{"id":1171,"date":"2019-11-20T16:58:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T16:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2025-03-27T15:46:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T19:46:56","slug":"time-marches-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/20\/time-marches-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Marches On"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col{padding-right:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-bottom:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-left:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);}.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}@media all and (max-width: 991px){.kadence-column1171_505b43-4f > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column1171_505b43-4f dynamic-main-col\"><div class=\"kt-inside-inner-col\"><style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15\"]{font-size:1.5rem;line-height:30px;font-weight:500;font-style:italic;font-family:proxima-nova;color:#808080;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15 mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15 img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<p class=\"kt-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading1171_72e4d6-15\">Wilmington University History adjunct <strong>Michael Dixon<\/strong> teaches students how to conduct investigations into a well-hidden past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide wu-blockquote-row is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-ad2f72ca wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote wu-blockquote-simple is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cWe are not makers of history. We are made by history.\u201d<\/p>\n<cite>\u2014 Dr. Martin Luther King<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In Michael Dixon\u2019s case, he was indeed made by history. For him, even from childhood, history has been and continues to be his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But not history of the high and mighty, though Dixon, an author, writer, speaker and Wilmington University history adjunct, has encountered presidents and ambassadors on his ongoing journey through the past. Instead, he says, his focus \u201cis the history of understudied people, everyday people, those you don\u2019t find in textbooks or chapters of 19th century history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, the rest of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dixon says his purpose is to encourage our interest in local historical events and places, and help preserve that knowledge and, in doing so, create a bridge between past and present for us to enjoy and learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His knowledge of several subjects is extensive \u2014 Prohibition, women\u2019s suffrage, civil rights, the Cold War, the C&amp;D Canal, the Mason-Dixon Line, the building of the Conowingo Dam (the construction that cost the lives of at least 20 people) \u2014 and also subjects many have shied away from in the past or that were simply forgotten or ignored, like unsolved murders of small town police officers or lynchings in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is always interested in learning more about topics he comes across in his many travels around the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.kb-image1171_f6a779-27 .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-image kb-image1171_f6a779-27\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"167\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Dixon-3-640x427-1-250x167.jpg\" alt=\"Mark Dixon\" class=\"kb-img wp-image-1173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Dixon-3-640x427-1-250x167.jpg 250w, https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Dixon-3-640x427-1.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><figcaption>Mark Dixon<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Information on national issues is always plentiful on a broad scale, Dixon says, so he digs deeper to uncover what hasn\u2019t been uncovered for a long time&nbsp; \u2014 and he teaches his students to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou can find plenty of material on the national suffrage movement, for example, but how did people in Delaware or Delmarva react to it,\u201d he says of the movement to give women the right to vote. \u201cDelaware had some pretty significant actions going on. It had a chance to be first to pass the 19th Amendment, and they failed and passed it to Tennessee. The Delaware legislature had to ratify the constitutional amendment, and with their ratification, they would have given women access to the ballot box, but they literally failed to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a historian, he started early. As noted in his online biography, he was a young teen in the 1960s when he began volunteering at the Historical Society of Cecil County. At the end of summer vacation, the Society newsletter noted, \u201cMike was the first high school student who has ever evinced sufficient interest in local history to offer his services to the Society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dixon went on to earn degrees in History and Behavioral Sciences from Washington College, St. Joseph\u2019s University, and Wilmington University. He specializes in African-American studies, cultural and social history, regional and community studies. He\u2019s a visiting scholar for the Delaware Humanities Forum and Delmarva Discussions, as well as a member of the speakers\u2019 bureau for the Maryland Humanities Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dixon has appeared on the \u201cToday Show,\u201d Maryland Public TV and broadcast news programs; in National Geographic, Southern Living, and Chesapeake Life magazines; and in various scholarly journals. His digital presence includes a website and blog containing useful links for those working on historical research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recently, he had the opportunity to provide start-up leadership&nbsp;for the development of a 62-acre living history museum for a municipality. That work involved organizing a nonprofit foundation, raising $1.5 million&nbsp;to start work on restoring a couple of&nbsp;200-year-old houses, and the development of an interpretive plan for&nbsp;a historic&nbsp;port on the Chesapeake Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Daughters of the American Revolution in May 2019 awarded Dixon the DAR Historic Preservation Recognition Award. The award, according to the DAR press release, \u201crecognizes and honors an individual or group that has done recent remarkable volunteer work at the community level. The award recognizes achievements in all areas of historic preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.kb-image1171_bc1456-be .kb-image-has-overlay:after{opacity:0.3;}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-image kb-image1171_bc1456-be\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"167\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Dixon-2-640x427-1-250x167.jpg\" alt=\"Dixon reading\" class=\"kb-img wp-image-1174\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Dixon-2-640x427-1-250x167.jpg 250w, https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Dixon-2-640x427-1.