Guest Post: Interpretation

A couple of months ago, I guest wrote a post for my friend and fellow blogger Ryan O'Connell. Ryan and I met five years ago when we both worked at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park's education division. That summer, we taught middle school students from around the country about John Brown and what life was like during the Civil War. Now, Ryan has guest written a post for me! Enjoy!


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Freeman Tilden is not a name many people know. He was not someone important on the world stage. He will probably not appear in any history book or be remembered for being a leader. Yet this humble and down-to-earth man has indirectly affected the experiences of millions of people visiting the National Parks since 1957. 

Photo: vialibri.net

He was born in 1883 in Massachusetts to a well-to-do newspaper family. He became a writer traveling the world penning articles for notable periodicals such as the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the New York Evening Post, the Ladies' Home Journal, and the Saturday Evening Post. He also spent his spare time to writing creatively, authoring 25 books of fiction and nonfiction, hundreds of articles, short stories, poems, plays, and radio serials. To some, it would have been enough to retire after a long career of journalism and writing at 58. Instead, it was a new beginning for Freeman, which goes to show you that it is never too late to find a new calling.

Photo: npshistory.com

He met Newton Drury, the director of the National Park Service (NPS) at the time and eventually given a title of Administrative Assistant and given the opportunity to travel the NPS and write public relations and interpretation. He could see that it was not enough to give a tour, or set up an exhibit, or have a class. Education was simply not enough. The Parks needed to be sublime, transcendent, and meaningful. Tilden wrote about the National Parks for over 40 years based on his observations and his travels within the parks. Nothing speaks for itself because as Tilden states, 

"Through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection." 

To this end is what the Parks were originally set up to do, to protect the resources of our shared iconic environment and our cultural heritage.

Photo: communicationconstipation.wordpress.com

            Tilden's best known work was entitled Interpreting Our Heritage. It was the result of years of observing visitors and park rangers giving tours of National Park sites, often giving talks himself. The book centered on “The Six Principles of Interpretation,” which were designed to be easy and common sense. The principles are:

1. Interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile. Interpretation should be personal to the audience.
2. Information, as such, is not interpretation. Interpretation is revelation based upon information. Successful interpretation must do more than present facts.
3. Interpretation is an art, which combines many arts. Any art is in some degree teachable.
4. The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation. Interpretation should stimulate people into a form of action.
5. Interpretation should aim to present a whole rather than a part. Interpretation is conceptual and should explain the relationships between things.
6. Interpretation addressed to children should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults, but should follow a fundamentally different approach. Different age groups have different needs and require different interpretive programs.

Photo: amazon.com

The chapters of the book illustrate and give examples of how each of these principles work and things to consider, enhance, or avoid in order to make each site meaningful to each individual visiting a Park. Since the book was published in 1957, the NPS as well as other organizations have used the Six Principles as the basis for their interpretive programs. So not only has Freeman Tilden affected the National Parks, but also state, local, and other places where the public can visit and so indirectly he affects the education and the experiences of visiting public everyday these places are open.

Freeman Tilden passed away in 1980; 97 years young.

"It’s pretty terrific. What a relief it worked" -Enola Gay crewman

On August 6, 1945, the world changed. That was the day that the first atomic bomb, known as "Little Boy," was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Ten days earlier, on July 26, the Allies had issued the Potsdam Declaration, giving the Empire of Japan the opportunity to end the war in the Pacific with unconditional surrender. Japan refused and in response, US President Harry S. Truman gave the order to drop the atomic bomb.

Photo: nuclearweaponarchive.org

In 1939, the Allies learned that the Nazis had discovered how to split uranium atoms. The fear was that the Germans would be able to develop this energy into an extremely dangerous weapon. In response, the Manhattan Project began, begun by Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, both refugees from Fascism. The utmost secrecy surrounded the project because neither the Germans nor the Japanese could know what was being developed in the United States.

