University of Maryland College Park
The University of Maryland College Park has two units involved in IMPART, Anthropology and Architecture.
The Anthropology Department currently offers BA and MA degrees in Anthropology. Faculty provide research and training in community health, managing community resources, archaeology in the public interest, and applied human biology. The department's Archaeology in Annapolis program is a model for public archaeology, working on sites around the capital doing research-oriented work, as well as archaeology mandated by cultural resource laws. Its archaeologists have worked on major historical sites such as the William Paca House and the Anne Arundel County Courthouse, and they also have illuminated the lives of African Americans and other diverse segments of the population. Although anthropology is increasingly sought after as a degree and as a tool for understanding our multicultural world, no university in Maryland currently offers a "full-service" PhD in the discipline, with options in archaeology, cultural anthropology, biological anthropology and linguistics.
Proposed Programs: IMPART envisions the establishment of an Anthropology PhD program at College Park. Specialists will be added in resource management, Native American archaeology, human genetics and public health. The Center for Heritage Resources Studies, created in FY 2001, will link the Anthropology program with the Departments of Architecture and Geography, as well as other programs at the University. Building on current contract relations with the National Capital Region of the National Park Service, the Anthropology Department will pursue additional cooperative agreements with other federal programs.
Investments Toward IMPART: The University recently approved the Center for Heritage Resources Management and has a director to oversee the development of the Center. The Center focuses on the use of historical archaeology as a way for the public to learn about scholarly advances on understanding the cultural heritage of the Chesapeake Bay region. The Center will build on existing off-campus relationships, such as the 22-year partnership with Historic Annapolis Foundation to conduct archaeological research in Annapolis. A 12-year partnership continues with the Banneker-Douglass Museum with recently completed archaeology work on the expansion lot and plans for an exhibit on those discoveries to correspond with the opening of the new expansion in 2004. A twenty-year relationship with the National Park Service has developed new projects, with students involved in research at the Monocacy Civil War National Battlefield. New opportunities for international studies are being developed with programs on heritage tourism with Belgium and China. Perhaps most important, University Provost William Destler has stated his commitment to establishing the Ph.D. program and praised the efforts to date to advance the program goals.
The School of Architecture at College Park has long had a flourishing certificate program in Historic Preservation. This program is multidisciplinary, drawing faculty and students from a wide variety of disciplines. Participants in the Certificate Program receive the certificate in conjunction with an advanced degree in another discipline.
Proposed Programs: The IMPART plan envisioned the flowering of the certificate program into an MA in Historic Preservation, and the University has already brought it into being. Under IMPART, that program will continue to develop and be fully engaged with the other partners. When fully developed, classes of 12 students will be admitted each year for the two-year Masters program, while another 20 students are expected each year in the Certificate program. This steady-state number of students is dependent on hiring a second full-time faculty member. It is expected that this position will be filled by the fall of 2003. A final additional faculty position is planned for 2006.
Investments Toward IMPART: Since IMPART began, the University hired Dr. Randy Mason to lead the Historic Preservation Program and secure certification for a Masters program in Historic Preservation in the School of Architecture. That program has been approved and implemented. The Graduate Program in Historic Preservation now has focus areas in:
- public policy
- economics of historic preservation
- the interpretation of historic sites, buildings, and monuments
- community heritage studies; design and development in historic environments
- preservation of historic landscapes
- methods of building and site analysis
Eleven candidates are currently are enrolled in the MA Program in Historic Preservation; the Graduate Certificate has an additional 14 students enrolled (drawn primarily from Architecture and American Studies). The first masters program students completed their degree requirements in the spring of 2003.
The new program has undertaken a study of the Modern Movement in Architecture through a grant from the Maryland Historical Trust. This has allowed the program to (1) partially fund several graduate students with assistantships; (2) train these students in research and applied preservation work; and (3) advance the scholarly resources and research devoted to historic preservation, which historically have lagged.
