Your New Blogger

Matt Bailey

Greetings to all the MTSU History blog followers (we're up from eight).  We want to grow the blog with regular posts, interviews, guest bloggers, video blogs, and more!  I'm the newest blogger to join the team.  It's a good time to tell you all a bit about myself.

I've been a graduate student at MTSU for 2 and 1/2 years.  Currently, I'm working on my thesis, which examines the split between Primitive and Missionary Baptists in the early 19th century.  I use association and church records with federal census records from 1820 and 1830 to give me quantitative data about individuals on each side.  Next, that is compared and contrasted with circular letters, periodicals, and biographies from the time period.  As you can probably tell from my thesis topic, American religious history is my favorite subject in history.  I find all the social sciences interesting because of their "sheer complexity" (as Richard Herrnstein put it).  This is especially true of religious history, an area where people seem move from the "rational" to the "irrational."  Explaining the rhymes and reasons behind this behavior is fun.

Along with my interest in American religious history, I have another interest.  I'm currently working on becoming highly qualified in special education.  I've taught a total of three years in public schools - one as a special education teacher and two as a social studies teacher.  Higher education is part of an important continuum with secondary and primary education.  Research should be able to filter smoothly from professors through their students at universities to children in a variety of settings (schools, museums, libraries, historic sites, archives, etc).  At the same time, it's important for researchers to keep the "end game" of education in mind while they are doing their work.

There's much more you'll find out about me in the coming months.  I'm a Yankee/Southerner hybrid.  Some of my mothers family sadly does not realize the Civil War is over.  I'm not sure if parts of my Dad's family realize the Revolutionary War is over.  But that's all for now.

Tell your friends! Graduate Program Open House

On February 12, 2011 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., the department is hosting an open house for anyone interested in pursuing graduate study in history at MTSU. Download an invitation here: OPEN HOUSE INVITATION. RSVP is requested, but not required.

The History Day Interviews - Part 1

An Interview with Katie Rosta

Welcome to the first part of our History Day series.  History Day is on February 25th.  Faculty, graduate students, and volunteers all create an exciting day of learning for students throughout Middle Tennessee.  This year's effort is led by Dr. McIntyre and three graduate assistants - Katie Rosta, Brigitte Eubank, and Brad Wright.

Our first interviewee is Katie Rosta.

MB: Hello Katie.  Thank you for joining me for the History Day Interviews.  Will you describe some of your work with History Day?

Katie: This is my second year as a graduate assistant working on History Day.  We help coordinate the Middle Tennessee competition.  We partner with Kelly Wilkerson the state coordinator to assist teachers with workshops, registration questions, topics for history, and even going out to the schools to help teachers.

MB: That sounds exciting!  How does History Day this year compare with last year.

Katie: This year's theme is Debate and Diplomacy in History.  Last year's theme was Innovation in History.  We are expecting another exciting day just like last year.

MB: Do you still need volunteers?

Katie: Yes.  We can always use volunteers.  There are a variety of categories to judge, including exhibits, documentaries, performance, websites, and papers.

MB: Do you have any other thoughts about History Day?

Katie: Working on History Day has been a wonderful opportunity for me.  I enjoy working with teachers and students.  It ties in with my career goals to work in museum education.

MB: So tell me a bit about yourself.  How far along are in the program?

Katie: I'm in my fifth semester with a museum studies concentration.  Right now I'm taking Material Culture with Dr. West and Research Methods with Dr. Holloway.

MB: Do you have any advice for new graduate students?

Katie: Have Kate Turabian's book as a second pillow!

MB: Haha.  What are some of the skills that you have learned while in the program?

Katie: I've learned exhibit design and curriculum development in Dr. Martin's classes.  Last semester in Dr. West's class we gathered and compiled information about the Old City Cemetery in Franklin.  There's so much I've gotten to do while here.

MB: Is there anything else you would like everyone to know?

Katie: I've enjoyed my graduate school experience.  For anyone that gets overwhelmed at times remember there is light at the end of the tunnel.

MB: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview.

Matt Bailey with the MTSU History Department

Guest blogger Kristine McCusker about her research

Dr. Kristine McCusker is a faculty member in the history department. She has a  Ph.D. in American History, Folklore, and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University and is the author of Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky-Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio (Illinois, 2008). In this blog entry she talks about her new research:

          I once said to a group of people that I study dead people. One person, John Lodl, head of the Rutherford County Archives, responded, “Kris, we all study dead people.” Yes, but my folks are already dead when I find them so I really do study literally dead people. My new manuscript, entitled Just Enough to Put Him Away Decent, is a National Institutes of Health-funded study of Southern death rituals between 1918-1945. It examines the evolution of “death care”: the burial of the dead, the grieving of the loss and the comfort given the grief-stricken. But I’m examining death care in era when Progressives were focusing on “life extension,” a campaign literally to extend life. Intriguingly, some of that impetus came from Southern Baptist Churches and some of my more interesting searches have been at the Southern Baptist Library and Archives in Nashville. The Southern Baptists founded hospitals and tuberculosis retreats to stave off early death, but in doing so, messed substantially with biblical prescriptions regarding life span. You were supposed to live three score and ten and then, go to your heavenly Father. What happened theologically, then, when Southerners began to live to eighty, ninety and even one hundred years?

