American Pasts in American Places

Catalog description

All around you are traces of America’s past. Some of them, like Independence Hall, are easy to see. Others are more obscure. The long-disappeared Philadelphia house where Cyrus Bustill, a free Black baker of the Revolutionary era, opened his school for Black children is visible only because of a recently erected historic marker. This course introduces you to the skills and techniques necessary to read America’s past in the landscape around you. Even a place like Independence Hall has had many meanings and uses since it was built in 1732 as each generation has projected their understanding of its significance onto its bricks and mortar. We will explore a variety of places – extant and long gone, local and farther afield – to uncover what they can tell us about the American past and its connections to the American present. Meetings will include field trips to places discussed in the course.