Site Interpretation Class Explores Central Georgia

Students and Dr. Brown pose around a replica of Jimmy Carter’s White House desk at Jimmy Carter National Historic Site.

Students in Dr. Wayde Brown’s Site Interpretation Class recently took a three day field trip through Central Georgia to explore interpretation at different sites. Leaving on Thursday, September 7, and returning on Saturday, September 9, students were able to visit a variety of sites in the Central Georgia region. Students began their first day at the Old Governor’s Mansion in Milledgeville before moving on to the Ocmulgee Mounds and the Cannonball House. That night, many students chose to stay at the historic Windsor Hotel inn Americus before meeting the next day at Andersonville. Also on the agenda for Friday were visits to Pasaquan and the Jimmy Carter National Historic District and Boyhood Home. The trip concluded on Saturday with a visit to Jarrell Plantation and Roosevelt’s Little White House and the warm springs there.

For Second-year MHP Student Bethany Moore, she enjoyed the variety in the sites themselves and also in their interpretations. She learned that “the experience that a visitor has at a historic site is tied very heavily to the interpretation of the site and that can lead to a good informative visit or a really bad one.” For her, hearing about the challenges each site experiences in its interpretation was interesting.

For Second-year MHP Student Rebekah Helfgot, her favorite three sites the class visited were Andersonville, Pasaquan, and the Governor’s Mansion. For her, “all of these site were so unique. Andersonville for the raw emotion it evokes as a POW camp and active cemetery, Pasaquan as a walkable and livable work or art, and the Governor’s Mansion as your ‘typical house museum’ but done really well.” She felt that this trip was important for the class in order to have shared experiences to discuss and analyze for the remainder of the semester.