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>DAR officials noted in the presentation that Dixon\u2019s college course \u201cSusquehanna Tales\u201d chronicled \u201cthe geography and settling of the lower Susquehanna River Valley in Maryland and the building of the Conowingo Hydroelectric Dam. This short course involved two hours of classroom lecture followed by two hours touring the visitor sites, both above and below the dam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since historians are constantly on the lookout for items of historic value that have been discarded or hidden away, Mike was able to rescue eight large photograph albums of hundreds of photos taken before, during, and after the building of the dam. Viewing these photos made Mike\u2019s lecture and tour come alive, showing the work and sacrifices made towards completion of the dam in 1928.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He\u2019s also embraced a stint as a guest curator for the Frederick Heritage Historical Society, for which he offered a traveling workshop on the Mason-Dixon Line, the original line surveyed in the 1700s that set the state lines for Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey wanted to see, why did that [line] come about, what was segregation like along the line, what were the social, cultural, even popular media interpretations reinforced?\u201d he says. \u201cI had a great time. All I did was work my way along the little theaters along the line.\u201d He adds that often, the people running the theater would say, \u2018Oh yeah, even in Pennsylvania, the theaters were segregated.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dixon\u2019s stories include an interesting one on which he\u2019s currently working about the origin of I-95 through Delaware into Maryland. In the 1960s, when President John F. Kennedy was in office, Dixon noted that several African ambassadors from newly formed, formerly British, nations wanted to travel from the United Nations in New York to Washington, D.C., and they had to travel through Delaware and Maryland, which were segregated states at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey would get in their limo, start down the New Jersey Turnpike, then cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge, then we don\u2019t have 95,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was the era of Jim Crow in Delaware, and in Maryland. Once they crossed into Delaware, they could not generally stop at a restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the Cold War era, said Dixon, and Africa was awash in newly formed governments. \u201cCastro and Khrushchev know they\u2019ve got a leverage point, and they start talking to the newly free countries. They say, you know, they talk about equality but you\u2019re not really equal over there, look how they treat you. And Kennedy says we\u2019ve got to get that fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kennedy apparently put pressure on the governors of both states, resulting in some laws changing and the construction of I-95. Kennedy opened the Maryland-Delaware section on Nov. 14, 1963, in one of his last public appearances<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dixon\u2019s enjoyment of teaching is obvious, with subjects as diverse as African-American heritage and cultural studies, Delaware history, or history of criminal justice. His take is to get his students moving, actually visiting sites and libraries to conduct research, \u201cgetting them in the field,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide wu-blockquote-row is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-ad2f72ca wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote wu-blockquote-simple is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThey can go on the internet and get their facts, but what they need to do after they assemble the facts is learn how to evaluate them, how you test them, so when they do that Delaware history course, for example, they go someplace to see the microfilm, to all the archived books,\u201d he says. \u201cThe internet is wonderful, but not two or three percent of the historical records are on there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Dixon says it can be difficult to take a class of incoming freshmen and convince them to engage in history. \u201cBut they should engage in it, that it can be interesting, that it answers stories about today. I always do a lecture on everything has a past, and we do a little exercise around it. They can even talk about family history if they want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many aspects of local history, even family history, perhaps deliberately forgotten, can be uncovered through this research. As an example, Dixon brings up the history of lynchings in Delaware and Maryland in the last centuries. Through his work on the subject, he has been involved in the recent establishment in Maryland of local memorials to those who died in these lynchings. It is a topic many have avoided. \u201cBut we have to know where we came from to know what happened,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his classes, he teaches students how to conduct investigations into a well-hidden past. \u201cEach one of these has a deep story about what was going on,\u201d he says. \u201cIt even causes people who aren\u2019t too interested in history to pay attention to it, because we work through the process of records. I\u2019ll show them the records, and we\u2019ll come to the conclusion of why some back then didn\u2019t want history remembered that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, through research, such an event was uncovered in one student\u2019s family history, he adds. \u201cUsually what happens is families are so embarrassed, that generation who lived it, they were worried about their own safety. It dies in memory.\u201d He says he hopes his work with his students does not allow that to happen in their lifetimes, to help them remember where they came from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>History will always be his life, says Dixon, so much so he really doesn\u2019t see retiring from it in a traditional sense. \u201cI don\u2019t see stopping,\u201d he adds. \u201cYou know, time marches on, but I enjoy it. There\u2019s always something to be curious about.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wilmington University History adjunct Michael Dixon teaches students how to conduct investigations into a well-hidden past. \u201cWe are not makers of history. We are made&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[647],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","tag-magazine-fall-2019"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":135,"label":"MAGAZINE"}],"post_tag":[{"value":647,"label":"Magazine Fall 2019"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Dixon-opening-shot-1024x683-1-720x480.jpg",720,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Rebecca Slinger","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/author\/rebecca\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":135,"name":"MAGAZINE","slug":"magazine","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":692,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":431,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":135,"category_count":431,"category_description":"","cat_name":"MAGAZINE","category_nicename":"magazine","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":647,"name":"Magazine Fall 2019","slug":"magazine-fall-2019","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1204,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":18,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17518,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/17518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}