New Public History Project:
Telling Lives
June
3, 2003
New-York Historical Society announces a new interactive digital
history project, at the New-York Historical Society June 24 -
September 14, 2003.
The New-York Historical Society is pleased to announce that it
will be piloting an innovative new interactive public history
project called Telling Lives, developed by American History
Workshop with grants from the Institute of Museum and Library
Services and the University of Toronto. The pilot's theme is "Going
to School," and the goal is to collect hundreds of memories
from New Yorkers and others about their earliest experiences of
classrooms, teachers, and playground adventures.
Telling
Lives is a computer-interactive learning program created
for use in museums, libraries, schools, and community centers
in the United States and Canada. This unique project aims to create
a collective self-portrait of Americans and Canadians in the 20th
century. The history of everyday life is hard to document; it
seldom makes the newspaper headlines. Until now, only celebrities
and the few among us who keep diaries and write memoirs have had
their experiences recorded for posterity. Historians and history
museums have recently become more interested in the lives of ordinary
people, and in involving their publics in collecting and interpreting
their personal experiences. Richard Rabinowitz, project director
of Telling Lives, notes that museums and libraries have
long wanted to have this kind of continuing dialogue with their
patrons. "Now, finally, we have the technology to make museums
and libraries into two-way learning places," says Rabinowitz.
Participants in Telling Lives tell their stories in the
privacy of the "Memory Video Bank" booth. Their recollections
are recorded onto an interactive digital video console, guided
by screen prompts and aural instructions. Trained attendants will
be on hand to assist the visitor through the process. The interview
takes about ten minutes.
Once participants have shared their own memories, they can view
stories from other storytellers, and learn how their corner of
history fits into the larger puzzle of how schooling and other
aspects of everyday life have changed since our grandparents'
day. Participants can also download resources for creating family
video history albums, and participate in community-based learning
programs.
At the New-York Historical Society, Telling Lives will
also include programs to encourage children to report their first
memories of schooling, forums with teachers and parents about
changes in education over the past generation, and other special
events and programs. NYHS welcomes all to look in their closets
for those long-forgotten lunch boxes, book bags, report cards,
and end-of-year autograph books and contact our webmaster (webmaster@nyhistory.org)
about donating these important bits of history to the society.
All of the recorded narratives are collected at an international
archival center at the University of Toronto, where this unparalleled
documentation of ordinary lives will be available to scholarly
researchers, artists, and educators. Andrea Most, professor of
literature at the University, says it will become "one of
the largest and richest resources for research and teaching about
how ordinary people tell their life-stories."
The long-term plan is to make the Telling Lives program
available to museums and libraries across the United States and
Canada. The plan envisions that a single site would lease and
sponsor three or four Telling Lives programs each year, each of
them for a period of twelve weeks. After Going to School, succeeding
programs will explore Family Vacations, Behind the Wheel, The
Weekly Round of Meals at Home, Getting That First Job, and other
themes.
Each site could record up to a hundred interviews each week. Thirty
collaborating institutions, each of them focusing on a new theme
for twelve weeks, might contribute over 30,000 on each theme over
the course of its circulation.
Telling
Lives is a project of the American History Workshop, a consortium
of historians, educators, and artists dedicated to improving the
quality of interpretation at American historical museums, historic
sites, and libraries. American History Workshop, founded in 1980,
has overseen more than 470 master planning and exhibition development
efforts in 32 states and the District of Columbia. AHW has created
the New York Institute for Public History Interpretation, which
offers training programs for mid-career professionals.
The New-York Historical Society. Founded in 1804, the New-York
Historical Society has served as the collective memory of the
city for nearly 200 years. The Society's rich collections include
painting, sculpture, artifacts, photography, prints and a vast
research library in American history. The mission of the newly
revitalized Society is to help New Yorkers appreciate and understand
the origins of the city they know today. For more about the New-York
Historical Society, please visit our Web site at www.nyhistory.org
The prototype of the Video Memory Bank will be located at the
New-York Historical Society from June 24 to September 14, 2003.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency
that fosters innovation, leadership and a lifetime of learning,
supports Telling Lives, developed by American History
Workshop. Programs at the New-York Historical Society are supported
by the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and
the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. American Airlines
is the official airline of the New-York Historical Society.
The New-York Historical Society, located at West 77th Street and
Central Park West, is open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday,
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $6 for adults; $4 for students
and seniors. Telling Lives is included in the admission
fee. For general information, the public can call (212) 873-3400.
