Archeologists on Display Michael Katherine Haynie Delivered at 2003 Society for Historical Archaeology Meeting in the Symposium "Have You Found Anything Yet: Public Interpretation of Archeology," organized by M. Haynie

Today the Longfellow site is composed of a historic mansion (Figure 1), built in 1759, and a carriage house constructed in 1844, as well as the immediately adjacent grounds and gardens. Historically, the greatest extent of the property reached 140 acres, including a wide variety of outbuildings that are no longer present. Built by a British loyalist, John Vassall, who was forced to flee the area during the American Revolution, the house has been home to the likes of George Washington during the siege of Boston in 1775 and 1776, merchant Thomas Russell, privateer Nathaniel Tracy, the nation's first apothecary general Andrew Craigie, and the famous poet Henry Longfellow. After Longfellow’s death in 1882, a trust was established by his children to keep the house and grounds open to the public. This trust managed the property until 1972, when it became a National Historic Site

During the summer of 2002, the Longfellow NHS reopened to visitors for the first time in nearly three years, during which they had been conducting extensive rehabilitation work to preserve the house and its collections. Archeological work was a nearly constant presence during the installation of new utilities and wells for a geothermal heating/cooling system. As the house reopened, the site was in the middle of plans to rehabilitate their formal garden area. Several of the treatment plans involved the removal of up to two feet of soil from some areas to eliminate insect problems that were damaging plants. Ground penetrating radar and several 50x50 cm test pits indicated the possible presence of intact features, most likely predating the beginning of the area's use as a formal garden in 1847. During the early spring, National Park Service archeologists began to construct a research design to complete a more extensive survey of the property.

As visitors to the Longfellow NHS walk directly through the formal garden (Figure 2) to gain access to the visitors’ center and the historic mansion, we knew that provisions would have to be made for almost constant public interpretation. Previous excavations on the property had included public education components, such as visits by local school groups or press, but never before had there been such high visibility over such a long period of time. After reading materials available on the public interpretation of archeological sites and talking to colleagues about their experiences, I came up with a plan.

First, the area of excavations, a 24 meter trench bisecting the garden on an east/west axis (Figure 3), would be fenced off. This would ensure that no one would accidentally stumble into our trenches when we were not present. Second, I contacted the local public high school to see if any students were interested in an archeological internship over the summer. Having seen to visitor safety and some public outreach, I was still apprehensive about adequate interpretation--I wanted to do more! As a result, I worked closely with the park's Site Manager, Jim Shea, and Chief of Visitor Services, Nancy Jones. We explored several ideas to maximize what visitors would get out of seeing the archeology at the site. One option was to have the park's interpretive staff give quick tours of the archeological work. This idea was discarded for two reasons: the interpretive staff was already hard pressed to fulfill their standing duties, and several articles suggested that the public is more interested in speaking to the archaeologists in person. Another possibility was to have our high school interns take turns speaking, but I worried that with their lack of experience they could easily become swamped by questions. Eventually, our team decided that the best approach was to have a sign explaining what we were doing and why, supplemented with designated times during the day when an archeologist would do a ten minute question and answer session, and a detailed two page handout with more information should anyone desire it. As the house was open on weekends when archeologists were not around, I decided to give several talks throughout the summer to the interpretive staff, so that they would be able to answer questions about the archeological work.

As the spring progressed and we laid out our trench, I wrote the handout summarizing the park's history and archeological work, and developed the layout and images to be used in the interpretive sign, which the park staff created. When the site opened in June, I felt we were ready, with two high school interns and three archeological interpretation sessions scheduled a day.

Results from our interns were mixed. In the spring and early summer, we had a fabulous intern who contributed significantly to work at the site, and also helped immensely with interpretation to the public. However, our intern for the latter part of the summer quickly lost interest and focus in her work, and was usually more of a distraction than a help. Eventually, we discovered that she was much happier working with our lab team processing artifacts, and she did make a contribution in that realm.

Our plan of scheduled ten-minute question and answer sessions was fraught with problems and required a more complex solution. We had three scheduled times posted on the sign: 11:45, 1:45 and 2:45. These times had been chosen to allow people to speak with the archeologists directly before or after a tour of the historic mansion. However, it was very rare for anyone to attend and we wound up wasting time standing near the path waiting. People did, however, want to talk to us earlier in the morning (particularly those who arrived before the site opened at 10 am), and on an informal basis all day long. Further adding to our difficulties were the bus tours, which would drop off around 50 people to explore the site for about 15 minutes which did not allow time for a house tour. Many of these people wanted to get a meaningful experience from their brief visit by interacting with archeologists. This caused some logistical problems as the whole tour never reached our excavations at same time, so whomever was trying to interpret the archeology for them would wind up giving an introduction over and over for 15 minutes, and not be able to answer the more detailed questions.

Based on these problems, we made several changes to our system. First, we kept an eye on visitor movement. Instead of waiting for the designated times, an archeologist would go over to the fence when there were more than five people reading the sign, or when we were questioned by the public. This system seemed to work much better, as most of the public were content to read the sign and watch what we were doing. Also, instead of taking ten minutes for each session, most people simply wanted a few minutes to ask us what we were finding, see some artifacts, and perhaps ask a few other questions. The few people who did want to know more usually were quite happy to talk to us while we worked, so we didn't have to lose progress while conducting longer conversations. The most significant change, however, was befriending the main bus driver on the tours, who, as luck would have it, was interested in archeology. After several long conversations with him, he started giving a brief summary of what we were doing and why to his bus tours and then asking us what we were finding. Having this sort of mediator made dealing with the large crowds much less time consuming for the archeologists, and I believe was a good situation for the public, as they got both the general background and a chance to ask questions of a live archeologist. I want to emphasize that this was not a formal agreement between the archeologists and the bus driver, but something that evolved on its own out of our mutual needs. Perhaps if our interns had worked out differently they also might have fulfilled this role.

