7 Questions with Jennifer Bennie, "Walk With History" on YouTube and "Talk With History" Podcast

 

Jennifer Bennie, of the YouTube Channel “Walk with History” also the podcast “Talk with History,” is a former Naval Aviator turned historian.  After earning a Masters of American History from the University of Memphis with the GI Bill, her research resulted in the dedication of a historic marker in downtown Memphis memorializing the first documented lynching to occur in Memphis on January 1^st 1851.  She currently is a museum attendant at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia.  New episodes of “Walk with History” and “Talk with History” are published every week. 

1.          How and when did you get hooked on history? 

I was very interested in history when I got my undergrad 20+ years ago at Penn State University, so much so that I got a minor in History.  However, I really got “hooked” on history when I went into the US Navy right after graduation.  I wanted to learn more about the history of the Navy, which led to opening more doors to learn about American History, especially as I traveled overseas. I really wanted to understand more about the dynamics I found myself in with present politics and how the past impacted that.  I was lucky that I was able to use my GI Bill and pursue a Master’s Degree in American History, that has only allowed for more in-depth learning and understanding of history.   

 

2.          What role does history play or has it played in your personal life?

 

History is part of my personal life as filming for the “Walk with History” YouTube channel is done, for the most part, with my family, and we make it a family day when we film.  My husband does some of the filming, all the editing, and my kids love to hear the stories.  We usually make an adventure of it, go on a road trip, bring lunch, and all learn about something historic as we film for the channel.  The kids have loved going to Colonial Williamsburg, Arlington National Cemetery, and Jimmy Stewart’s hometown of Indiana Pennsylvania to just name a few.   

 

3.          How does history play a part of your professional life/career? 

For my professional career, I work as Museum Attendant at the historic location where General MacArthur is entombed as well as it is a museum dedicated to his story.  The MacArthur Memorial is located in the old city hall building of Norfolk, Virginia and there are nine galleries that house the artifacts of his life.  From his parents, West Point, WWI, WWII, Korea and after, the memorial does a great job of trying to explain who this complex military leader was as well as his impact on history.   

 

4.          Why is studying/knowing history important? 

I believe studying history is important to understand where we find ourselves in the present.  I also believe you must start from a place of truth to really know where you are and where you are going.  That was one of the reasons for “Walk with History” to build public trust with the truth of what really happened in historic locations while taking the viewer to see that real life location.   

 

5.          What is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?  

I pursued a Masters in American History because I love to learn about the past events that happened in America.  I like to take my YouTube viewers to the locations where the giants of history walked before us.  My favorite though would have to be colonial times, mostly because America was so new.  I like to learn how the foundations of the country were made, why and by who.  It really interests me to see all the moving parts with how direct and indirect power were taking hold of a young nation.   

 

6.        How did Walk With History get started? 

“Walk with History” was started when I took a break from social media.  There was so much untruth online, and I wanted to get the “noise” out of my head.  I had more free time which led to wondering if people had gone to different historic locations and what they looked like today.  I got on YouTube, looking things up I wanted to see, etc. and noticed that either no one had filmed a video at that location, or if a person had filmed a video, they did not do a good job of relaying the history for the viewer.  So I approached the topic with my husband, Scott, since he had been doing a family YouTube channel for a couple of years.  He thought it was a great idea, we started collaborating and we have been doing it ever since.  It will be a year in April 2022.  We have committed to being consistent and have done one episode a week.  We do all types of historic topics, movies, true crime, cemeteries, Civil Rights, Presidents, etc.  Anything that I would be interested to watch is usually what we film.   

 

7.      What’s been your favorite site visit so far? What’s something on your bucket list of sites? 

So far, my favorite site to visit has been Maureen O’Hara’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery, it was such an honor to be there.  I was such a fan of her movies.  I also was really excited to stand on Jimmy Stewart’s porch of his family home.  You can see me kind of freak out our YouTube video from his hometown.  “It’s a Wonderful Life” is my favorite movie of all time.  I really enjoyed taking my kids to “Washington Crossing” and “Yorktown” to talk about the battles that took place to change the tides of the American Revolution.  I did a 3-part series on Emmett Till, and that was very hard emotionally to film but I felt it was so important to share.  I had done a lot of research in that case, and I wanted my viewers to see exactly where those horrible events took place, but mostly to remember he is never forgotten.  The one place I cannot wait to visit is Monument Valley in Utah.  I want to recreate some scenes of my favorite western “The Searchers” and just to be in that area to give some attention to the lives of American Indians.  I also cannot wait to take my family to “The Battle of Little Big Horn” to show them that location and what happened there with Custer’s last stand.   

