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.

Week 4: Move to Suburbs and Gentrification

Images: End of Suburbia and Suburban Sahibs: Three Immigrant Families and Their Passage from India to America By S. Mitra Kalita

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Seminar: Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States By Kenneth T. Jackson

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Voices: Hal Craddock – Lynchburg Architect involved in ‘non-suburban’ design ideas: revitalizing downtown and the New Urbanist community, Wyndhurst.

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The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.

--Marshall McLuhan

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Crabgrass Frontier, achieved the rare feat of winning both the Bancroft Award, given by Columbia University for the year's best work of history, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians. The book is a critical work in the history of American Suburbs.

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Suburban Sahibs traces the lives of three immigrant families that make their way from various parts of India to the suburbs of New Jersey, giving us a closer look at the American Dream for immigrants, as well as suburbia. At the same time we watched the documentary End of Suburbia which documents how the changing oil issues may end an American institution.

Week 3: Immigration and Immigrant Experience, part II

American Voices: Arturo Fernandez – a member of the Lynchburg community who shared his experiences emmigrating from Venezuela and working with the local Hispanic community.

American Seminar: watched New York: A Documentary Film, Episode Four: The Power and the People, 1898-1918. Students began reading Crabgrass Frontier for next week.

American Images: The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art, an Oral History By Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrations and revolutionists. - FDR

After having our eyes opened by our trip to Jamestown we begin to look at the Frontier and immigration in a different light.
The documentary on New York complimented last week’s book, Ellis Island to JFK, by providing striking visual imagery of immigration through Ellis Island. The film also foreshadowed topics to be covered later in the semester: the labor movement and transporation.
The Quilters looks at the lives of women in the nineteenth century and the quilts they made as they moved west.
“The women who speak through the book shared a vision, a strength, and a spirit that few of us will ever know or understand.”—Christian Science Monitor

Trip 1: Jamestown

Human progress rarely comes without cost. And those early years in Jamestown, when three great civilizations came together for the first time, Western European, Native American and African, released a train of events which continues to have a profound social impact, not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom and Europe. - Queen Elizabeth II

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January 20

Meet with Mary Anna Richardson, American Culture Program alumna and archaeologist at Historic Jamestown

January 31

Tour Jamestown Settlement and Museum followed by Group Disscussion

Week 2: Immigration and the Immigrant Experience

America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. - Jame

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American Images: The Frontier in American History by Fredrick Jackson Turner and Lecture and Western Films clips.
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American Voices: Carolyn Sue Elliott - member of the Monacan Nation.

American Seminar: From Ellis Island to JFK: New York`s Two Great Waves of Immigration by Nancy Foner

America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. - James Madison

Last week we looked at the beginnings of the expansion in to the frontier this week we have deepen into that search in to the heart of America. Ms. Elliott discussed how the movement of settlers into Virginia impacted Native American life and culture, as well as the movement of Native Americans before and after European settlement (or lack of movement as the case may be!).Images forced us to really look closely at the American mythology Seminar discussed how Immigration changed one of America’s greatest city.