35,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
PUBLIC HISTORY
PROVIDES A BACKGROUND IN THE HISTORY, PRINCIPLES, AND PRACTICES OF THE FIELD OF PUBLIC HISTORY
Public History: An Introduction from Theory to Application is the first text of its kind to offer both historical background on the ways in which historians have collected, preserved, and interpreted history with and for public audiences in the United States since the nineteenth century to the present and instruction on current practices of public history. This book helps us recognize and critically evaluate how, why, where, and who produces history in public settings.
This unique textbook provides a foundation for students advancing to a career in the types of spaces–museums, historic sites, heritage tourism, and archives–that require an understanding of public history. It offers a review of the various types of methodologies that are commonly employed including oral history and digital history. The author also explores issues of monuments and memory upon which public historians are increasingly called to comment. Lastly, the textbook includes a section on questions of ethics that public historians must face in their profession. This important book:
Written for students, Public History: An Introduction from Theory to Application offers in one comprehensive volume a guide to an understanding of the fundamentals of public history in the United States.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 420
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Preface
Purpose of the Book
Structure of the Book
1 Defining Public History
History
Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
2 Exhibiting History
History
Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
3 Preserving Historic Sites and Spaces
History
Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
4 Managing Archives and Historical Records
History
Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
5 Marking History
History
Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
6 Recording Memory as History
History
Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
7 Digitizing History
History
Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
8 Practicing Ethical Public History
History and Theory
Practice
Further Resources
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Charles Willson Peale’s self‐portrait of him and his museum.
Figure 2.2 A promotion for Barnum’s American Museum.
Figure 2.3 James Smithson.
Figure 2.4 The Smithsonian Institution’s first building, often called the Ca...
Figure 2.5 The National Museum sat adjacent to the Smithsonian’s Castle.
Figure 2.6 In 1995, the Smithsonian displayed the front fuselage from the En...
Figures 2.7, 2.8 and 2.9 My Coke Story is a scaffolded participatory experie...
Figure 2.8
Figure 2.9
Figure 2.10 Pop‐up exhibits foster engagement.
Figure 2.11 This example from the National Museum of the American Indian dem...
Chapter 3
Figures 3.1 This nineteenth‐century print idealizes Marquis de Lafayette’s v...
Figure 3.2 Ann Pamela Cunningham spearheaded the successful movement to save...
Figure 3.3 William Sumner Appleton Jr. used the demolition of John Hancock’s...
Figure 3.4 The Wythe House. The first step in creating Colonial Williamsburg...
Figures 3.5 and 3.6 In Tallahassee, HABS documented the Goodwood house in tw...
Figure 3.7 After the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 19...
Figure 3.8 This photograph from 1904 shows the proximity of the Abu Simbel T...
Figure 3.9 Monticello circa 1900.
Figure 3.10 Montpelier circa 1930s.
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 The State Historical Society of Wisconsin used a circular to expl...
Figure 4.2 J. Franklin Jameson was indefatigable in working to establish a N...
Figure 4.3 The US National Archives under construction.
Figures 4.4 and 4.5 Once completed, the US National Archives moved records o...
Figure 4.5
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 Haymarket Square in 1893. The monument is in the bottom right‐han...
Figure 5.2 The Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument in Waldheim Cemetery (now known a...
Figure 5.3 The contemporary Haymarket Memorial.
Figures 5.4 The Washington Monument under construction.
Figure 5.5 The Washington Monument today?
Figure 5.6 Daniel Chester French’s Lincoln conveys the weight of events.
Figure 5.7 Maya Lin’s winning submission. Library of Congress, Prints & Phot...
Figure 5.8 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial continues to draw visitors of all a...
Figure 5.9 The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial inspires contemplation.
Figure 5.10 Every March 25, “Chalk” inspires the public to remember the 146 ...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 John Lomax recorded Harriett McClintock outside at a crossroads n...
Figure 6.2 Dean Albertson (left) and James P. Warburg (right) create an oral...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 The enormous ENIAC.
Figure 7.2 Acquiring the September 11 Digital Archive was a milestone in the...