7 Questions with Ros Evans, History Video Gamer and Creator of the Mission Past YouTube Channel

 

Ros Evans created the Mission Past YouTube channel to explain, explore and celebrate history in video games. He has an academic background in archaeology and has been making independent short videos about history for over a decade. His film about the English Civil War won the award for best narrative at The Archaeology Channel International Film Festival in 2012 and in 2015 he co-founded the local history podcast in the UK called A Good Walk Spoiled. Mission Past takes his love of history and morphs it with his passion and experience for video games to explore how history pops up in the multi-billion dollar gaming industry. The channel can be found at  www.youtube.com/c/missionpast

1.How and when did you get hooked on history?

When I was a kid in the late '90s there were two big influences that really got me interested. One was a British TV series called Time Team where a group of archaeologists and historians had three days to evaluate a historical site. The second was the video game Age of Empires, released on PC in 1997. It allowed you to play as one of a number of ancient civilisations. Both of those vividly brought history to life through computer imagery. I remember thinking “wow people used to live like this? I have to find out more!”

2.What role does history play or has it played in your personal life?

Studying history gives you a drive to ask how things came to be the way they are. In the construction of objects, places, technologies, cultures and so on. I think that this curiosity to get back to the essentials of things is a way of thinking that stays with you once you learn it and you can apply it to practically anything.

3.How does history play a part of your professional life/career?

I have a Masters in Archaeology for Screen Media and for the last six years I've been a freelance videographer. I occasionally get the opportunity to work on historical projects – recently I've been involved with an interactive project exploring the history of Malmesbury (a small town in the south of England) and it's been a pleasure to highlight the unseen layers of history that are everywhere in the modern world. I also had the opportunity to do some work experience on Time Team shortly before it was discontinued which was great.

4.Why is studying/knowing history important?

History is the key to unlocking who we are. But to be slightly provocative, very often TV shows and the like blandly tell us that our ancestors were just like us, which is of course true to some extent. But they also perceived and thought about the world in a radically different way to us. There is a great positive message from studying history and thinking about how much has changed in the way people have perceived and constructed society. It underscores humanity's incredible ability to change.

5.What is your favourite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?

My favourite historical period is the English Civil War of the 1640s because the country was in flux. Not only was there a devastating civil war going on but also fundamental questions were being asked which were influential for hundreds of years in Europe and further abroad. It culminated in the execution of King Charles I, who was after all apparently placed there by god himself. I must say that I also love prehistory (although it doesn't technically qualify for this question!) because every little scrap you find out illuminates part of our past that seems so distant and foreign to us today. I've been lucky enough to help excavate sites from both of these periods too which gives you an instant and very direct link to the history.

6.How did Mission Past get started?

For over a decade I've tried to create accessible and entertaining videos about history because I want to get other people interested in the past just as I did when I was younger. The idea to discuss video games came to me about two years ago initially because I wanted a visual aid for the history I was talking about but then I realised that video games are hugely understudied compared to the cultural footprint they have (the industry is now bigger than the movie and music industries combined). And after all it was a video game that really had an impact on me to take up studying history. I'm also pretty well qualified having spent longer than I'd like to admit playing video games since the late '90s.

7.How difficult is it to strike the right balance of history and enjoyability in a game? What are the hallmarks of a great historical game?

I wrote an essay on this topic when I was studying my Masters, it's fascinating. Video games have to be entertaining and engaging and (perhaps unfortunately) the history has to come second to this. That's not to say that games don't have a duty to represent the history in good faith, they do, but because of the nature of the medium it has to be streamlined. The balance between enjoyability and historical veracity is very difficult and it's practically impossible to satisfy both requirements.

I have always seen the point of good historical games as giving the player encouragement to go and find out more about the history they feature, whether that's inside or outside of the game. For that to happen they need to immerse the player in the past. That's exactly how I first became interested in history. Games are a relatively young medium and they are getting better and better at including information for those that are interested, for example by featuring an interactive historical game mode or encyclopedia.