The Vermont Historical Society bestowed its Ben Lane Award on Keith Erekson for the best article published in Vermont History during 2005-2007. The article, “The Joseph Smith Memorial Monument and Royalton’s ‘Mormon Affair’: Religion, Community, Memory, and Politics in Progressive Vermont,” was published in on pages 118-151 of the Summer/Fall 2005 issue.
The Oral History Review has published Erekson’s “Method and Memory in the Midwestern ‘Lincoln Inquiry’: Oral Testimony and Abraham Lincoln Studies, 1865-1938.” The article reviews the efforts from the 1880s through the 1930s to collect and examine oral histories with Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana neighbors. OHR is the official publication of the Oral History Association.
The Indiana Magazine of History sent Erekson–and his family–to review the controversial new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, IL. “Even before the museum opened to the public,” Erekson notes, “some critics had already disparaged it, media displays and all, with the dismissive D-word (Disney).” The museum has attracted millions of visitors by combining technology and history. Erekson’s conclusion? “While the digital technology dazzles, visitors may find themselves more moved by the innovative application of such ‘old-fashioned’ media as mannequins, murals, and multi-sensory displays.” Read the entire review.
In 2006, Erekson earned certification in Web Markup & Style Coding and then designed a blog and newsletter for History SoTL: An International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning in History. In the words of Time Magazine, he was one of many this year celebrated “for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.”