Guide
Cover Page
Public History
Copyright
Preface
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Index
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
Pages
iii
vii
viii
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
Public History
An Introduction from Theory to Application
Jennifer Lisa Koslow
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
This edition first published 2021© 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Jennifer Lisa Koslow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
Editorial Office111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at www.wiley.com.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of WarrantyWhile the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials, or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Name: Koslow, Jennifer Lisa, 1970– author. | Wiley‐Blackwell (Firm), publisher. Title: Public history : an introduction from theory to application / Jennifer L. Koslow, Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA. Description: Hoboken, NJ : Wiley‐Blackwell, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020038918 (print) | LCCN 2020038919 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119146742 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119146780 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119146797 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Public history. Classification: LCC D16.163 .K67 2021 (print) | LCC D16.163 (ebook) | DDC 900–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038918
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © Heidi Besen/Shutterstock.com
Preface
Purpose of the Book
History departments across the United States increasingly offer classes to undergraduates on the ways and means of collecting, preserving, and interpreting history with and for public audiences. These courses are categorized as public history. Undergraduate history majors view the subject with interest as they contemplate what to do with their degree upon graduation. In addition, public history classes often serve as foundations for students interested in pursuing experiential or service‐learning components with a cultural organization as part of their educational experience.
In recent years, the National Council on Public History (NCPH) has given attention to undergraduate curriculums. The NCPH put together a “Best Practices” for introducing undergraduates to public history in 2016. This document discusses the need to provide students with basic training in historical methods as well as introducing them to the various genres wherein public history is most often constructed and practiced: museums, archives, historic preservation, heritage tourism, media, oral history, and cultural resources management. What I have found in my years of teaching public history is that while students are excited about the prospect of working in historic sites and spaces, and with historical material, they often know very little about the history of the institutions within which they hope to seek employment. As a result, I structure my public history courses to provide students with a foundation of historical knowledge about the types of places they might work in when they graduate. In addition, I discuss contemporary theories and methods.
The goal of Public History: An Introduction from Theory to Application is to offer undergraduates a synthetic analysis of the past with exercises in the fundamentals of practice. After using this textbook, students will be able to identify significant individuals and events associated with the history of museums, historic preservation, archives, and oral history. Also, students will be able to critically evaluate how, why, where, and who produces history in public settings. Central to these inquiries will be investigations into four major themes in the practice of public history: uncovering hidden histories, constructing interpretations, creating a sense of place, and negotiating contested memories. Although there are some global references and comparisons made throughout the text, this book is focused explicitly on developments within the United States.
Structure of the Book
Public History: An Introduction from Theory to Application provides students with a background in the history, principles, and practices of the field of public history. Each chapter, except for Chapter 8 Practicing Ethical Public History, is divided into four sections: History, Theory, Practice, and Further Resources. Each section begins with an introductory narrative that sets out the history of that particular genre of public history. (The length varies by topic.) The next narrative section discusses current theories of best practices related to collecting, preserving, and interpreting history concerning the specific genre. The third part of each chapter is a series of exercises that ask students to take the history and theory of what they have studied for that genre and put it into practice. The final section of each chapter is a bibliography of further resources.
The text follows the outline I most typically use to teach undergraduates. I start with the history of public history and then move on to the subject of museums because people are most familiar with this type of location. However, instructors are not beholden to my outline and should feel free to assign the chapters in any order that works for their course. Also, I often spend more time on some topics than others. As a result, I spread some material (museums is a prime example) over two or three weeks. Instructors should assign the content in a way that supports their course design and timetables.
1Defining Public History
One of the most common questions Public Historians get asked is, “what is Public History?” This chapter will provide you with a historical background on the history of professional historians working with and for public audiences since the early twentieth century in the United States. It will also cover late twentieth‐century developments such as the establishment of the Public Historian and the formation of the National Council on Public History (NCPH). The section on theory will explain how public historians consider sharing inquiry and authority in collecting, preserving, and interpreting history for general audiences. You will also learn the basics of historical practice: distinguishing primary from secondary sources, analyzing primary and secondary sources, and constructing a reasonable argument based on evidence.
