General Public History
1/10/18 – Boise’s “Geothermal Gem”
Since the late 19th century, Boise’s geothermal energy has been an economic and cultural driver of the city’s development. A variety of entrepreneurs capitalized on the region’s active geologic inheritance to provide Boiseans with cheap and sustainable energy and, in doing so, pioneered the first geothermal heating district in the United States. Forty years later,… Read the Rest »
1/3/18 – Bringing Boise’s Geothermal Past, Forward: “The Heat Beneath Your Feet”
Idaho’s extreme landscapes allude to the state’s violent geologic past, from the towering 12,000-foot peaks of the Lost River Range to Craters of the Moon National Monument. Periodic episodes of volcanic activity shaped Idaho’s sceneries and, in many ways, continue to define the state today. The cinder cones and lava plumes endowed Idaho with rare-earth… Read the Rest »
12/27/17 – Modern Day Research Trips and the Famed Golden Age of Travel, Part 2
The hustle and bustle of holiday travel is upon us. The surge of families with small children and less-experienced travelers at airports across the country means busier terminals, shorter tempers, and heightened levels of excitement…for some. As a result, the holiday-induced shift in travel patterns has me once again thinking about aviation, so get ready… Read the Rest »
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 »
9/13/17 – The “10 a.m. Policy”: The U.S. Forest Service and Wildfire Suppression
In last week’s blog, I wrote about the history of lookouts (LO) as the early indicators of the agency’s aggressive fire suppression policy. This week, I explain how the LOs comprised but one element in the U.S. Forest Service’s policy of total fire suppression that culminated in overgrown forests – tinderboxes – primed to burn… Read the Rest »
7/26/17 – Modern Day Research Trips and The Famed Golden Age of Travel
My job description at SHRA clearly outlines that travel is required. In fact, all historians with SHRA can expect to travel and work away from the office roughly 25% of the time. This is to be expected of a job where we are in search of rare documents that likely exist in only one repository… Read the Rest »
6/14/17 – SHRA Wins NCPH 2017 Excellence in Consulting Award
SHRA is pleased to announce that the National Council on Public History (NCPH) awarded its 2017 Excellence in Consulting Award to our firm for our research and consulting work in support of Idaho Power’s centenary commemoration. The NCPH grants this award to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of public history through consulting or contract… 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 »
3/29/17 – The History of the Olympics…or the Olympics as History, Part III
The memories of last summer’s Rio Olympic Games are still fresh in the minds of sports aficionados, however, much of the fanfare and excitement that existed leading up to and during the event have faded from the public arena. As time progresses, the victories, defeats, and organizational challenges and successes of the Rio Games will… Read the Rest »