Cathy Stanton

lecturer, anthropology, Tufts University

Cathy Stanton received her PhD from the interdisciplinary doctorate program at Tufts University in Boston, where she combined cultural anthropology with the study of museums, heritage, and tourism to examine the role of historic preservation and interpretation in creating postindustrial places. Her book, *The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City*, recently won the 2007 Book Award from the National Council on Public History for the best book arising from the field of public history in the past year. The book chronicles the development of Lowell National Historical Park, a pioneering urban national park created in 1978, and asks critical questions about this way of using history. Stanton points out that while Lowell has rehabilitated its image and become a model for this kind of revitalization projects worldwide, there are also downsides in the form of gentrification, growing competition from other cities following the same path, and a disconnection from present-day public debates about work and opportunity in the postindustrial economy. A resident of Massachusetts, Stanton is currently an adjunct lecturer at Tufts University and at Vermont College of Union Institute and University. She has also served as a consultant to the US National Park Service on matters relating to historical reenactment and community relationships. She is currently completing a study of Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in southeastern Pennsylvania, focusing on many of the same issues raised by her research in Lowell.