Professor Amy Morsman, who teaches American women’s history, designed the “Votes…for Women?” exhibit currently on display at the Middlebury Museum of Art. The exhibit highlights the achievements and complexities of the women’s suffrage movement in 19^th– and early 20^th-century America, in commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th amendment next year. Professor Morsman shared her thoughts about the process of creating a museum exhibit and how it connects to her teaching.

What did you hope to achieve with this exhibit?

I aimed to help people understand that the arguments behind extending the vote to women were not obvious to many Americans, women as well as men. It was also important to me to expose the trouble within the movement, how people with good intentions can still be blind to other issues and can get in the way of justice and reform.

From the beginning, there was also a strong curricular aspect to the project. Richard Saunders, the director of the museum, suggested that I make the exhibit the focus of a first-year seminar, and so I did last fall. My brand-new students dove into the story of suffrage and identified the elements of this history that were interesting to them, and therefore potentially interesting to a viewing public.

So, what is the value of using a museum exhibit as a teaching tool?

I think it helps students feel like a part of something authentic. History research is important and can be meaningful for students in any assignment, but when they get the chance to actually have an impact on how the public understands something, then that will likely stick with them and deepen their learning experience.

What are the similarities and differences you’ve seen between designing a museum exhibit and teaching?

In my teaching, I find that questions are an effective way to inspire learning.  Students will get curious about a question posed to them, and they’ll gravitate even more towards the materials that might help them understand that question.  So instead of just telling people about the history of woman suffrage, I took the practice of asking questions and applied it to the exhibit.  The title serves as a good example: Instead of using the statement, “Votes for Women!” I wanted people to stop and ponder it as a question, “Votes . . . for Women?”  That question might challenge where museum visitors are coming from, and get them to realize at the outset that extending suffrage to the female half of the population was not a foregone conclusion or an easy process.

On the other hand, there is a layering that can happen with students who invest in the learning of a subject over time, whereas with the public, I really only have one shot to get something across to them. I can’t assume that the general audience knows anything about the subject, and so I have to try to provide grounding for them, while also raising important questions and highlighting key events in a concentrated space.  It’s trying to go from 0-60 pretty quickly.

Finally, what is your favorite piece in the exhibit?

One of my favorite pieces is actually heard, not seen.  It is a speech excerpt that a member of Oratory Now recorded for me last May.  It’s one of four speeches to which people can listen in the exhibit. It captures not only generational divides, but also disagreements over inclusion and equity in the suffrage movement. Harriot Stanton Blatch argued in this speech that her mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was wrong in thinking that only educated people should be able to vote.  She made a good case for why working-class women needed the vote, and she elevated common sense over book learning in a citizen’s engagement with democracy.  Harriot dressed down her famous mother kindly but firmly and in public! You don’t see that every day.

Professor Burnham, who teaches medieval and early modern history, returned this fall from sabbatical. She spent much of her time here in Vermont, but also travelled to Italy and spent a month as a fellow at Yale researching medieval alchemy. These are some of the highlights of her year.

Can you describe something strange that happened while you were abroad?

“I had one day in Rome and I went to the Vatican Secret Archive, which is literally what it’s called. It was made public in the 19^th century, but they still call it the Vatican Secret Archive. I was trying to locate a bill of excommunication of a particular group of Franciscan friars. By the time it got to them, the monks had received notice that it was not valid, and there is supposedly a sentence on the back of the document that says something like ‘The friar read this stupid document aloud.’ The Vatican told me that their archive had been reorganized, and the document was missing. I thought I had figured out the problem—the document was written in February, but the town in which it was written marked the new year starting in March, so I thought someone could have misfiled it under the wrong year. I was convinced I would be able to find it. But I went through a lot of catalogues, and I have to say—they lost it. It’s gone. Is this a Dan Brown book in the making? I don’t know if I have Dan Brown story in me, but if I do write one it’s going to begin with this missing document.”

How will your research contribute to your teaching?

“Traditional Sardinian singing is unbelievably wonderful and strange and old. During part of my trip over the summer, I went to a museum in Sardinia all about this kind of singing. And they loved that I was from Vermont, because there just happens to be a traditional Sardinian singing group that lives in Vermont. It’s pretty much the only group that practices this kind of singing outside Sardinia. They’re actually media stars—they’re making a documentary—and I’m going to try to bring them to campus to perform.”

Did you meet any interesting people during your research?

“I’m writing a section in my current book about what it was like to practice alchemy in the 14^th century. So while I was at Yale, I went through ten different manuscripts of alchemical recipes. One of them was so cool because it had so many notes from so many different readers in it. I found one commentator that didn’t believe anything in it. And he kept writing ‘No’ in the margins. So there was this one really skeptical guy who read this book. That, and there was one book which was clearly written by a charlatan. I mean, there were a few honest to God alchemical recipes in there, but there were many more pages about how to fake things and fool people. It was so much fun to look at.”