History
In some ways, public history is an old profession; in other ways, it is a newly defined specialty within the broader discipline of history. This section examines who created the term “Public History” and why. It also provides a background on the many instances of professional historians – those with academic degrees in history – working in what has come to be known as public history. I use capitalization (Public History) to distinguish the formalization of a profession within the discipline of history. I use lower case (public history) to describe a larger world of history as public service, which is accomplished by a variety of people who may or may not have formal academic credentials in history. Considering these two histories helps explain what historians mean when they say they study, teach, and practice public history.
Robert Kelley coined the term “Public History” in 1975. Kelley was born in 1925 in Santa Barbara, California. After serving in World War II, he earned a BA from what would become the University of California, Santa Barbara, and then a PhD in history from Stanford University. The University of California, Santa Barbara’s History Department then hired him as a faculty member. His original focus of study was the politics of water and mining in California. His research brought him to the attention of the California Attorney General, who hired Kelley to produce reports and serve as an expert witness on behalf of the state on the subject of the history of hydraulic mining and its environmental consequences. Twenty years later, Kelley attempted to take the valuable skill set that he had learned through that experience and translate it into a formal curriculum for graduate students in history.
Kelley’s interest in developing a new program in what he termed “Public History,” was more than a theoretical dalliance. In the 1970s, undergraduate interest in majoring in history declined, but graduate programs were slow to catch up.1 Consequently, programs produced more PhDs than there were openings for teaching history at four‐year colleges and universities. As a result, job opportunities for graduate students in history precipitously declined. Graduate students had been trained to teach in institutions of higher education. Now what?
Robert Kelley advocated a new type of graduate training. Based on his own experience, he believed historians could and should play a critical role in policy making. In his seminal piece, “Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects,” Kelley defined Public History as “the employment of historians and historical method outside of academia; in government, private corporations, the media, historical societies and museums, even in private practice.” Although Kelley’s definition might seem place‐based, he viewed these as spaces of “public process.” His goal was to prompt graduate students, and the broader historical profession, to recognize that the traditional skills graduate students learned (“narrative communication in concise clear form; an appetite for extended research; an interest in problem solving; and the power of conceptualization”) married well with public concerns.2
Still, in preparing History majors to work in the public sector, Kelley understood that a new curriculum was needed to address a different set of questions public servants faced. How do you work as a team? How do you approach projects that are assigned to you versus projects that you have constructed of your volition? Last, what types of administrative skills must you acquire to be successful in non‐academic environments? These questions were not just about creating alternative forms of work but were about articulating a new field of study within the discipline of history.
After founding a program in 1975, Kelley worked with his colleague G. Wesley Johnson to establish a journal, the Public Historian, in 1978. They arrived at this decision after hosting several conferences that brought together historians working in a variety of positions and places for the public’s benefit and those who hoped to create graduate programs. A journal, Kelley and Johnson reasoned, could serve as a platform for communication across this very diverse universe. After yet another round of meetings, it became clear that a national organization was needed and, in 1979, the NCPH was born. Shortly after, the two entities became connected. Upon joining NCPH, members received the Public Historian. Combined, the two offered practitioners of public history space to present original research, offer advice from the field, and disseminate reviews of relevant literature. The NCPH and Public Historian continue to provide an essential space for Public Historians to converse.
Kelley can be credited with coining the term “Public History” and for articulating the demand for a distinct curriculum within history degrees. However, as scholars who study the development of the historical profession will tell you, historians in the United States had a long history of public engagement before the 1970s, especially with the federal government. In the early twentieth century, they worked with the federal government as consultants, as staff of federal departments, and as employees of the National Park Service (NPS). By recognizing when, how, and why historians participated in public engagement during the twentieth century teaches us about the meaning of “history practiced as public service.”3
World War I, for instance, provided a prime opportunity for historians to engage in public outreach.4 When war broke out in Europe in June of 1914 residents of the United States were divided as to which side to support and the government took an official stance of neutrality. Woodrow Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to promote favorable opinions for government actions when the United States officially entered the war in April 1917 on the side of the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and Russia). The CPI printed numerous materials in newspapers and magazines. In addition, it hired several hundred men to give four‐minute speeches at community events across the nation.
