Last year (summer 2019) the Little Compton Historical Society took on the topic of landscapes. (Each year the organization focuses on a different topic.) We edited a book on Little Compton landscapes. (Available here.) We did an exhibition that showed off maps, landscape paintings, and some of the tools that shaped our landscape history.

Students in the public humanities program at Brown contributed several virtual extensions of the exhibit. One group used StoryMaps to tell focused stories of the landscape, including:

• Ally LaForge: Wampanoag Homelands, Colonial and Native Memoryscapes and Stone Walls
• Conor MacDonald, Everblooming: America’s Roses and the Brownells of Little Compton
• And I created one on Mapping Little Compton: The First Proprietors

My favorite student project was the group that viewed the landscape not from a human but from an animal perspective. Kenna Libes, Molly Pallet, and Julia Renaud wrote and produced a series of tours of Little Compton’s history and the Society’s collection barn – as seen by an owl, a horse, a mouse, a dog, a fish, and a cow. You can hear the tours here: (401) 214-6926; and see the pamphlets here.