Out from Behind this Mask

Material Culture Museum Assignment

Due Dates:
10/13: Topic Selection Due
10/20: First Draft of Entry Due (password-protected blog post)
10/27: Second Draft of Entry Due (password-protected blog post)
11/3: Final Post Due (tagged “digitalmuseum”)

Assignment Background
Students in all Looking for Whitman classes will build exhibits in a digital museum that presents Walt Whitman’s life and work through examinations of discrete material objects relevant to the time Whitman spent in a particular location. Our goal is to tie the study of history — and Whitman’s history specifically — to very concrete objects, in the same way that someone in the future might learn about our present culture by studying an iPod or a television set.

If you’re wondering what a “material object” is, the term basically refers to any physical object that can be found in the world — a pen, a book, a piece of clothing, a building, a manuscript page. Looking at history by examining everyday material objects represents an alternative way of thinking about history. People used to study history by looking at the stories of “great men” and large industries. In recent years, historians have shown that we can learn just as much, if not more, about a culture by looking at the everyday physical objects it contained.

In this assignment, you will pretend that you work in a museum and that you are putting together an exhibit on an object related to Whitman’s time in New York. Your goal should be to produce a well-fashioned and informative piece of writing that fulfills the following objectives:

1. Provides a scholarly and readable introduction to a specific material object
2. Thoroughly explores the general context of that object — its invention, development, and history of use
3. Discusses its physical properties — how it looked and felt, and what people wrote about it
4. Focuses on the relationship of that object to Whitman’s work

To see examples of the general type of work we’re looking for, please visit the virtual museum built at the University of Mary Washington in Prof. Jeffrey McClurken’s History of American Technology & Culture class.

Requirements

1. You must choose your object from the list below (objects will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Simply email your preference to Prof. Gold)
2. Your research should consist of scholarly, college-level sources, whether electronic or print. Use the bibliographies in the things you read to find further sources!
3. You must use a minimum of four scholarly sources, and they should be meticulously cited in your entry. You will should provide a works cited page at the end of your post that provides complete citation information in MLA Format.
4. At least one of your scholarly sources must be a book and at least one must be either an article found in a library database or a document found in a local archive.
5. You must use at least one image in your digital museum entry. If you use more than one image, please identify which one of those images should serve as your entry’s iconic image on the navigation page for the museum. You must provide citation information for the images you use.
6. Your entry must be at least 1500 words (the equivalent of a six-page paper).
7. You must visit at least one New York Museum during the course of your research. See addendum for a list of NYC museums and archives that may be of interest.

Warnings

• Make sure that you know how to quote from your sources responsibly, and that you understand the difference between paraphrase and plagiarism. If you have any questions about how to cite from or quote material that you’ve found, please get in touch.

Topics

Please choose an object from the following list. If you would like to research something that is not on this list, please get in touch.

New York Daguerreotype Galleries (Brady’s and Plumbe’s)

P.T. Barnum’s Museum

American Phrenological Journal

Bowery B’hoys – Assigned to Danique

Snow Scene in Brooklyn Painting by Francis Guy

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

New York Aurora

Franklin Evans and Temperance Novels

Operas and opera singers reviewed by Whitman in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle – Assigned to Nicole F

Prison Ship Martyrs Monument – Assigned to Fabricio

The vault at Pfaffs – Assigned to Chuck

Grace Church – Assigned to Pedro

99 Ryerson Street

Plymouth Church – Assigned to Jennifer

Perris Real Estate Atlas

Whitman’s hat – Assigned to Fia

Rufus W. Griswold’s review of 1855 Leaves of Grass

Nina (Whitman’s horse on Long Island)

Compositing Type

NY Tombs and McDonald Clarke – Assigned to Amber

“Our Future Lot” manuscript

Circulating Library

Long Island Clams – Assigned to Nicole G

Steam Frigate Fulton Explosion – Assigned to Chase

Firefighting / The Great Fire of 1835 / Its Effects on the NYC Newspaper Industry – Assigned to Oktay

General Lafayette Tour of 1825

Addendum
NYC area museums and resources (list courtesy of Prof. Karen Karbiener):

1. Brooklyn Historical Society

2. New-York Historical Society

3. Brooklyn Public Library

4.Lower East Side Tenement Museum

5. Museum of the City of New York

6. New York City Fire Museum

7. Merchant’s House Museum

8. Edgar Allan Poe Cottage

9. Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden

10. National Museum of the American Indian

11. Museum of American Financial History

12. Museum of Chinese in the Americas

13. Walt Whitman Birthplace (Huntington, Long Island)

City Tech students:  by now, you should have received an email notification of our assignment for this week, which I posted on the wire of the City Tech Whitman group.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  I’m looking forward to seeing your work!