What were some challenges for you?

“I had to learn more about chemistry than I imagined. I never studied chemistry in high school—never. So I would be sitting there in the library, and I would have Wikipedia open looking up substances I never heard of. I never imagined medieval history would lead me there.”

Historic Sites in Vermont That Every History Student at Middlebury Must See!

As a student of history living in Vermont, one must take this opportunity to explore the unique past of the state. As one of the earliest settled territories in the US, Europeans explored the region as early as 1609. Furthermore, Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery and grant universal male suffrage in its first constitution, adopted in 1777.

Vermont’s special history continues to be preserved in several historical sites, with some of the most exceptional ones being near Middlebury. Here is a short list of some you must see before you graduate!

The Rokeby Museum

The Rokeby Museum, located in Ferrisburg, tells a vivid story of the Underground Railroad and a Vermont abolitionist family’s role in aiding escaped fugitive slaves. Once a thriving farm, the museum now houses nine historical buildings with hundreds of artifacts.

The Robinson family started their lives in Vermont in 1792 and continued lived on their farm until the site became a museum in 1961. The most current exhibit is called Free and Safe: The Underground Railroad in Vermont, which tells the stories of two fugitives from slavery, Simon and Jesse, who escaped and lived in Rokeby in the 1830s. The exhibit includes audio recordings, historic documents, and other artifacts that bring their stories to life.

The Davis Library Special Collection at Middlebury College also houses over 15,000 letters of the Robinson family dating from 1757 to 1962 and allows students endless opportunities for research.

The Rokeby Museum is just a 25-minute drive from the college, at 4334 Route 7, Ferrisburgh, VT, 05456.

The Frost Farm

Between 1939 and 1964, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Frost spent his summers and falls in a cabin at his farm in Ripton, Vermont. During this time, Frost was closely involved with the college and wrote many of his most memorable poems in the peaceful hills of Vermont. In fact, Frost owned five farms in the Green Mountain State, and many of his works were inspired by the beautiful landscape of Vermont.

Frost was a cofounder of and taught at the Bread Loaf School of English, and often shared his work at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences. Middlebury College now owns the Frost property, where visitors can follow the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail featuring scenic views of the Green Mountain National Forest and Middlebury River. Several of his poems can be enjoyed on plaques throughout the trail.

The Frost farm is located just a 20-minute drive from the college at 4229 Route 125, Ripton, Vermont, 05766.

The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History

The Henry Sheldon Museum is the “oldest community-based museum in the country,” and has been welcoming visitors since 1884. The museum documents and preserves the historic memory of Addison County, and allows guests to enjoy the rich culture and history of our community. For example, the Judd-Harris House was built in 1829, and contains many objects that depict the life of ordinary people in nineteenth century Vermont.

The research Center also houses a large archival collection documenting the history of the region, and allows free admission for students with ID. This gem is located right in the heart of Middlebury, at 1 Park Street, Middlebury, VT, 05753.

Is the history major going extinct? For the past decade, history has been declining faster than any other major, even as more and more students attend college. Some universities are even eliminating the department. And the total number of majors nationwide has dropped by a third since 2011. Meanwhile, various journalists and scholars have argued that the humanities are in crisis, implying that historical and critical thinking may be on their way out.

The number of students earning history has dropped steadily since its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. The first significant decline in the number of majors occurred during the 1970s, during a cultural shift in what students hoped to get out of college. In 1970, seven out of ten students thought that education should help them “develop a meaningful philosophy of life,” while four out ten thought that it should help them “make more money.” By the mid-1980s, these numbers had flipped. There was a similar change in student attitudes around 2011, this time specifically about one’s major. The Class of 2011 was the first to enter college after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Incoming first years experienced intergenerational pressure about their career prospects and assumed enormous debt during a time of economic instability. As such, many of them flocked to majors in STEM or pre-career tracks such as nursing, business, and education. But students have not returned to history since the economic crisis. Instead, it appears that 2011 marked a turning point in how students thought about what a college major means, linking it closely with future career prospects.This shift has translated into fewer students graduating with history degrees.

Some other changes over the past decade besides new students values can help explain why the number of history majors has dwindled. As state politicians have fought to disband teachers unions and cut benefits across the country, but particularly in the Midwest, regional universities that used to train public school history teachers have seen less interest in those programs. The University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point eliminated its history department entirely, and other schools may follow suit. At the same time, newer majors, such as Women and Gender Studies or African-American Studies have drawn students away from history courses and into those programs.

