Difference between revisions of "471A3--Week 10 Questions/Comments--Tuesday"
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Desjardin mentions the National Park Service's role in representing U.S. history. In a particular incident, he quotes the Sons of Confederate Veterans who said that the NPS should "return to its unaligned and apolitical policies of the past, presenting history, not opinions." In my research for my paper, I obtained an official NPS booklet from the 1970s on Andersonville prison camp. I found it odd that the NPS plays such a prominent role in the standardization of Civil War memory. I was also surprised that (at least in my source) there did not seem to be a particular slant. Is this generally true of NPS's role in Civil War memory?- aaskins | Desjardin mentions the National Park Service's role in representing U.S. history. In a particular incident, he quotes the Sons of Confederate Veterans who said that the NPS should "return to its unaligned and apolitical policies of the past, presenting history, not opinions." In my research for my paper, I obtained an official NPS booklet from the 1970s on Andersonville prison camp. I found it odd that the NPS plays such a prominent role in the standardization of Civil War memory. I was also surprised that (at least in my source) there did not seem to be a particular slant. Is this generally true of NPS's role in Civil War memory?- aaskins | ||
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| + | We have always been taught that historians use primary sources for evidence. They use them to prove that their thesis is true. So what happens, like in the case of personal accounts of Gettysburg, if the primary sources themselves are suspect? I think that it would lead to a thesis not being so simple. Scholars would definitely have to undertake the question of why the sources were embellished in the first place. - Angie | ||
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| + | I thought it was interesting how the media influenced what people remembered and celebrated, just like it does today. Desjardin gives the example of Pickett’s charge and how it’s remembered as a Virginian affair because he and his men were from the area around Richmond, which was a media capital. Obviously, the stories that the media chose to report are those that the people heard of and therefore became famous. - Angie | ||
