Virtual Talk: Whose History is Preserved?
Whose History is Preserved?
Cyndy Bittinger, Author and Historian
Lindsay Houpt-Varner, Executive Director, Rokeby Museum
Special virtual program as part of the League of Local Historical Societies & Museums (LLHSM)
Museums and cultural institutions preserve and promote history. In recent years practitioners in the field have begun to ask whose history is preserved and what impact that has on historical interpretation. Have you included stories about minorities and Indigenous peoples in your exhibits and publications? Have you invited speakers to talk on diverse topics? In this guided discussion, Lindsay will explore the preservation of an African American church and how this project brought to light regional inequities in the objects and stories preserved in prior decades. Cyndy will share her research into Black Vermonters and women’s activism, and how she worked with volunteers to obtain archival materials to write a book.
Free & open to everyone. Registration appreciated.
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87543832649?pwd=SXZCY0crcGluTXNkcGNXZVVzOVdoUT09
Lindsay Houpt-Varner received her PhD from Durham University in the UK with a specialty in community culture and social history in the Early Modern Period. She started working in cultural heritage in 2011 as a community educator and administrator for the Durham World Heritage Site in the UK. From 2016-2018, she was the project director for the Greater Carlisle Heart & Soul Initiative and from 2018-2020 was the first director of the Community Outreach Department at Cumberland County Historical Society in Pennsylvania. Dr. Varner taught at colleges and university in the UK and Pennsylvania, and is currently the director of Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh, Vermont.
Cyndy Bittinger is faculty, The Community College of Vermont where she teaches Vermont History and Women in U.S. History. She gives lectures for OSHER, the Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Vermont. She was appointed to the Center for Research on Vermont at the University of Vermont. She was a commentator for Vermont Public Radio for many years. She is president of the Hanover Historical Society in Hanover, NH. She was the Executive Director of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation for eighteen years and wrote Grace Coolidge, Sudden Star, a book about the first lady for a series on presidential wives for Nova History Publications and appeared on C-SPAN for their series on first ladies. Her book Vermont Women, Native Americans and African Americans: Out of the Shadows of History was published in 2012. She is a graduate of Wheaton College (MA) and Teachers College, Columbia University where she obtained an MAT in the teaching of American History.