Port Towns Research
Ms. Stasiulatis gathered research on the Port Towns: Bladensburg, Cottage City, Colmar Manor, and Edmonston.
Port Towns Research
- Partner: University of Maryland College Park
- Student: Suzanne Stasiulatis
The assistantship through the Center of Heritage Resource Studies was a multi-component experience. Under the direction of Paul Shackel, Ms. Stasiulatis gathered research on the Port Towns: Bladensburg, Cottage City, Colmar Manor, and Edmonston. Dr. Shackel was particularly helpful in guiding the search and helping me fill in the gaps in the information collected. The project consisted of a research component and a data management and dissemination component. During the first phase, Ms. Stasiulatis performed the research necessary to produce an annotated bibliography of resources related to the Port Towns. This bibliography was intended for use by researchers and for future classes, and it was developed in consultation with the ATHA working group at the University of Maryland. In searching through the collections at those archives, she came across nearly relevant 400 resources including ephemera, local history studies, primary documents, census and other data. The second component of the project involved entering the 400 resources collected into a FileMaker Pro database and posting that database file on the Center's website. As a culminating activity, Ms. Stasiulatis lead a group of University of Maryland Scholars on a walking tour of Bladensburg historic sites.
The website she helped to develop can be accessed from the Center for Heritage Resource Studies main web page where researchers can download the annotated bibliography, in any of four formats. National Register Nominations, photographs, and Social Explorer census data are also accessible on the website.
In addition, the Center for Heritage Resource Studies dedicated a section of their library to Port Towns research documents and materials. For the library, she gathered hardcopy census data, National Register Nominations, HABS photographs, and copies of all the data on the website. Several reports and publications were purchased for the library, because of their significance to the project. Pamphlets, brochures, newsletters, and documents about historical sites and events in the area, as well as current community events and activities were procured and incorporated into the library.
Photo Documentation
The students' primary duties consisted of photographically documenting housing, churches, and other Modern buildings in Greenbelt, as well as additional Modern churches in Maryland for the Modern Movement in Maryland Project.
Photo Documentation
- Partner: University of Maryland College Park
- Student: Benjamin Riniker, Beibei Su, Casey Gallagher
Ben Riniker's and Beibei Su's primary duties consisted of photographically documenting housing, churches, and other Modern buildings in Greenbelt, as well as additional Modern churches in Maryland. They used point-and-shoot digital cameras: a Canon digital camera and a Nikon digital camera fitted with a wide-angle lens. Some of these photos may be selected for an exhibition on Everyday Modernism in Maryland.
Secondly, all three students provided research assistance to Dr. Sies and Dr. Gournay, their mentors and Modern Movement in Maryland (MoMoMa) project directors. Ben Riniker did research on Modern Churches in Maryland, on the Prince George's Plaza and the Prince George's Center, two modern era developments both in Hyattsville, MD, as well as searching for historic maps of Prince George's County for the various sites being researched. Casey Gallagher performed primary research in newspapers and vertical files for an article on Greenbelt, MD. Beibei Su searched the photography morgue of the Baltimore News American for appropriate images for the MoMoMa exhibition.
Additionally, Ben Riniker organized all the electronic files on the MoMoMa project computer. He collected old files from previous graduate assistants and others who worked on the project. A digital archive documenting housing, religious, municipal, and other buildings in Historic Greenbelt and the surrounding City of Greenbelt resulted. Images collected were used in two chapters in a book on housing in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
Langley Park History
The purpose of this project was to reconstruct the history of Langley Park, a primarily immigrant neighborhood lying on the border between Montgomery and Prince George's Counties through archival research and ethnography.
