Week 10:Civil Rights

Voices: Hermina Hendricks, Professor of Music
Seminar: Triangle: the Fire that Changed America by David Von Drehle
Images: Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed

Professor Hendricks spoke to us about growing up in Civil Rights era Lynchburg: what it felt like to live under segregation and how the Civil Rights Movement came to Lynchburg.

Triangle: the Fire that Changed America, provides a detailed account of the blaze at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911 which is set in the context of the Labor Reform Movement in the United States. Von Drehle says the deaths of almost 150 workers, mostly poor immigrant women, eventually led to improvements in the lives of millions of working people.

Mumbo Jumbo was written in 1972 but takes place in 1920’s New York City. The book reflects on the Harlem Renaissance – a period of African-American cultural movement that is part of the larger Civil Rights struggle.

Week 9 - Sports and Gay Rights

Images: Not the Triumph But the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete by Amy Bass
Seminar: Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution by David Carter
Voices: Mel White - gay activist and founder of Soulforce

This week brings us to the realm of social movements. We spoke to Mel White founder of Soulforce whose purpose is "freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance."

Mel White’s organization owes much to the Stonewall riots in 1969 Greenwich Village which sparked the national Gay Rights Movement. Stonewall details the context for and aftermath of the clash between gays and the police: “for Carter, the most audacious, energetic and enterprising of riot participants were the drag queens, homeless queer youths and other gender transgressors whose position on the farthest margins of society enabled their radical response to oppression. He ends appropriately with the emergence of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance, as well as the first gay pride parade, held in June 1970. (From Amazon.com)

Through Not the Triumph But the Struggle, we touch on the Civil Rights Movement in the United States through the story of African Americans in sports.

Week 7: History of Transportation: Part II

Voices: Al Soltis, Vice President of Roadway Maintenance Division of Lanford Brothers
Images: Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith by Timothy Beal
Seminar: The National Road (The Road and American Culture) edited by Professor Karl B. Raitz


…motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it … This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising…
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

This week we explored the great American roads that connect us.

In Images we looked at the usually gawked- at roadside oddities that are, after all, odd; plowing through layers of kitsch to get at the real religious spirit they might obscure. These ignored moments of the roadside begins to show the hazy line between American roads and American evangelicalism.

Seminar looked at the history of the National Road and how that road changed the American landscape as well as how it changed American Culture.
We also spoke to Al Soltis about the physical effort and planning it takes to build a road as well as maintaining our road system into the future.

Week 6: History of Transportation: Part I

Images: Inside Rikers: Stories From the World's Largest Penal Colony
by Jennifer Wynn
Seminar: Selections Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York ed. Hilary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson
Voices: Ellis Island play at EC Glass High School

Here [in New York City] the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine. - Robert Moses

In images we read Inside Rikers which explains not only the historical but the sociological conditions of America’s most famed prison. With more than 2,319,258 Americans behind bars, understanding our system is an important issue of immobility.

In seminar we discussed master builder Robert Moses who “played a larger role in shaping the physical environment of New York State than any other figure in the 20th century… He built 658 playgrounds in New York City, 416 miles of parkways and 13 bridges. But he was more than just a builder. Although he disdained theories, he was a major theoretical influence on the shape of the American city, because the works he created in New York proved a model for the nation at large.” (NYT)

We also visited EC Glass High School to see the students production of Ellis Island: The Dream of America. The musical told the story of the American immigrant experience that we have been discussing in the classroom using texts from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, photographs from the Ellis Island Immigration Museum Library, as well as dance and music through collaboration Peter Boyer, the creator and composer.

Trip 3: Philadelphia

Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and with what you are. He who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia.
-Russel H. Conwell

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Friday, February 27

Central Headquarters of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Harrisburg, PA

Welcoming Center in Philadelphia, PA

Saturday, February 28

Eastern State Penitentiary Tour

Fairmount Water Works

Trip 2: Washington DC

Most of the people who live in Washington come from other places and you can learn something from them. - Sally Quinn

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We traveled to Washington DC to explore the Smithsonian Institution exhibit called America on the Move at the National Museum of American History, Behring Center, in Washington, D.C.

Week 5 - Immobility and Disposal

Images: Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte
Seminar: Eastern State Penitentiary: A History by Paul Kahan
Voices: Eric Schrader, Utilities Engineer for Lynchburg.

“People say I'm extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?”
-Imelda Marcos

This week we looked at the movement of objects and natural resources above and below the ground. We also thought about the concept of immobility in American culture through a discussion of prisons.

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The New York Times describes Garbage Land author as “a garbage detective, she follows the used plastic bags, drink containers, old newspapers and, yes, bodily excretions that disappear into the trash can or down the toilet, only to reappear somewhere else, out of sight and out of mind.”
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Eastern State Penitentiary: A History tells the story of one of America’s best known prisons in Philadelphia, PA. With 2,319,258 people in American jails the history of how we have punished criminals in the past understates how we handle criminals now.
Eric Schrader spoke to us about the waste water treatment system in Lynchburg.