By September, our interns had returned to school, but this was not an end to student involvement in our project. NPS archeologists continued to work on the trench, but another part of the garden—an area that held a pergola from 1904 until the 1930s—needed to be investigated. The park wanted the pergola reconstructed based on evidence from historic photographs, plans, and from any information in the archeological record. As their target date for construction was May 2003, we needed to complete fieldwork as soon as possible. As part of an agreement between the Longfellow NHS and Harvard University, we had a class of fourteen students complete the preliminary fieldwork in the area. Pairs of students were given responsibility for a 1 X 1 m unit under supervision of NPS archeologists (Figure 4). They worked at the site at least four hours each week from September to December (even in some fairly awful weather conditions). At the end of the course, students processed their artifacts and completed a 15-20 page research paper summarizing their findings and linking them with historical research. I feel this project is a good example of how public interpretation can work very well on a small scale –we did not reach very many individuals with this project, but the fourteen students who participated made full use of the Longfellow NHS grounds, collections, archives, and staff resources, and were also able to give back to the site valuable research which will have a direct impact on archaeological decisions about the garden area.

As it turned out, the most successful large-scale effort of our interpretation program was one I had not planned: lectures and information sessions. The first of these happened during the park's rededication ceremony during September 2002. During the first day of the event, we had a large display detailing various archeological projects at the site, both completed and ongoing, with prominently displayed interesting artifacts (Figure 5). We had two archeologists standing in front of the display to answer questions, and one archeologist excavating in the trench. It was a very long day, but it earned us an enormous amount of goodwill and support from the neighborhood. This was particularly important for the project, as many of the neighbors are involved in plans to rehabilitate the garden, and by showing them the value and excitement of archeological projects, we hope to avoid the impression that we are simply delaying their work.

The second day of the event was a family oriented program aimed at children for whom we were asked to run an archeological activity station. My colleagues and I designed and constructed what was essentially an archeological sandbox. Its stratigraphy was based on that in the trench we were excavating, and we buried simulated artifacts such as broken pieces from a modern cream colored plate to simulate creamware (Figure 6). For child-friendly concerns, we did not use glass or nails, and blunted the edges of all ceramic sherds. The education staff for the Longfellow NHS created a chart for the children to use for dating their artifacts, and our dig was included as part of a booklet of many activities in which the children could participate that day. The event was an overwhelming success. Staffed with two archeologists and a member of the horticultural staff from the park to answer any questions about the garden and assist with crowd control, we could accommodate four children digging at a time, often with their parents to help them. All of the children got a small talk about how archeologists dig and why, and then got to have fun with the digging. Most children were happy to dig for about ten minutes, collect their “artifacts” (which they got to keep), and then move on, so the crowd flowed smoothly.

The second unexpected success came out of our planned efforts at public interpretation, and the fact that Cambridge is home to several universities. Various instructors from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University visited the site and were interested in our work for different reasons. One taught landscape history, another landscape design, and a third was involved with the Institute's historical society. All three called me within a week of each other asking if they could visit for a presentation. After discussions with the Chief of Visitor Services and the three instructors, I decided to try to address the needs of all three groups with one presentation. The park allowed me to use their public lecture space, and I spoke for about half an hour to the group of 42. Topics covered the history of the site, archeology in general, and then tied the two together by demonstrating how the history and documents had influenced how we did archeology at the site, and what we were finding. After the brief lecture, I did another half an hour of questions and answers. Then we went outside to see archeology in progress and look at recently unearthed artifacts, followed by another round of questions and answers (Figure 7). As you may have gathered, I really like question and answer sessions, particularly for large groups with diverse interests. I feel it frees me up to give general information without worrying about whether I'm meeting everyone's needs, and allows the group to choose the level of detail and technicality they want to hear about. The session was an overwhelming success, with several of the participants contacting the site afterwards to express how happy they were.

If I had the whole project to do over again I would structure it a bit differently. I do believe that the ten minute scheduled question and answer sessions can work, however, I would contact the major tour bus companies to request their schedule before setting the times. Further, I think that the times of the question and answer sessions should not be linked to the house tours, as people seemed to want to do one or the other--perhaps both was simply too much information to absorb in one day. Also, based on the success of the more formal presentations I gave, I think the site would have benefited from a well-publicized monthly lecture, perhaps during an evening or weekend time to maximize neighborhood involvement. During these sessions, one could discuss recent finds, the progress of the project, and general archeological questions. Based on the overwhelming interest and curiosity during the rededication ceremony, I believe such lectures would have been well attended and forged important ties with the community. Regarding the volunteer program, I do believe that it is an important part of community outreach, even if the volunteers do not make a significant contribution to the progress on the site. However, they should not under any circumstances be a distraction to the working field crew, and I think the results would be better if a volunteer/intern program is run in a similar fashion to the Harvard class, where the interns have specific requirements and also have instruction time away from the site. Finally, I would like to state that this project had and incredible head-start by having a park staff so willing to work with us and so excited about and supportive of archeology. If this relationship does not exist, developing a good working relationship with the park staff, including interpreters, maintenance, horticulturists, curators, etc, is the critical first step in any such effort. Without the help of all of these people, from the horticulturists who removed plant material and put up garden fencing, to the maintenance workers who graciously shared space for equipment storage and helped us develop visitor safety planning, to the interpreters who made our signs and printed our leaflets, as well as consulting on the content or of our programs, our project would have been overwhelmed by the extra demands of working in such a high visibility area. With all the support we received, we were able to develop an archeological interpretation program that enhanced the archeological work at the site as well as informing the public.