**please see disclaimer below if you are a graduate school admissions officer
If you love history you know that it's everywhere. I say it all the time to every skeptic I talk to about the value of the subject. It's behind all of our beloved technology, media, food and daily traditions. I heard a guy speak last night about Historic Preservation...he loved to emphasize that it was impossible to accurately describe the field in one paragraph due to it's broad field of influence. This was a guy that is an architect whose firm does over 90% of their business in historic preservation cases. He is the director of one of the nation's leading Historic Preservation grad programs and quick to describe his many successes in the field throughout the country. He'd done some cool stuff and definitely had some jobs I would kill for. Yet he stood in front of the lecture hall in a suit that looked liked he'd grabbed it out of a Goodwill refuse bin 30 years ago, his humor only existed to laugh at his own stale jokes and the MA program he runs falls just short of visionary because he puffs up with pride when he announces that the median age of the students is 40.
I'll come back to that age issue in a minute, but I first need to add the other part of his self important banter that caused me to swallow a little vomit that had cruised up to the back of my throat. Many may find that reaction strange, but if you've been looking for a "History Revolution" as hard as I have people like this would make you nauseous too. I promise.
The man pointed out, very casually, that the environmental movement and the historical preservation movement developed very much side by side. However, he noted, the Sierra Club has over 3 million members while The National Historic Trust, the nation's leader in HP, has only 250,000. His response to the discrepancy was to note that the Sierra Club used the "KISS" method with the message, "Clean Water, Clean Air, or You Die." "Historic Preservation," he smiled, "just isn't that simple to explain." Really? "Reduce. Reuse. Restore," is that hard to copyright? "Save History or America Disappears," isn't simple enough for people to understand? Without efforts of historians throughout time America would be missing...the White House, Constitution, Liberty Bell, Monticello, Mt. Vernon, the French Quarter of New Orleans, the Vegas Strip, tv re-runs of I Love Lucy or The Brady Bunch...simple enough now?
When combining this man's delight in age discrimination because, "people under 30, statistics prove, are less motivated and focused than older students,"with his obvious inability to distill information down to its marketable basics I was looking at one of the "leaders" in my future field slowly and joyfully kill off any interest the subject may have for my generation.
I'm not too proud to say that change comes from youth because we are too idealistic and stubborn to back down from a fight. Sure, 40 year olds with families and life experience could be great at saving historic buildings and fighting politicians and developers over public policy...but at that point in an established existence how much are they willing to sacrifice for the cause? Us youngsters...we don't have anything to lose. We have to prove ourselves to move ahead or we get nothing for the effort. And by the way, I'm a youngster so much as I'm 27, been married for 8 years, expecting a kid in April and have had almost ten years of serious work experience. If I have to wait until I'm 40 to develop focus and motivation my family is screwed and my kid will starve.
Going back to school serves so many great purposes for people of all ages. It is a big leap when you get older and put it all on the line to start a new career or push for a bigger one. But the reality of the situation is that the 69 year old woman this guy spoke of that had just graduated from his program wasn't going to be rocking any boats. Her area of expertise, historic cranberry bogs in New England. Somehow, I don't see that giving the Historic Preservation genre a step up on The Sierra Club.
Young people have just as much right, and twice as much experience with the rapid changing technology that is set to rule our world in less than a lifetime, to decide how the history of our world is going to be presented and preserved. By shutting out our opinions and discriminating against our modern ideas...such as...*gasp* using multi-media markets to present history to the public...this man and his Historical Preservation program are dooming the field to failure. Once they die off, and it is sooner than they want to admit, the hole they created with their short-sightedness becomes too big to fill.
As much as I've wanted to find a place in the world of history to feel accepted, as hard as I've looked and as far as I've stretched my standards to fit the mold I know now that I have to give up that fight. There is no group out there to protect the fun and excitement of history. There is no academic program that is fighting to secure the future of the subject...Being young and spry and only having everything to prove, we don't need to stand for snobbery and traditionalism for the sake of stagnation. Those groups we are looking for...we have to make them ourselves. There is no "History Revolution" until we make it happen. So, I wish those geezers well and I'll wave at them as I move on into the future.
**Disclaimer: if you are reading this as part of my admissions packet to your grad school program...please remember that I'm just a kid and I don't really know what I'm talking about. Think of all your program can teach me! Thanks, Kristi Cory