Photo: biography.com

Photo: hanford.gov

July 16, 1945 was the first test of an atomic bomb at Trinity Site, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The result was unexpected. The force of the bomb blew out windows in homes 100 miles away, sand was turned into glass, a mushroom cloud arose and a half-mile wide crater was all that was left at the test site. While at the Potsdam Conference in Germany, President Truman learned of the successful test. 

Photo: atomicheritage.org (Moving the bomb, Jumbo, to the Trinity Site)

On the morning of August 6, the atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" was loaded onto the B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay, named after the pilot's mother. At 7:00 a.m., the Japanese early warning radar detection network discovered the plane and its two escorts and sent out an alert to halt radio broadcasting. But by 8:00 a.m., it was determined that three planes did not present enough of a threat and the air raid alert was lifted. At 8:15 a.m., the bomb exploded over the port city and army base of Hiroshima. 70,000 people died instantly. Military leaders in Tokyo did not receive confirmation as to what exactly had happened at Hiroshima until President Truman issued a statement about the event the next day. 

Photo: atomicarchive.com

Today is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The official death count of people who died because of the bomb is now recorded at 292,325. The survivors of the bomb, known as hibakusha, are now over the age of 80. Up until now, they have been working diligently to convince the world that development of nuclear weapons needs to end but they are unsure how much longer they will live. Despite this, many will continue to fight the existence of nuclear weapons and so will their families.

The decision to drop the bomb was made because Japan refused to surrender and the normal path to victory would cost countless Allied lives. But was it worth it to destroy the lives of more than 290,000 people? The hibakusha deal with illnesses and cancer that are related to the radioactive fall-out they endured.

Photo: theguardian.com (Sunao Tsuboi points to himself in a photo taken three hours after the bombing)

Follow the link to watch a video about a 14 year-old girl's experience at the time of the bombing. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/33772230?OCID=twitterasia)

"Shoot if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag"

During the first invasion of the North in September of 1862, Confederate troops passed through the pro-Union town of Frederick, Maryland. It was here that General Robert E. Lee drafted his Special Order 191, which commanded Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson to capture the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry while the rest of the Confederate army continued further north, through the town of Frederick. 

Photo: teaching.msa.maryland.gov

The march through Frederick has been memorialized in the poem The Ballad of Barbara Frietchie by John Greenleaf Whittier. The story goes that in the morning, Union flags decorated the town of Frederick, but by the afternoon, when Stonewall Jackson and his men came through town, only one flag was flying. When Jackson saw the flag, he ordered his men to shoot at it, and in the words of the poet Whittier, Barbara Frietchie responded:

"Shoot if you must, this old gray head,

But spare your country's flag," she said

The nobler nature within him [Jackson] stirred

To life at that woman's deed and word:

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head

Dies like a dog! March on!" He said

All day long that free flag tost

Over the heads of the rebel host.

Photo: loc.gov

While this is an inspiring story and has been taught in schools, it is, unfortunately, not a true story.

Barbara Frietchie was indeed a real person and she did live in Frederick at the time, but she was not the one who waved the Union flag above the Confederate soldiers. Also, it was not Jackson who rode through town, but rather A.P. Hill and his men. Instead of the elderly Frietchie (or Fritchie) having an altercation about the flag, it was in fact her neighbor Mary Quantrell, a 30 year old woman. After the poem was published in 1863, Quantrell sent Whittier a letter asking him to correct the poem, but the story of a 96 year old woman scolding the famous Confederate officer Stonewall was more dramatic than the real story, and instead, Barbara Frietchie became famous, so much so that on a visit to America in 1943, Winston Churchill recited the entire poem while visiting Frederick. 

Photo: library.brown.edu

Frietchie was a strong Unionist and made her views known, but when Quantrell flew the flag defiantly, Frietchie was not seen in public. Instead, in the days after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, Frietchie stood on her porch as Union General Ambrose Burnside and his men passed by and she waved a Union flag for their success. In response, the men cheered her and told her they hoped she lived a long life. Frietchie died that December but she has been immortalized in the Ballad of Barbara Frietchie. 

Photo: goodreads.com

One Gallant Rush

"all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State,... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." 


