United States History - General & Miscellaneous, United States History - Historic Preservation, Women's History - U.S. - General & Miscellaneous

How the Other Half Lived: A People's Guide to American Monuments

Name: How the Other Half Lived: A People's Guide to American Monuments
Author: Philip Burnham
ISBN: 9780571198627

by Philip Burnham

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Overview

From Mount Vernon to the Alamo, from Plimoth Plantation to Little Bighorn, American history is on display across the United States, and many Americans receive their only impressions about important historical events from parks, homes, monuments, and battlegrounds like these. Yet the reputations of the individuals and groups enshrined at our national historic sites still tend to overshadow the lives of the minorities, women, and laborers who played essential roles in our history. How the Other Half Lived evaluates how accurately over thirty historic sites represent the contributions of women, Native Americans, African Americans, Chinese Americans, and other immigrants, and in doing so details the lives of the many unnamed people who cooked and farmed, labored and fought there. Philip Burnham recounts his travels to sites all over the country, reading the official histories and talking to curators and visitors. We see how the Abenaki Indian side is slowly being brought out at Deerfield, Massachusetts; how visitors reimagine the roles of master and slave at Somerset Place plantation in North Carolina; how women fared in the "utopian" community of New Harmony, Indiana; and how the California State Railroad Museum represents the work and lives of Chinese and African Americans. How the Other Half Lived reveals that in spite of its enormous influence on history, a significant part of the population remains almost invisible at some of the most visited monuments in the country, and explores the ways in which many sites are trying to remedy this.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Burnham, a teacher and freelance writer, liberally applies a healthy dose of political correctness to the many national historic sites located throughout the United States. The author looks at "history as we like to think it was" and gives us "history as we wish it had been." Taking several broad headings-plantations, missions, railroads, etc.-and offering his own personal reflections following visits, Burnham skewers with wit and intelligence the "official" story at each site. Behind the pretty faades of many of these sites is a multicultural story needing to be told; Dead White European Males were not the only ones responsible for the history made there. This book is guaranteed to offend some and educate many. Recommended for public libraries.-Joseph L. Carlson, Vandenberg Air Force Base Lib., Cal.