{"id":23519,"date":"2016-11-26T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2016-11-26T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=23519"},"modified":"2016-11-26T00:50:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-26T06:50:32","slug":"austin-peay-state-university-students-research-tennessee-artifacts-used-in-daily-life-for-history-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2016\/11\/26\/austin-peay-state-university-students-research-tennessee-artifacts-used-in-daily-life-for-history-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University Students research Tennessee Artifacts used in daily life for History Class"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – A distraught Queen Victoria asked members of her royal court to stop wearing lavish jewelry in the early 1860s. Her husband, Prince Albert, had just died, and the sight of such opulence offended the mourning queen.<\/p>\n

In the months that followed, England\u2019s aristocracy began dressing in black, and to stay in the monarch\u2019s good graces, they adorned themselves in the less flashy marcasite jewelry. In that moment, a fashion trend was born.<\/p>\n

\"APSU<\/a>

APSU students examine artifacts during a Tennessee History class on Tuesday, October 18, 2016 at Austin Peay State University. (Cassidy Graves, APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

Earlier this semester, a group of Austin Peay State University undergraduates discovered the fascinating histories surrounding familiar objects\u2014such as marcasite jewelry or antique shaving razors\u2014thanks to an innovative Tennessee history course that requires students to look inquisitively at local artifacts.<\/p>\n

Deanna Carter, APSU history instructor, developed the class thanks to a grant from the University\u2019s Learning Opportunities Center. The grant program was designed to provide APSU students with high impact learning opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing this grant, I bought a bunch of artifacts,\u201d Carter said. \u201cWe went to antique stores from Memphis to Gatlinburg, looking for small items, handheld items,that a typical Tennessean would have seen or used in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of writing a research paper on a famous Tennessean, Carter\u2019s studentsinvestigated their items and were then asked to develop a museum-style exhibit describing the piece. An exhibition of the artifacts, along with the students\u2019 research, is now on display in the Jenkins Gallery, on the third floor of the Morgan University Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an interactive exhibit,\u201d Carter said. \u201cEach item is assigned a number. When you go, you dial in this number (on your cell phone), and you will hear that student\u2019s voice give information on their research.\u201d<\/p>\n

APSU student Jamie Hotchkin was given a small cameo for the project, and after hours of diligent research, she learned, according to her exhibit recording, that \u201cthe broche was originally worn by elites as a sign of status of wealth and class, but as it became easier to produce, it became cheaper and most women in Tennessee could afford them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hotchkin was also able to determine the type of shell used in the cameo\u2019s design and, thanks to the type of clasp on the back, that it was produced sometime after 1910.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was delighted by the level of research she brought to the project,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n

She has taught this class for a few semesters, and this year, Carter wanted herstudents to delve a little deeper into their projects. One afternoon, whilecontemplating how to enrich her class, she bumped into Elliott Herzlich, a local jeweler who also happens to be married to Dr. Alisa White, APSU president.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew Elliott was a jeweler, very knowledge about a lot of stuff, and also a collector of things and very interested in history,\u201d Carter said. \u201cI asked if he would be interested in coming and helping. Elliott, being the kind person he is, said, \u2018I have a box of stuff I\u2019ll loan you from my collection.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

One afternoon in October, Herzlich arrived in Carter\u2019s class with several antique items\u2014including marcasite jewelry and Hotchkin\u2019s cameo\u2014and about 35 jeweler’s loupes. The students quickly went to work, putting the loupes to their eyes to see what they could find on their artifacts. They scanned engraved napkin rings, old coins and military pins, looking for identifying marks, such as serial numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got a chance to play with the items, touch them, learn from them,\u201d Herzlich said. \u201cThe skills they\u2019re learning from this, they should be able now to research anything that comes across their path. And I had a lot of fun with it. I was thrilled to work with Deanna, and I got a chance to interact with students, which I love.\u201d<\/p>\n

On November 15th, a small crowd gathered in the Jenkins Gallery for the opening of the exhibit. Carter smiled, as she always does, while introducing Herzlich and her students. She has long been a staple of the APSU Department of History and Philosophy, as both a graduate student and later as an instructor. As she surveyed the crowd in front of her, she wondered briefly what would happen with the class next year. Carter is leaving the University in December for health reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my swan song, but I\u2019ve been told the show will go on,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m holding out to the end of the semester for my students, but we have two people in the history department interested in taking over these projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter said she hopes to come to campus occasionally in the coming years to help with the class. Herzlich said if she ever needed transportation to the University, he\u2019d drive and pick her up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – A distraught Queen Victoria asked members of her royal court to stop wearing lavish jewelry in the early 1860s. Her husband, Prince Albert, had just died, and the sight of such opulence offended the mourning queen. In the months that followed, England\u2019s aristocracy began dressing in black, and to stay in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[22711,23,6391,11642,7207,262,825,29491,20969,29490,7857,1758],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-67l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23520,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23519\/revisions\/23520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}