Last week, you completed the unit on theoretical history as you studied political, intellectual, cultural, and social history and wrote about all of these. Now, let’s change gears and work on your own personal interactions with history. This week, your challenge is to explore local history in the area where you live. The goals of this assignment are as follows.
Understand your community and its past to help contextualize contemporary values. Appreciate your local historical heritage in your community.
Become more aware of the significance of local history in your own life. Please look around your area for a locally oriented museum, a more general museum with a locally oriented exhibition, an historical building, an historical site, or a local historical society.
Research the site, museum, building, or society. Go visit (take a photo of yourself there and include it in your assignment please).
Explain the import of the local site and its historical significance. Connect what you’ve learned about your local history to the larger context of the course (how what you’ve discovered has contributed to American history or if it’s shed more light for you on studies regarding political, intellectual, cultural, or social history). Please write up your findings into a two- to three-page essay.