The CPI also hired leading historical scholars to create materials to distribute to public schools to explain the causes of the war and the character of the belligerents. For instance, Charles Beard and John Franklin Jameson participated in writing The War Cyclopedia: A Handbook for Ready Reference on the Great War. (In 1882, Jameson received the first PhD in history granted by Johns Hopkins University.5 Charles Beard received his PhD from Columbia University in 1904 and was known for his provocative texts that proposed a relationship between economic interests and the nation’s founding institutions.6) As is the case with most encyclopedias, individual names did not appear on the entries. Taken as a whole, however, the encyclopedia demonstrates that historians desired engagement in public projects. It is also an example that challenges a widespread belief that historians only became political in the late twentieth century.
Although the historical profession prided itself in the early twentieth century on using objectivity to reach conclusions about the past, the War Cyclopedia was a piece of propaganda. It argued that the Germans were entirely at fault for present predicaments. The entry “frightfulness” offers an example. It read in part:
The name given to the German method of warfare whereby they make war terrible in the hope of winning victory through fear… . it does not mean the occasional and incidental horrors attached to warfare, but deliberate, systematic, and calculated terror conceived and ordered for the purpose of striking mortal fear into the hearts of foemen… . the German military authorities, unwilling to face like men the dangers of the situation they had themselves created, with studied design shot and hanged hundreds of Belgians, those innocent of all offense as well as those who had threatened or injured German soldiers.”7
The War Cyclopedia was meant to clarify to those living in the United States why they should support the Allies. It did not invite debate over the reasons for the actions of the various participants. By today’s standards of best practices within the discipline of history, the War Cyclopedia did not provide reasonable arguments based on evidence. However, it serves as an essential reminder that historians can have considerable sway over public perceptions of the past.
In the early twentieth century, historians also engaged in the creation of public policy. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), for instance, established a Division of Statistical and Historical Research in the 1910s. In 1919, a group of historians formed the Agricultural History Society (AHS) “to promote the interest, study and research in the history of agriculture.”8 The two entities worked together to provide government officials with perspectives on the past related to the production and consumption of agricultural products. In 1927, the AHS began publishing a journal, Agricultural History, to which USDA employees became regular contributors. This relationship continued until the 1960s when the research interests of scholars and the USDA diverged from each other.9
The 1930s was a critical period for the development of public history. In response to the financial crisis known as the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal sponsored numerous employment programs for all different categories of skilled and unskilled labor. A series of programs provided funding for projects to collect and preserve historical records. For instance, the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) collected narratives of African Americans to preserve the history of slavery. The FWP also produced a series of guidebooks for each of America’s 48 states to promote domestic heritage tourism. The Works Project Administration (WPA) conducted a historical records survey that inventoried the whereabouts of local government records by county. The federal government also funded a study of historic structures through NPS and Library of Congress. The 1930s also witnessed the creation of the National Archives.10 The most significant legacy for the development of public history was the federal government’s investment in NPS during this period.
NPS was established in 1916. Its mission was “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”11 However, it was not until the 1930s that NPS began to regularly employ historians and what scholar Ian Tyrell has referred to as “historical workers.”12 The unprecedented economic downturn known as the Great Depression transformed NPS in several ways. For one, the parks became sites for work relief programs. The Civilian Conservation Corps provided hundreds of young men employment constructing park amenities that marked history on the landscape and built structures to house and display material culture.13 Perhaps most importantly, Verne Chatelain became NPS’s first chief historian. Scholar Denise Meringolo argues that under his tenure a new field arose: history as public service.14
Horace Albright, director of NPS from 1929 to 1933, hired Chatelain to head the historical division within the newly created Branch of Research and Education.15 Chatelain received a doctoral degree in the history of policy at the University of Minnesota and was teaching history at Peru State Teachers College in Nebraska when Albright asked him to take on the position at NPS. Chatelain made it his goal to create a coherent policy for managing historic resources within and between all of the nation’s federal parks.
