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“Nineteenth Century City, video by University of Alabama students (Meghan Stough)

The music video/documentary pertained to another history class that discussed rural versus urban ideals and habits. Each student in the class explained where they were from and if this place was rural or urban, and then to say what was “non-country” or “non-city” about themselves. It also followed the class along as they saw different historical sites in different rural and urban areas. This can relate to our own history class in that we discussed how society changed as settlers moved from urban to rural areas, or vice versa. The latter part of the lecture was about interpreting historical sites. A keynote speaker gave a presentation about different historical sites around Tuscaloosa. He and his archeological team used foundations of old buildings to compare them to buildings today. He also spoke of what these buildings and the rooms they contained were used for. Some of these buildings were significant to our own Civil War Discussion. One such building was once used as a holding for Union soldiers that had become prisoners of war. His lecture can also relate to our own Civil War Monument project. My group and I used inspiration of past southern plantations to create our own present day southern plantation. We based our structure on those of past structures and created a blueprint to display what each room would be used for. The project required to interpret these sites and analyze how different groups would react to this monument as well as what it would signify.