Although the numbers of history and humanities majors have shrunk nationally, Ivy League schools and military academies have not seen such drops. At Yale University, History is the most popular major for the Class of 2019. It is one of the most common majors at Harvard, Brown, Princeton, Columbia, and Dartmouth as well. Similarly, at West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy the number of humanities majors has stayed steady over the past decade. Ivy League universities and military academies share some important features: they are able to give generous financial aid, or require no tuition at all, respectively. At military academies, students graduate with guaranteed employment for five years after college, while the prestige of an Ivy League university can provide students with good job prospects.These two notable exceptions to national trends regarding humanities majors only reinforce the hypothesis that students are abandoning the history major out of concern for future career options.

But here’s the thing: history majors don’t actually fare worse than other majors on the job market. Students have stuck with psychology in recent years, as it’s seen as more “practical” than history, but they earn about the same as history majors do. And a study by the University of Texas system shows that their history majors make more than zoology, ecology, and neurobiology majors. And so while students are allowing future employment opportunities to guide their college major decision, it appears that those choices are based on myths, rather on actual data.

The fact that students are misguided in overlooking a history degree does not mean that their decisions do not have important impacts. The drop in the number of majors means that departments are offering fewer advanced courses on a national level. However, enrollment in history courses has remained relatively constant, and so colleges are offering more introductory-level courses. As a result, students today may be less knowledgeable about the world than they used to be, and will have fewer opportunities to explore specific regions in depth.

The demographic characteristics of the students leaving the major is a clue into what can be done to counteract these national trends. Asian American students, who are already underrepresented in the history major relative to their share of all students, have moved away from the history major at the sharpest rates. Asian American women were less than half as likely to major in history in 2011 as in 2017. Meanwhile, African Americans and American Indians left the major at the smallest rates during that time period, particularly men of those races. Benjamin Schmidt, an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University explains this imbalance in changes across different demographic groups to the degree to which students see themselves reflected in history curriculums: African-American men have a more prominent role in many of the commonly told histories of the U.S. than Asian-American women.

So what can the field do to stave off the alarming drop in majors? First, as the demographic data and the popularity of Gender Studies and African-Americans Studies programs suggest, history departments nationwide should incorporate more non-white and non-male voices into their curriculums. Not only is it important, it is also in a department’s best interest. Second, departments can emphasize new methods, such as digital history, to draw in new students. And finally, the field can continue to emphasize the importance of studying history, especially because an apathy towards historical thinking has prevailed in recent years. Just don’t ask me how to do that last one. •

This post is part of a two-part series on the history major. The second will focus on Middlebury College. If you would like to share how you chose the history major or your opinions on the topic, please email ahgoldstein@middlebury.edu.  

By Drew Jacobs

I recently spoke with Middlebury alumnus Tim Bazemore, now the Head of School at the Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon. Tim graduated from Middlebury in 1982 with a degree in History. Early on in his time at Middlebury he studied a Medieval European History course and really enjoyed it. He remembers professor Harden Tillinghast in particular as a strong lecturer with a wealth of knowledge on a number of subjects. Tim valued studying themes and connections across different eras and cultures in the dozen history courses he took at Middlebury. He remembers the professors as passionate and friendly, often inviting students over for dinner and discussion. Ultimately, Tim wrote his thesis on 17th Century England, examining the intersection of politics, religion, and culture. He feels that his critical thinking, writing, and speaking ability all greatly improved from his time at Middlebury.

After graduation, Tim got a job with an independent school in Philadelphia. He taught 6th grade English his first year and then 7th-12th grade History for the next five years. He taught a wide variety of courses, ranging from World History, US History, and 20th Century Middle East History. After five years, Tim went to the University of Pennsylvania graduate school for his Masters in History, where he focused on 16th and 17th Century European History. Upon graduation, he took a job in a High School admissions office, realizing he had an interest in the administrative side of education.

Tim credits his History degrees for strengthening his research, writing, leadership, and management skills. These skills aided him as he spent the next ten years in a variety of administrative roles. He then interviewed and was hired as the head of school of a K-9 school in Connecticut. He worked there for 14 years, teaching a history course each semester as well. Tim stressed how his knowledge of history has helped him understand culture and contact in

each of his new positions and schools. He believes the major has led him to always ask questions and quickly recognize issues. After 14 years in Connecticut, Tim moved to Portland to become the Head of School at the K-12 Catlin Gabel School.

Upon arrival, Tim said he read 20 years’ worth of the school’s alumni magazines to better understand the nature of the community which he was entering. This is a true historian’s mindset. He taught a senior History seminar last year and hopes to teach one next year as well. Tim said that all of the schools that he has worked at really emphasize a liberal arts education. He believes his job is to help produce thoughtful, effective communicators who can then more effectively enter college and the world. Tim also pointed out that despite popular belief, his History degree has not prevented him from obtaining administrative or leadership positions throughout his career. Instead, he believes his study of history has improved his ability to do his job effectively