In attempting to develop a strategy for history management, Chatelain drew upon examples of public outreach from outside of academia. After the Civil War in the United States, several organizations used grassroots efforts to preserve historical resources at the local and state level. These preservationists came from a variety of backgrounds and often did not possess an academic degree. In particular, patriotic organizations expressed considerable enthusiasm for creating public engagements with history. In addition, some states created historical societies to collect and preserve their histories. In Minnesota, a model that Chatelain studied, the Minnesota Historical Society successfully worked together with the Daughters of the American Revolution on preservation projects.16 The members of these organizations were, in a sense, public historians. They fostered opportunities for the public to connect the past with the present. Even today, public history continues to attract practitioners from a variety of fields including artists, information scientists, architects, and archaeologists, to name a few.
At NPS, Chatelain found that traditional historical training – the analysis of textual documents to draw conclusions about the past – did not prepare students very well for working in the parks. Traditional historical training did not include information on how to analyze material culture, how to work across disciplines with scientists, and how to make connections with public audiences. Working at a historic site, however, park service employees of history needed to explain how material artifacts worked to shape societies of the past. Grist mills and spinning wheels were just two examples that Chatelain gave of objects that stymied history workers.17 He needed to turn traditionally trained historians into “real Park Service men;” historians who could engage in interdisciplinary conversations with scientists, preservation organizations, and public audiences.18 In doing so, they would learn to construct interpretations that created a sense of historical place.
Chatelain’s tenure overlapped with the start of the Great Depression and the subsequent election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the office of president in 1932. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs had a direct positive impact on NPS. The territory it managed was enlarged, its programmatic capability was enhanced, and its financial support was greatly expanded. The passage of the Historic Sites Act of 1935 further improved Chatelain’s abilities. Through it, he was able to develop a set of standards by which historic sites could be evaluated and included in a program for managing the nation’s historic resources. He established a national policy that articulated a coherent narrative to join together different sites and stories. His push for an overarching interpretive framework guided NPS long after he had left his position. Public history, as historian Denise Meringolo demonstrates, owes a debt to Chatelain for developing history as a government job in the early 1930s. Here, she argues, is the origin of the notion of history as public service.19
During the 1940s, more positions opened up in government for historians.20 The war prompted agencies to hire historians to identify records of permanent historical value and manage their preservation. Every service of the armed forces employed historians. The American Historical Association (AHA, the largest professional organization for historians working in the United States) also found itself in an interesting position. The War Department desired a series of pamphlets to provide a historical perspective on the conflict and the issues that communities would likely face in a postwar period. For example, Herbert Heaton and A.L. Burt, both historians at the University of Minnesota, wrote “Shall I go into Business for Myself?” and “Canada: Our Oldest Good Neighbor.”21
Despite periods of cooperation, by the mid‐twentieth century, the working domains of government history workers and academic historians functioned as separate entities. In the very early part of the twentieth century, for instance, members of local preservation societies and the staff of the few existing state historical societies (state entities that collected research materials and that sometimes also housed a library or museum) began meeting at the annual conference of the AHA. In 1940, however, these interests spun off from the AHA to form the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).22 The AASLH’s mission was to work with NPS, local private historical organizations, and state agencies. It also began publishing a magazine of history for widespread consumption, American Heritage. In 1979, historians working within the federal government founded the Society for History in the Federal Government to address their own unique professional needs. As Jack M. Holl argues, federal historians work for the public sector, but not all of them necessarily work for or with general audiences.23
As government history workers established their own identities in the postwar period, universities began to grow. The GI Bill (1944) girded that development. The tremendous expansion of access to higher education opened up traditional teaching job opportunities for graduate students until the 1970s.
The elaboration of the “new social history” in the 1960s and 1970s also informed the development of public history. In the immediate post‐World War II period, many historians of US history studied aspects that unified people together as one nation. In response to, and as a part of civil rights activism, historians changed the direction of their analysis to examine the institutional factors that divide Americans. In addition, instead of focusing on the actions and beliefs of political and economic leaders, historians evaluated historical events from the bottom‐up. In new social history, scholars studied the historical role of women, minorities, and other marginalized groups in shaping social, political, and economic environments around the world. A number of these new social historians wanted “to democratize not just the content of history (adding the stories of African Americans, industrial workers, immigrants, women, and gays) but also its practice.”24 The idea of co‐creation was embraced and, perhaps, best actualized in the emergence of oral history (which will be discussed in Chapter 6). Thus, overall there was a synergy between the development of Public History and new social history as complimentary perspectives and mechanisms by which to foster engagement with the past and encourage inclusivity.
