African-American History as Public History: South Carolina as a Case Study

FAIN: EH-50105-06

University of South Carolina Research Foundation (Columbia, SC 29208-0001)
Constance B. Schulz (Project Director: March 2006 to September 2008)

A four-week summer institute for twenty-five college and university faculty designed to enable participants to develop teaching materials in public history using African American history in South Carolina as a case study.

This institute will prepare undergraduate American history faculty to develop curriculum content in Public History by examining the African American experience in South Carolina through cultural resource sites and institutions; it is a content approach to an understanding of public history principles and practices. Participants will learn about key areas in Public History – museums, historic preservation, archives, oral history, and film - by talking to USC Public History faculty and staff of professional cultural institution staff throughout the state, and by reading literature in the field. Participants will enrich their understanding of how public historians work through site visits to museums, historic houses, manuscript collections, historic districts, and film libraries in Columbia, Charleston, Camden, Aiken, and Edgefield in which African American history is preserved and interpreted, and by reading literature in the African-American history field associated with those sites..