Fashion Archives, Historical Society, and Rome
Astronomical precision aside, my personal autumn begins when the calendar reads September, especially when I can see red, orange, and yellow leaves gathering on the lawn outside the window. This year’s change signifies not only the ordinary chronological march, but also the inordinate passage of time since my last post.
Fashion Archives & Museum
I had the honor of editing two online exhibits in connection with the Archives’ 2026 live exhibit, Happy Birthday! American Milestones From Lafayette to Today. Originally created by my classmates in HIST 541: Museum Education, I edited for readability, adjusted formatting, and reviewed images for digital rights management purposes. Prior to publication, I removed or replaced several images that I found still under copyright (and in one case, donated the cost of a 5-year license for two images that I found integral and contributory towards the content). Those pages may be found here:
I co-authored a third page with two classmates, “America’s 100th Birthday: The 1876 Centennial Exhibition,” which you may find on the Fashion Archives’ site with the others under “Educational Programs.” More than simple pages, the site designs integrate educational activities and methods such as questioning to engage students. For example, in “America’s 100th Birthday,” we guide students to explore the Centennial Exposition’s Machinery Hall using a digitized primary document available through the Smithsonian Institution, discovering one of the major historical themes of the Exposition (nearly) first-hand.
Franklin County Historical Society – Kittochtinny
Since I am bound to confidentiality as one of the directors, this section purposely lacks detail, but I can say that this year I have:
- Headed a fundraising committee to explore and secure new sources of revenue, a challenging new skill, but one that I am eager to add to my repertoire
- Continued to volunteer as a docent and sharpen my interpretation skills
- Deployed my writing and editing skills with the Publishing Committee for this year’s annual journal. (More to come in the winter after publication!)
Athens & Rome
Not exactly work for me, but still quite relevant to my theme of exploring the past, my wife Amanda Chesnut and I visited the ancient cities of Athens and Rome this past June. Amanda, a scholar of choreography and dance, recently published her article, “More Than Background and Bodies: Reclaiming the Histories of Biblical Women Through Education and Artistic Expression” with the International Journal of Arts in Society (https://doi.org/10.18848/1833-1866/CGP/A905). She presented her research at the Society’s 2026 conference, held in Athens.
Having wrapped up my master’s degree with a course on Roman history as a visiting student at Slippery Rock University, I insisted on at least a short excursion of a few days in Rome (to absolutely no resistance from my enthusiastic traveling companion–although really, who would ever refuse a trip to Rome?).
Prior to the course, I had little appreciation for the historical scholarship, sources, and methods of ancient history, as my graduate studies focused on 19th century Pennsylvania. Dr. Carlis White’s course fascinated and expanded my intellect, and absolutely changed my perspective on my degree program’s “Global Connections” requirement from an annoying checkbox to a true appreciation of the methods applied outside relatively recent US history.
I could write pages and pages about our trip to the Mediterranean world. Suffice to say that we visited the:
- Temple of Poseidon
- Acropolis & Acropolis Museum
- Evzone Presidential Guards outside Greek Parliament
- Roman Forum & the Ara Pacis (thanks to Dr. White for those suggestions)
- Colosseum
- Mt. Vesuvius & Pompei
- Vatican Museums
…as well as several smaller sites and other tours. Although we did not tour it, I found myself drawn to the Castel Sant’Angelo across the Tiber between the old city of Rome and Vatican City.
The central former tomb dates to Hadrian’s reign. Imagine, an edifice nearly two millennia old still standing, still maintained! We simply have no comparison in age and preservation in the United States.
Congratulations to my dear wife for presenting and publishing her work, and thanks for enduring vacation with an historian!
Historical Chesnuts 