Ethnographic Overview and Assessment of Antietam National Battlefield

Loy, Christopher; Timmer, Andria; Finn, John; Lewis, Michael

This ethnographic overview and assessment identifies park-associated peoples and groups with cultural and historical connections to the landscape and resources of Antietam National Battlefield and develops and ethnographic overview and assessment of these groups. In this assessment, we identify three broad categories of peoples who either are of have been associated with the land of Antietam National Battlefield. Historical ethnographic groups are peoples with no identifiable contemporary attachments to the region but who impacted the landscape of the battlefield nonetheless. Park-associated peoples include “park neighbors, park residents, ethnic groups, or others with historical and cultural ties and associations with, or special knowledge of, park resources, including former residents and their descendants who remain attached to the area despite having relocated” (CWCESU Task Agreement 2013:3). Crucially, park-associated peoples have enduring cultural and material attachments to the land and resources of the battlefield that preceded its establishment as a national park. Additionally, we include interest groups who have ongoing attachments with the park but do not fit the definition of “park-associated peoples.” The battlefield holds different meanings for different groups. We endeavor to make sense of these diverse meanings using the lens of cultural landscape theory – an interpretive model which seeks to explain why different groups of people may attribute different meanings to a place, even one as significant as Antietam National Battlefield.

Ethnographic Overview and Assessment of Antietam National Battlefield

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