Langley Park History
- Partner: University of Maryland College Park
- Student: Tina Zarpour
The purpose of this project was to reconstruct the history of Langley Park, a primarily immigrant neighborhood lying on the border between Montgomery and Prince George's Counties through archival research and ethnography. Previous work had been done with a notable architectural site in the area, the McCormick-Goodhart mansion, but little existed about the history of the neighborhood beyond. Though there were several researchers working in the area, there have been few ethnographic studies published about it. A narrative summarizing the history of Langley Park would be useful to multiple stakeholders living and working in the area.
The project was carried out in the summer and fall of 2006. Archival research was conducted in the Prince George's County Historical Society, the Maryland Room in Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland. A significant amount of data was also located through internet research since many materials are now available on-line. Ethnographic research was carried out via participant-observation and interviews. A semi-structured interview questionnaire was developed in Spring 2006 and approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Maryland.
With the ethnographic portion of the research, the original intention was to interview residents of Langley Park to: 1) obtain a basic profile of neighborhood residents 2) understand their conceptions of the neighborhood and 3) elicit ideas about future museum and heritage-based projects in the area. Ms. Zarpour quickly had to make adjustments to this plan for a number of reasons. The first was that with limited time and resources, residents were difficult to gain access to for an interview. Because she had some familiarity with service organizations in the area and they are highly visible, she began to approach workers and employees of service organizations. This ended up being to her benefit as service providers are intimately connected to the neighborhood and dedicated to the issues there and might be in a better position as outsiders to articulate the characteristics and needs of Langley Park beyond what a resident might be able to express.
The second issue presented the biggest obstacle. Although Ms. Zarpour knew this going into this project, she did not fully appreciate its repercussions until later. Langley Park today can be defined as a geographic space with finite physical boundaries. It was a planned community that was developed in the 1950s, so these boundaries do not translate before this era. In fact, Langley Park did not exist as a place-name until the 1920s. Prior to this, the area represented by Langley Park was owned by a series of rural estate owners, the last of which were the McCormick-Goodhart family who named their estate Langley Park in 1922 after their ancestral home in Kent, England. Langley Park for the past 40 years (as evidenced by archival sources) experienced and continues to experience a transient resident population with a high turnover rate. Though Langley Park has an important history that is illustrative of trends and happenings at the local and national level, it does not have “heritage” in the conventional definition. This unavoidable fact presents a challenge to heritage-based projects. However, projects that interweave the neighborhood's history with the experiences of past and current residents go a long way in creating a sense of heritage.
The research will be used in a community-based exhibit about the neighborhood. The Immigrant Life Course Research Program at the University of Maryland applied for a Maryland Humanities Council grant for the development of a traveling exhibit about the immigrant experience in Langley Park. This exhibit was to be composed of six panels and a video of life histories of neighborhood residents. In the longer term, the history of Langley Park will be useful to service organizations in the area.
Digital Finders Guides for Archaeology in Annapolis
Intern Amelia Chisholm created two integrated Finders Guides to the collections of Archaeology in Annapolis.
Digital Finders Guides for Archaeology in Annapolis
- Partner: University of Maryland College Park
- Student: Amelia G. Chisholm
Archaeology in Annapolis was founded in 1981 by Historic Annapolis Foundation and the University of Maryland. Its purpose was to excavate and save archaeological sites in the Historic District of the State's Capital city for scholarly research and in the public interest. About 750,000 artifacts have been collected from 70 sites. These figures represent the totals from Archaeology in Annapolis and work done by Historic Annapolis Foundation from the early 1960s.
The archaeological collections are stored in 1200 boxes in climate controlled conditions in Annapolis and are curated by Historic Annapolis Foundation. The collection of artifacts is accompanied by a complete collection of site reports. The collection of paper records includes primary excavation notes, unit profiles, photographs, unit descriptions, maps, as well as the digital materials that accompany all of these.
Amelia Chisholm created two integrated Finders Guides to these two separate but linked collections. She made a guide to the archaeological collections using site number and name. The guide lists each of the 1200 boxes by site number and lists bag numbers. The purpose of listing bag numbers is to allow a researcher to find specific artifacts by going to a site report and examining the artifact catalog which lists bag numbers.