As the twentieth century became the twenty‐first, Public History as a distinct field within history grew. Currently, there are over 100 graduate programs listed on the NCPH’s website.25 In addition to the development of opportunities for academic training, the notion that history can be a public service has also grown. The NCPH’s annual conference attracts hundreds of history workers from both the private and public sectors. Filmmakers, preservationists, museum curators, and academics (to name a few) meet to discuss theories and practices for engaging in history with and for public audiences. The meeting provides useful information for those beginning their careers and for those looking for continuing professional development. The conference’s diversity is its strength. While the environments within which people practice might be different, there is a consensus that public history should be useful, interdisciplinary, and collaborative.
These conversations also extend beyond national borders. In 2010, the International Federation for Public History (IFPH) was established. It was then “designated as an Internal Commission of the International Congress of Historical Sciences, a non‐governmental organization created to promote the historical sciences through international cooperation.”26 Its goal is to create international conversations about best practices in teaching, researching, and evaluating public history. It does this through its blog, website, and an annual (sometimes biannual) conference.
The IFPH is also a reminder that the lexicon of public history differs depending on national contexts. In the United States, the creation of formalized degree programs calcified the term Public History to describe a common curriculum centered on community engagement. In other nations, however, there are different origin stories and different descriptors are used.27 In a global context, heritage studies, memory studies, museum studies, and public history often serve as analogous preparation for conceptualizing the use of history as public service. This particular textbook focuses on these developments with a US context but refers to global developments when they played a critical role in influencing ideas and discourses in the United States.
Public history, while often an unfamiliar term to many at first, is a profession with a long history. In the twentieth century, historians have developed materials and programs to engage public audiences. While historians working in government, cultural organizations, and academia might work in different locations, the idea of history as a public service provides common ground. Another aspect that offers common ground is the appreciation and application of historical methods to decode the past and understand the future.
So, what is Public History? Public History is an academic credential that signifies that a person has mastered the art of historical methods in combination with how to collect, preserve, and interpret history for and with public audiences. Public history is also a process by which history is used to serve the public in making the past relevant to the present.
Theory
In this world, we often ask, “how do we know?” A historian will tell you to “think historically.” What does that mean? In its most basic form, thinking historically means to gather and analyze evidence from the past to form a reasonable conclusion as to how and why something happened.
Historians begin their projects with questions, not answers. For example, why did women, as opposed to the government, take the lead in saving George Washington’s house in the 1850s? Or, how did veteran organizations change how the National Air and Space Museum displayed the Enola Gay in the 1990s? There is no set of preordained questions for historians to ask. Instead, individual curiosity drives research agendas.
Once historians have a question they then pose a hypothesis and then conduct research in an attempt to find an answer. In their years of schooling, historians are trained to construct reasonable explanations to their questions based on their evaluation of evidence. Sometimes this means that a historian needs to change their question when they cannot find evidence or the evidence points them in a different direction.
The process of historical research and analysis involves engaging with what we call secondary and primary sources. Secondary sources are scholarly assessments of a historical topic. All good historians consult with other scholars in composing questions. Historical scholarship (be it articles, books, exhibits, or discussions at conferences) is a conversation. In creating a question, historians want to know what other people have asked as well as how they have answered that question. This often leads to new questions or revisiting old questions with a fresh eye.
Primary sources are materials that situate the question within the context of its time. They are the evidence. Examples of primary sources are letters, newspapers, government documents, photographs, and other creations of material culture (clothing, utensils, tools, structures, etc.). Primary sources can be texts (i.e. written documents), images, or artifacts. Historians read secondary works as they examine primary sources and vice versa while they construct a reasoned interpretation of the past.
