Historic Sites in and around Charleston

Cabin

Cabin at McLeod Plantation, James Island, SC.By ProfReader – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47361740

For this blog post of 500-600 words, you’ll visit a historic site and analyze the way the site presents events, people, and ideas to visitors.This post will be due on October 27, 11:59 PM.

Choose any historic house, plantation, house of worship, historically important building, or another historic site that is interpreted by a park or guide, except for the plantations we discussed in class and C of C’s main campus. 

Review the questions you’ll need to answer for the blog post before you go, and bring your notebook to take notes on your visit (field notes) while you’re there.  Be sure to take a picture of yourself at the site.

You’ll probably need a couple of hours to visit the site in person, taking notes while you’re there. Then you’ll need another 1-2 hours to draft and revise your paragraphs.

Your post should answer the following questions, although you may arrange it in any order you like, as long as it flows logically.

 

1) Describe the site in detail, and be sure to discuss what it’s like to be there in person. Include a photo of yourself at the site.

2) Discuss what makes this site worthy of our attention and/or a good representation of some aspect of the South. For example, is the site historically important, aesthetically beautiful, a good representation of a particular culture? Show some awareness of what was happening in the South during the time that is most associated with the site. (This can be the time a historic event took place, the time the organization or family was most active, the time the structure was built.) What aspects of the South have changed most since that time period?

3) Analyze and evaluate the way the site interprets itself to visitors.  Do you think the interpretation is complete and truthful? Were there any omissions or glossing over of more negative aspects that could be associated with the site?

4) In your opinion, how does this site either challenge or reinforce stereotypes about the South? How does the site itself, or the manner in which it interprets its importance to visitors, add to your understanding of the 21st-century South?

5) In answering questions 3 and 4, relate some details about the site to topics or items we have studied in this class. No bibliography or formal citation is required, as long as you identify the sources as you discuss them. Be sure to put your ideas into your own words or enclose a source’s words in quotation marks.