"In areas like ours, everything we've ever had we fought for. It wasn't just handed to us," says Anna Hutchison, a community activist and one of the founders of the North Edinburgh Social History Group. For decades, Anna tells the author, the community has had to struggle for the basic amenities others in the city take for granted,…

Old Sturbridge in central Massachusetts, a recreated New England Village of the period 1790-1840, is a museum of the past which includes a learning center with reproductions of artifacts used in the period, with demonstration areas, and a teacher center where resource materials for class use are available. (MF)

Describes a course that approaches concepts of historic preservation from a humanities, rather than an architectural, perspective. The course begins with a questionnaire about the area that uses ideas from perceptual geography and social psychology. Later readings include novels, poems, essays, and songs. (MJP)

The book presents information on the use of oral history as a classroom device. The first chapter discusses the evolution of oral history from a practice intended to preserve information on noted Americans to a way of preserving recollections of older Americans about the past. The second chapter explains why interviewing members of their own…

Recounts the experience of researching community history in Ivanhoe, Virginia, between 1987 and 1990. The Ivanhoe History Project involved community members in collecting photographs, memorabilia, and oral histories of their town. Subsequent published volumes won the W. D. Weatherford Award and inspired a quilt exhibit and a theatrical production.…