           Some have found this research (and me) somewhat morbid. In fact, a dear friend said to me, “I realize you find this all interesting, but just so you know, you’re in a really weird place right now.” Yes, I am morbid, but when I started the work, my dad had just died and it helped me personally to see people grieving and then, being able to move on with their lives. These days, some three years into the project, death does bother me sometimes, although I find I am still quite comfortable being in that weird place. Seeing the large number of babies being buried has been difficult as has been the utterly painful, tragic deaths – the young woman who died because she ate a safety pin (probably an unidentified suicide) or the three children who died and were buried together during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

          But I have been charmed by the kindness extended to the grief-stricken. Frank Essex, professor emeritus in Political Science, told me about his funeral director father who had the Stuttgart (Arkansas) Air Force Base contract. His father buried16 men who died in airplane training accidents. Southerners believed that one had to bury the whole body, yet airplane crashes were catastrophic events for a body. How did Mr. Essex fix this? He used clothing to recreate the body. He tucked the socks into pants where there were no feet or legs, tied a tie around the neck that no longer existed, and all to complete the expected ritual because he knew it brought comfort to the family.

          So, I study dead people and it is morbid, but it is profoundly important work that reveals how well some acted even at the most difficult times in life.

Invitation to guest blog

With the new school year upon us, I want to remind everybody that guest bloggers are welcome. If you are interested, please let me know.

Wishing everyone a productive and intellectually stimulating school year.

CRM Field School 2010: Stewardship of the NPS at FOVA

The Fort Vancouver National Historic Site (FOVA) is composed of several historic components within a unified site. One part of the site contains an historically accurate re-creation of a former fort of the British Hudson's Bay Company's fur trading operations. The fort was established around 1824 and continued operating under British control until 1846 when the Oregon Treaty set the US–Canadian border at the 49th parallel north thus placing Fort Vancouver within American territory. The fort is situated on its original site near the Columbia River in present day Vancouver, Washington. Fort Vancouver was made a National Monument in 1944, and in the 1960s its boundaries were changed and it was redesignated as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.

MTSU CRM Field School 2010 students arrive on Monday, May 10 for the introductory session of the class.


MTSU students spent the first week of the CRM Field School Maymester class at Fort Vancouver getting an inside view of how the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service (NPS) works, particularly at FOVA. Our daily schedule included both classroom instruction and park tours conducted by the various NPS staffers who oversee operations at FOVA.


We received instruction about how the park staff implements the FOVA General Management Plan.


The NPS staff took turns guiding us around the various park assets. We were treated like V.I.P.s during our stay. NPS Rangers Kimm Fox-Middleton, Greg Shine, and new Ranger Aaron.


Cortney Gjesfjeld conducts one of the lectures for the CRM Field School.

Cortney C. Gjesfjeld, a Historical Landscape Architect and Cultural Resources expert with the Pacific West Region of the NPS, served as a special liaison and instructor for the entirety of our stay. Her involvement in our Field School was integral to our understanding of the complexities of cultural resources management. Plus, she was a great guide around Portland at night during our down time!

The restored fort is built on the footprint of the original fort but the orientation of the entrance has been moved to the rear to accommodate access to the visitors' parking lot.








Thus, visitors approach Fort Vancouver by means of a stroll through an interpretation of the original fort garden. It was a typical English garden and was located behind and outside the boundary of the fort, just beyond the massive gate.






To the east and west of the gardens are the original agricultural fields and apple and cherry orchards which are now being restored with historically accurate plantings.



Cortney gave us much insight into the process of re-creating a natural and cultural landscape accurately.





These stunning arbors are planted with hops!

Fort Vancouver CRM Field School

This semester, nine public history graduate students, along with Dr. Rebecca Conard, are studying cultural resource management practices at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver, Washington. The Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Field School, a Maymester class, commenced on Monday, May 10. For two weeks we will study the wide variety of national, state, and local partnerships that are involved in managing The Fort Vancouver National Historic Site as well as the Historic Columbia River Highway, the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, and the Timberline Lodge National Historic Landmark. Our goal is to get a fix on the complexities of applying scholarship, theory and philosophy to cultural resource management.
In addition to Dr. Conard, participants include Virginia Wallace,
C. Sade Turnipseed, Keith Schumann, Katie Merzbacher, Meghan Fall, Brigitte Eubank, Kristen Baldwin Deathridge, David Calease, and Mona Brittingham. Our base of operations is across the river from Fort Vancouver in Portland, Oregon. We are staying at the Portland Hostel, a member of Hostel International, where we are enjoying a camaraderie reminiscent of the undergraduate college dorm.
We will report in from time to time to share our experiences.