Amalia Baldwin
10/10/17 – Let Sleeping Volcanoes Lie
Iceland has always loomed large in my mind, its geographic extremes and stark beauty placing it high on the list of places I want to explore during my lifetime. The volcanic island’s larger-than-life reputation in my head belies its true size, which is about that of the state of Oregon. Iceland has, however, had a… Read the Rest »
7/19/17 – Teddy Roosevelt in a Forrest Gump Land
It is, perhaps, old hat to remark on the loss of a broader human story when we choose to memorialize a landscape in a particular way, but I was recently reminded of how prevalent this occurrence is in a place I least expected: downtown Washington D.C. As someone who studied environmental history, and especially wilderness… Read the Rest »
6/21/17 – The New Mexican Automobile Runway
While sifting through documents at the New Mexico State Archives on a recent research trip, I encountered references to “automobile runways,” a phrase I had never heard before. At first I ignored the term; it was not relevant to our immediate research topic. However, by the fifth or sixth mention of the runway I was… Read the Rest »
5/31/17 – Sourdough Story
At SHRA we spend a lot of our time interacting with archives. We locate archives online, we correspond with archivists, we review archival finding aids, and we travel to archives to conduct research. All of this archival work has to do with locating and capturing primary source materials: maps, ledgers, petitions, meeting minutes, newspapers, etc…. Read the Rest »
4/5/17 – Sacramento Dreaming
A recent research trip took the SHRA team to Sacramento, California. The project we were working on had us examining events during the very early days of California statehood, when San Francisco was by far the biggest and most influential city in the new state. As we sat at the State Library, looking out at… Read the Rest »
2/22/17 – “Let’s Go for a Drive”
During recent public history project research, I stumbled across an article and photographs by Otto M. Jones published in the Idaho Daily Statesman in 1919. The article described the “arduous task” of travelling “steep winding grades that are not inducive [sic] of much speed or tempered with any degree of safety or security.”[1] The accompanying… Read the Rest »
2/8/17 – National Parks, History, and Amalia Baldwin
This past August 2016, the National Park Service celebrated its 100th birthday. The speeches, parties, news stories, and commemorations across the country were a way for Americans to reflect on one of the most incredible ideas this country has had. Despite the challenges the national parks face now and will continue to face in the… Read the Rest »