closed for the flood last week, but it’s not clear if there was damage.  A state of emergency was declared for Mower (Austin) and Freeborn (Albert Lea) counties in southern Minnesota, but no word on other local museums.

I’ll keep you posted on places to send money and for any possibilities for collections professionals to go down and help out with the recovery.

As this weekend many of my friends will be heading down to our alma mater for reunion, I thought it would be a good time to look over some web resources on Oberlin history.  This year is the college and town’s 175th birthday, and as the first college in the country to graduate women and African-Americans, as well as a center of social justice politics, Oberlin has had an important place in American history.

The college has a 175th portal with a few timelines:  the college timeline stops at 1850, so it’s not super useful at the moment.  The college president timeline is pretty nice, with a readable but not flashy interface.  An alumni-led effort, the Oberlin LGBT Community History Project, is a great online oral history repository.  The college library has a fascinating (well, I think it’s fascinating) article on library cataloguing at the college (note the brief mention of Cutter!) as well as digitized college and town publications.  The college archives have a huge wealth of resources on college and community history, a contentdm database of archives objects, and a bibliography of material on Oberlin history.  The Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization also collects local history and the Electronic Oberlin Group has web exhibits.  Happy 175th and happy reunion!

Remember THATcamp, the humanities and technology unconference happening in two weeks over at the CHNM in Virginia? They’ve put up a great little website with profiles of all the participants, basic info about the conference, and a blog (the quote above comes from this post about TEI and digital critical editions). For those of us who can’t attend, this is a great opportunity to sit in on some great conversations about the digital humanities. Margie of Tellhistory, a camper, also set up a delicious account for sharing blogs on the subject (so that’s why my traffic spiked!). I’ll be keeping my eyes on thatcamp and the great projects the campers are developing.