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.
