For her Summer 2011 Odyssey Project, Julia Cook lived in Charleston, South Carolina and worked as a volunteer tour guide for the National Parks Service at Fort Sumter National Monument. She used primary source materials from the South Carolina Historical Society and personal interviews with public figures like Mayor Joe Riley, National Parks workers, business owners, and authors of fiction to compare the experience of living in Charleston in the past to what it is like today. She tried to ascertain through participant observation whether Charleston's incendiary past influenced its contemporary culture.