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Top blue bar image The Podcast Group
A student-led group project from HIST 246
 

Podcast Group Update

So I have been working on researching and writing a podcast for Houston Market Square, the original site of Dick Dowling’s statue. I figure the key elements to put in this podcast is the reasons why different groups within Houston wanted to build a statue commemorating Dowling around 1905, the dedication of the statue itself in 1905, and why this location was significant to the memory of Dowling and Houston.

My research has taken me to the Houston Public library archives, and our classes’ archive of articles about Dowling.  Within the HPL archives, I mainly was looking at the secretary notes taken by the committee for the building of the statue.  This includes the arguments the committee had with the builder of the statue over costs and how the monument should be made.  The biggest challenge there has been being able to read the handwriting of the secretaries.

Within our archive, I have looked at articles about the placement of the monument and the fanfare that went on surrounding its placement in Houston Market Square, in front of the old City Hall.  What I feel should be covered here is the importance of the monument to the people of Houston and the soldiers the Davis Guards in 1905.  While his name and memory have somewhat been lost to Houstonians in recent times, Dowling was the largest Civil War hero to the citizens of Houston.  This will be reflected in my draft for this podcast.

Like Jocelyn, one of my struggles has been figuring out how to limit myself to about three minutes of dialogue.  The other seems to be the overlapping information with Jocelyn.  I think some of this information is important the general history of the statue and I don’t want to be redundant in my own podcast.  Our listeners will want something short and wasting some of my three minutes repeating facts that have already been stated is not a good use of my time.  However, I do believe that some of that information is important to a podcast that takes the listeners to Houston Market Square.

While my draft is not finished yet, it will be ready to be added to our GoogleDoc on Saturday.

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