Dear Brock,
The Raleigh News & Observer recently reported this story on two competing websites commemorating the War Between the States in North Carolina:
The privately-funded North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial, and the NC Archives & History-produced site North Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial.I have been following the discussion regarding the two website commemorations, and saw on author Michael Hardy’s blog his comment about the makeup NC Department of Archives & History’s sesquicentennial team. He is right to question this – it is all state employees and contrary to a recent Raleigh News & Observer article about it being inclusive, it seems to include only state employees. Even the academic board is state employees, if they work for the state university system. I have always been a strong supporter of Archives and History and the artifacts and documents in their care, but this is a glaring question about the professional integrity of a state agency supported by tax dollars.
What bothers me is that the N&O article dismisses the people behind the competing “War Between the States” website (www.ncwbts150.com) as amateur historians, and it looks like their commission is made up of private citizens (they claim to be privately-funded) from across the state – I dare say they are the ones paying the salaries of the state employees who ridicule their view of history. I would also argue that inclusion also means including all views, not just the private views of state employees.
What say you?
Walthazy
I just looked at the Civil War website and see that it is not an official state website, but an in-house project of NC Archives and History. If the NC legislature did not direct Archives & History to do this, I wonder how much money is being spent in research, salaries and website for this venture? No wonder our state taxes are so high, along with gas prices.
ReplyDeleteLet the state employees Publius speaks of promote their non-inclusive views with their own money and on their own time.
I couldn't agree more, Sir and I encourage you to pass this around. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point – how much is the North Carolina taxpayer on the hook for with this pseudo-state website, the hours of research, transcription and effort, when it seems redundant? I suspect that all the valuable information on that civil war site (it is strange that when the site purports to tell the North Carolina story it uses the northern term for the war) is all available online, in books, and easily available documents. If I want to learn about the battles at Bethel, New Bern or Fort Fisher, there are many well-documented and privately-authored books in print – therefore the civil war site does nothing but regurgitate existing information the taxpayer foots the bill for.
And I call it a pseudo-state website as it was not commissioned by the state legislature – this is clearly noted at the beginning of the civil war site webpage. People need to stop referring to it as the “state” site when it is really the product of state employees who apparently sought busy-work to avoid impending layoffs. If our Republican-dominated legislature is looking for effective ways to reduce the state budget, the North Carolina Department of Archives & History is a target-rich environment.
That’s my take so far.
Publius