Reviving Shelved Projects for Internships in Archaeology

Abstract

Between 1992 and 1994, archaeologists investigated a number of households and workshops on Virginius Island, a former industrial community on the Shenandoah River within Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. For a variety of reasons, the project was derailed in its final stages, and the results of the research were never fully reported. The data and analyses sat more or less in their raw form, quickly becoming artifacts themselves. Several years later I was given the opportunity to complete the record of these investigations as a professional internship, bringing me into contact with a federally-controlled agency for the production of public history, which had in its past obliterated a local history. Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (HFNHP) focuses its attention on the story of John Brown and the American Civil War. This period remains the focus of public history at Harpers Ferry, and by simulating this historic setting the park has severed the modern, living region from its history.