A separate finders guide, also organized by site number and name, was created for all of the site reports and most of the primary materials connected to any particular site. Both finders guides are digital and were mounted on the Annapolis GIS website in the course of 2005. An abbreviated version of the finders guide that includes site number, name, and full title and author of the site report(s) appeared in The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital, Excavations in Annapolis, Mark P. Leone, University of California Press, 2005.
African American Archaeological Environments: Excavations and Site Reports
Tonika Berkley excavated in three environments through Greenhorne & O'Mara under the leadership of Dr. Thomas Barrett. The bulk of her IMPART Assistantship was devoted to writing the major parts of four site reports.
African American Archaeological Environments: Excavations and Site Reports
- Partner: University of Maryland College Park
- Student: Tonika Berkley
Tonika Berkley excavated in three environments through Greenhorne & O'Mara under the leadership of Dr. Thomas Barrett. She gained substantial field experience, some leadership experience, and considerable archival and writing experience during this process. The bulk of her IMPART Assistantship was devoted to writing the major parts of four site reports. Her major field experience came at the site of a future federal courthouse in Richmond, VA. On this site she excavated pre-Civil War material from the urban environment destroyed during the final Battle of Richmond.
Within Prince Georges County, Maryland she was responsible for the production of parts of three substantial site reports. All three involved late-18th and early 19th century plantations. The excavations involved using shovel test pits and conventional excavation units. An excavation was conducted near The Woodyard, a historic site listed on the National Register of Historic Places, to define its boundaries to prevent disturbance from residential development. On two of these sites, Phase III Archeological Investigation at Willow Grove Property and Phase IA Archeological Assessment of Molly Berry Property, slave quarters and associated archaeological environments were explored. This provided Ms. Berkley with direct knowledge of African American archaeological environments. Such environments have long been overlooked by historic preservationists. Under the new leadership of Prince Georges County there has been a substantial change in historic preservation which has come to value African American historic and archaeological locales. Through her internship with Greenhorne & O'Mara and under the direction of Dr. Thomas Barrett, Ms. Berkley was able to expand her experience substantially in these environments.
Ms. Berkley wrote the historical background, field work descriptions, feature descriptions, and conclusions for substantial parts of the site reports of all three archaeological sites.
The Archaeological Heritage of Labor in Maryland
The purpose of Mr. Chidester's internship was to survey the history of industrial labor in Maryland, as well as the amount of coverage it has received by historic preservationists.
The Archaeological Heritage of Labor in Maryland
- Partner: University of Maryland College Park
- Student: Robert Chidester
The purpose of Mr. Chidester's internship was to survey the history of industrial labor in Maryland, as well as the amount of coverage it has received by historic preservationists (and more specifically archaeologists). He felt that this was necessary because there seemed to be a general lack of public knowledge about Maryland's industrial and labor heritage. As it turned out, there was a much larger amount than he had anticipated.
The first stage of Mr. Chidester's work consisted of spending many hours poring over the archaeological site files and Inventory of Historic Properties files at the Maryland Historical Trust Library, taking copious notes. Once this was done, he synthesized all of the information collected in a report. One purpose of the project was to spread awareness of Maryland's industrial labor heritage. Toward this end, Mr. Chidester constructed a multiple-property submission (MPS) for the National Register of Historic Places for industrial housing in Maryland. He presented papers on his work at the Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology at St. Louis and the Preservation Maryland Conference. Also, he looked into the possibility of making presentations at the monthly meetings of various chapters of the Archeological Society of Maryland. Finally, he worked with Erika Martin Seibert, the National Register Archaeologist, to design a travel itinerary (based upon the completed MPS) to be placed on the National Register's website. Maryland has a tremendous amount of labor heritage, and hopefully these activities will raise awareness of this long-neglected aspect of Maryland's past.