On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in the Confederate States of America. Not only did he free African Americans from slavery in the ten states still in rebellion, he also made it the goal of the Union to end slavery. This goal then allowed African Americans to serve in the Union Army, and Massachusetts Governor John Andrew took advantage of this. 

Photo: civilwar.org

On March 13, Andrew authorized the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. It was one of the first official African American regiments in the Union and he had Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a fellow Bostonian, command the regiment. Prior to assuming command of the 54th Mass, Shaw had enlisted in the 7th New York Militia and then the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, with whom he fought in the Battle of Antietam, on September 17, 1862. 

Photo: pbs.org

The 54th was sent south to South Carolina where there was little action. They fell under the command of James Montgomery, whose leadership style did not sit well with Shaw. Montgomery was in command of a regiment made up of runaway slaves and he encouraged them to loot and burn Confederate towns in the style of guerrilla warfare. Shaw disagreed with this and felt that his regiment could take on better assignments. In a letter to Brigadier General George C. Strong, Shaw informed the Brigadier General that he thought it "important that the colored soldiers should be associated as much as possible with white troops, in order that they may have witnesses besides their own officers to what they are capable of doing."

Photo: newenglandhistoricalsociety.com

On July 8, Shaw received orders to have his men ready to leave in an hour. Shaw and his men were carried north on the Chasseur to aid in the attack of Fort Wagner, a fort that guarded the entrance to the port of Charleston, South Carolina. On July 18, a second attack of Fort Wagner began and this time, unlike the first attack, the 54th Massachusetts regiment would be in the fight. The plan to attack the fort was a frontal assault, due to the location of the fort between the ocean and the port. Strong offered Shaw the opportunity to lead the column to attack Wagner. 

Photo: civilwar.org

Before he sent the 54th, Strong asked the regiment who would carry the National flag if the standard bearer fell. Shaw calmly responded that he would and his men cheered. Shaw gave the order to march and the regiment advanced on the fort until they were 200 yards away. At that point, the fort opened fire but Shaw and his men continued their forward charge with Shaw in the lead. Shaw made it up the side of the Fort where his men saw him hit by cannon fire; he then crumpled into the fort.

Despite their efforts, Fort Wagner was not taken by the Union Army in that assault. Shaw was buried by Confederate soldiers in a mass grave with the dead of the 54th Massachusetts. When there were efforts to recover his body, Shaw's parents refused and said the burial was fitting: that Shaw would want to be laid to rest with his men. 

Photo: loc.gov

This past Saturday was the 152nd anniversary of the Second Battle of Fort Wagner where Shaw and the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts proved that African Americans could serve their country valiantly in the military. 

Photo: Monica Grabowska

Cosmic Date

On Tuesday, NASA's New Horizon arrived at Pluto after a nine year journey. The small space probe was launched on January 19, 2006 when Pluto was still classified as a planet. The mysterious body at the edge of our universe was discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. In 1929, Tombaugh was hired by Lowell Observatory where he was tasked with searching for "Planet X," a planet that was thought to be beyond Neptune because of its gravitational effect on Uranus and Neptune. On February 18, 1930, the planet was ruled as having been discovered and was named Pluto, for the Roman underworld god who could turn himself invisible. 

Photo: NASA, New Horizons

The Pluto flyby occurred on the 50th anniversary of the Mars flyby. A flyby is classified as a spacecraft passing by an object in space without landing or going into orbit. Mariner 4 was launched on November 28, 1964 and performed its Mars flyby on July 14, 1965. On that date, Earth saw the first images of the surface of Mars and confirmed that Mars was not inhabited by lifeforms like humans.

Photo: NASA, Mariner 4, Martian surface

As New Horizons leaves Pluto, it will continue into the Kuiper Belt and will observe Kuiper Belt objects, if they are within the vicinity of the satellite. As the spacecraft travels farther and farther from Earth, its flight trajectory will no longer be able to be altered, limiting what it can observe. When it was discovered that Pluto is actually a Kuiper Belt Object, it was declassified from a planet down to Dwarf Planet status. Within the Kuiper Belt, Pluto is the largest object. 

