Private Funding and The Museum of Sex

This month’s episode features an interview with Jessica Vaccaro. She is the Director of Communications and Library Services at the Museum of Sex.

I first heard about the Museum of Sex through a story on NPR. You can listen to the original NPR story here.

One thing I found interesting was that this museum decided not to incorporate as a non-profit because it realized that it would be difficult to pursue public funding through government agencies due to what could be perceived as the controversial nature of the content.
This podcast is about what the museum is as an academic idea and their funding structure and how that funding structure is working for them in these depressed academic times.
You can listen to the podcast on iTunes by linking here.

From Up and Out of the Closet: The Stonewall Library and Archives

On this month’s episode of the Public History Podcast I interviewed Jack Rutland from the Stonewall Library and Archives in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. The Stonewall Library and Archives is a lending library and public history institution centered around the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities. We spoke about the problems and achievements of creating exhibits and programing which cater to an inside group as well as can be enjoyed and consumed by an outside group.

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes here.

Ecological Museum? Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the Everglades

Does a museum have to be a structure of wood, brick or concrete? Can it be the natural environment? On this month’s podcast we talk with Professor Jack E. Davis at the University of Florida about his recent book An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century. When reading his book I thought a lot of the work Douglas did really reflected the purpose and ethos of Public History. I do not think it would be a stretch to say Douglas was also the curator of the Everglades. Think of this, if you have her book Everglades River of Grass handy while traveling through the Everglades then maybe you are also a patron in an ecological exhibit. Or maybe I am wrong, but listen to our interview with Professor Davis and decide for yourself. You can go directly to iTunes here.

This month we double dipped with Professor Davis. We have launched a new podcast featuring interviews with authors from the Florida Historical Quarterly. It will appear four times a year as the Florida Historical Quarterly is published. This inaugural Quarterly Podcast features an interview with Professor Jack E. Davis about his article on the author John D. MacDonald. Check out the Podcast webpage here.

The Existential Guide and the Underground Tour

This month’s podcast is an interview with Dietrich Sachs, he is a lead guide with the Underground Tour in Seattle, Washington. The Underground Tour is a historic tour of Seattle’s underground ruins from the late 19th century. When meeting him in Seattle, I found his approach to historical tourism to be unorthodox, critical and completely engaging. I decided to interview him to learn the reasons for his approach to history and the reaction to his post-modern style. Come listen to how Søren Kierkegaard, existentialism, and the century old ruins of a city come to challenge visitors in Pioneer Square.

This is an audio only MP3 file. You can listen to it through iTunes by clicking here.

"From Kin to Kant" Making an Exhibit on Turpentine and Turpentine Culture

This month's podcast is a documentary on an exhibit produced by the UCF History Department and the Winter Park Historical Association. The exhibit was "From Kin to Kant: The Culture of Turpentine."

As opposed to show the information from the exhibit we decided to produce a documentary about some of the elements that went into creating the exhibit. We recorded interviews with Bob Putnam who was the inspiration for the entire exhibit. Additionally we spoke with Marianne Popkins and Kathy Parry who along with Professor Robert Cassanello created the exhibit. We also interviewed Professor Steven Reich from James Madison University who came to the exhibit in the Spring of 2009 to give a talk about turpentine workers and Professor Tiffany Patterson from Vanderbilt University whose book Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life we read as guide to understand Zora Neale Hurston and the lives and culture of the turpentine workers.

In this podcast we discuss orienting clubs, herty cups, Zora Neale Hurston, Turpentine, dioramas, and Jook Joints. There is something for everybody here.

This is a MPEG4 file and for some reason when played in an iPod the pictures doe not sync up with the audio. In iTunes or Quick Time everything works fine. You can listen to the Podcast by linking here.

Oral History and Jim Crow

On this Podcast we talk with Professor Paul Ortiz director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. We spoke with him about his experience conducting oral histories. As a graduate student at Duke University he worked with the Behind the Veil Project which recorded the oral histories of Southerners who experienced Jim Crow Segregation. He collaborated on the radio program and book Remembering Jim Crow with other people involved in the program as well as using some of those oral histories in his own book Emancipation Betrayed about black organizing and protest in Jim Crow Florida.

In the Podcast we spoke about the book The Southern Past by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, in case anyone wants to examine that work further.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking this link. This is an MP3 so it is audio only.

Mexican Migration and North for the Harvest

Greetings all, this podcast is the first in our regular series Public History Podcast.

In this podcast we interviewed Professor Jim Norris an associate professor of history at North Dakota State University. He is the author of North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry.

We interviewed Professor Norris about his history of sugar beet workers, the global history of sugar and the challenges he faced throughout his research.

You can listen to the podcast in iTunes by clicking here. This is our first episode and the podcast ends abruptly in the middle of the closing sentence instead of the end. Sorry, we hope to improve with the editing software.