First things first:
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| Stripes! |
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| Hot chocolate with peppermint marshmallows. I am aware that it is July, but it is cold in my office. |
Now for the real story of the day: Monticello and Abraham Lincoln's birthplace. These are my personal, biased opinions.
Sinking Spring Farm is part of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHP. The park itself encompasses the site where he was born and lived for the first two years of his life (Sinking Spring), as well as the site where he lived from ages 2 to 4 (Knob Creek). I visited on my recent road trip and was disappointed. Not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it.
It looks like a mausoleum. Kind of contradicts the "humble beginnings" that are such a big part of what Lincoln's legacy is associated with. I mean sure, they have a "reconstructed" log cabin inside:
But my personal philosophy in public history is to use objects/reconstructions in such a way that makes history real to people. I wanted to be able to walk around what I had thought was presented as a farm and imagine what it really would have been like growing up there, but I didn't really feel able to do that here. Because it felt like I was at a shrine to a log cabin, a shrine to the American idea that you can come from humble roots, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and become whatever you wish, not a place designed to help me understand and connect in a real way with an historical figure.
Knob Creek Farm wasn't any better:
This is not the cabin Lincoln lived in. It was rebuilt from logs of a cabin his neighbors lived in, which is still neat. However, there was no information at the site. Just a cabin and a closed tavern. They tried, I guess.
We also stopped at Monticello. Now, I've been there before, and I love it. I also love Thomas Jefferson himself, but that's beside the point. (I may have told B last night that if Thomas Jefferson were alive today I might be dating him instead of B). This go round, I noticed something I hadn't before.
WHO THE HECK PUT MODERN BATHROOMS INTO MONTICELLO? Unacceptable. Jefferson was the architect of the building, and he clearly didn't add modern bathrooms for the convenience of 20th century guests. I'm not saying he wouldn't have had he been around for the advent of indoor plumbing (he liked technology quite a bit actually), but the point is that he wasn't. For us to get a true understanding of the building he built and life there, whoever committed this travesty should have left well enough alone. After all, they already built a gift shop with modern bathrooms right down the entrance way, so it's not as if people can't use the facilities. I'm just saying they shouldn't be able to do it in THOMAS JEFFERSON'S HOUSE.
This PSA was brought to you by someone who clearly has a lot of public history rage (thanks grad school!).
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