Photo: nature.com

Battle of Monocacy

In 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant was putting pressure on the Confederacy by laying siege to Richmond. In order to draw the Union troops away, Confederate General Jubal Early and his men quietly made their way up the Shenandoah Valley until he reached Harpers Ferry, where his plan was discovered.

Photo: nps.gov (Jubal Early)

B&O Railroad President John Garrett heard reports from his men that there were attacks on the railroad in the west by Confederates. Attacks on the railroad were typical but this attack was larger and an indicator to Garrett that the Confederates were moving toward Washington, DC. The city was not prepared for a large scale attack because most of the troops protecting the capital city had been sent south to help with the siege of Richmond. Thus, it was the perfect time for Early to strike. But he was not counting on being halted.

Photo: nps.gov (John Garrett)

Major General Lew Wallace heeded the warning that Garrett brought him but was unsure as to whether the Confederates would attack Washington or Baltimore. Monocacy Junction was selected as the best location to defend: it would protect crucial railroad bridges, and Wallace figured it was the best place to defend both cities. Wallace had fewer than 7000 men to halt more than 14,000 Confederate troops.

Photo: nps.gov (Lew Wallace)

On July 9, the Battle of Monocacy began. Early sent cavalry around to attack the left flank of the Union troops while an artillery battle took place at the center of the line. The Union continued to fight throughout the day despite being vastly outnumbered. Fierce hand-to-hand combat ensued and the Union forces sustained heavy losses. By the afternoon, the Union troops could no longer hold their ground and they retreated. The road to Washington was clear for the Confederates but, weary from the trek and the rigors of the battle, they camped at Monocacy Junction for the night.

Photo: civilwar.org

The next day, July 10, 1864, they would move on to Washington, DC, which they thought to be sparsely defended. Little did they know that the delay at Monocacy had allowed time for Union troops to return to the capital where they were waiting for an attack. 

Another reason to celebrate the 4th of July

On July 4, 1867,  Stephen T. Mather was born to Joseph Mather and Bertha Walker in San Francisco, CA. For his childhood and education the family remained in California but eventually moved to New York, where both Mather and his father worked for the Pacific Coast Borax Company. Along with his friend Robert Yard, Mather developed an aggressive but effective marketing campaign but in 1903, Mather suffered an episode of bipolar disorder and left his job with the Pacific Coast Company. Instead, he went into business with a friend and they developed their own borax company from which they both became millionaires. 

Photo: nps.gov (Stephen Mather)

In 1904, he and his wife traveled to Europe where he discovered his love of nature and his wife discovered a treatment for his bipolar disorder. His experience in Europe drove him to become a conservationist and to befriend John Muir. He quickly became involved in the Sierra Club and the Boone and Crocket Club and spent time exploring National Parks. It was while he was in the parks that he noticed the deterioration of the protected lands. The Army was in charge of protecting the parks but they did not have legal authority and were vastly outnumbered by the tourists. Mather wrote a letter to Secretary of Interior Franklin Lane complaining about the state of the parks. 

Photo: nps.gov

Lane received Mather's letter and it gave him pause. The myth is that he and Mather had been classmates at the University of California together and that's why he responded to the letter but in reality, Lane was enrolled at the school after Mather had graduated. Instead, Lane recognized the name because Mather had been a reporter for the New York Sun and had then gone on to become a millionaire as a businessman thanks to his advertising campaign for borax. Lane needed someone to be in charge of the National Parks and with Mather's track record he seemed the perfect fit, so Lane wrote a response: 

"Dear Steve, if you don't like how the national parks are being run, come on down to Washington and run them yourself."

Photo: loc.gov (Franklin Lane)

Mather agreed to do so, but intended to work for just one year because he believed it would take only that much time to fix the system. In that year, Mather and Horace Albright campaigned to have an official service in charge of the National Parks. Their efforts resulted in the National Park Service Organic Act that President Woodrow Wilson signed into law on August 25, 1916. While Mather had agreed to work for the National Parks for a year, he continued to work for the newly created Park Service as its first Director until 1929. 

Photo: nps.gov