Historians ask several questions while they work with primary sources. First, what is the nature of the source? For example, is a private diary for oneself? Or is it a letter to be shared with family members? Is it a photograph taken by a journalist for a newspaper? Is it a previously classified email between two government officials? In analyzing the source, historians ask who created it, when and where was the source created, and why was it created? Once a historian determines the answers to those questions, they turn their attention to the source’s subject matter. A historian looks at keywords, focal points, and key phrases. Once a historian completes that analysis they can assess the significance of the source for their question. Does it contradict the historian’s hypothesis, or does it support it? How does it compare and contrast to the other sources the historian has analyzed? Does the historian need to come up with a new theory as to why something happened?
Once a historian has completed their examination of the past about a particular historical question, they disseminate this new knowledge. The historian might convey their findings in an article, book, class, lecture, conference, exhibit, blog, and website. As they share their conclusions new historical questions arise, and the process begins all over again! This is why history is not “fixed.” Instead, it is an evolving interpretation of past events.
In addition to historical methods, Public Historians employ two additional tenets: sharing authority and sharing inquiry. However, they are not always easy to achieve. How do you work with general audiences to formulate intellectual content and deliverable products? Public historians aspire to collaborate as they work to collect, preserve, and interpret history for and with public audiences.
In 1990, historian Michael Frisch gave voice to the idea that public history was particularly helpful for this type of methodology. In his experience, especially in conducting oral histories, public history had “a capacity to redefine and redistribute intellectual authority.”28 Instead of viewing audiences as empty vessels within whom to fill knowledge, audiences become central to the interpretive process. Public audiences can and should participate in determining how to construct the historical narratives that become history: the stories we read in books, exhibits, and other displays of the past. Although cultural politics can make this methodological approach challenging to implement, it is nonetheless the goal.
In 2006, scholars Katharine T. Corbett and Howard S. Miller offered a self‐reflection on their ability to actualize this methodology in their long careers as Public Historians. Their summary judgment about the benefits and limits of sharing inquiry and authority offer public historians sage advice on collaborative actions. They reminded practitioners “the buck stops with the historian.”29 The role of the scholar is to implement the best practices of the historian’s craft. Cooperation does not constitute an abdication of that fundamental responsibility.
In sum, Public Historians use some of the same tools as their colleagues working in institutions of higher learning. They make reasonable arguments based on primary evidence. They evaluate their arguments with other historical arguments. They reconsider their arguments as new primary evidence appears, or they approach the topic from a new angle. At the same time, Public Historians work to include a diversity of audiences in constructing historical questions and evaluating the evidence. In doing so, Public Historians often aim to involve otherwise marginalized groups in the production of historical narratives. However, this is not always as easy at it seems. A variety of impediments, from legacies of mistrust to the dearth of material artifacts, can inhibit inclusion.
There is no one set topic from the past that Public Historians pursue to collect, preserve, and interpret. However, four themes often recur in the work of public historians. They are (i) public history can uncover hidden histories, (ii) public history allows for the construction of multiple interpretations, (iii) public history can create a sense of place, and (iv) public historians often grapple with negotiating contested memories. People encounter history in their everyday experiences, usually when they are least expecting it. Individuals create meaning about the pasts they meet, and that interpretation can change. A person’s encounter with the past can shape how they interact with a location. Last, fierce debates sometimes occur about the meaning of the past. Throughout this text, we will come back to these four themes as we investigate the history of who, when, where, and why history is collected, preserved, and interpreted with public audiences.
Practice
Analyze two different primary sources about the same event and develop an argument about them. (Try the digital collections at the Library of Congress or the National Archives.
30
) As you analyze the documents figure out what is the nature of each source (diary? photograph? letter? government document?). If you can, figure out who created each source and when and where each source was created. Can you determine why each source was created? Once you identify the basics, can you figure out the subject matter of each source? Are there any keywords, focal points, or key phrases that drew your attention? Create a summary and assess the significance of each source. Last, do the sources leave some questions unanswered? What are the limits of the two sources you analyzed?
Read one of the earliest articles from the
Public Historian
and analyze it in the context of when it was published. What was the reason for the article? What types of historical questions or problems was the author responding to when they wrote it?
Take an article from the
Public Historian
and divide the sources into primary and secondary and locate at least one of each.
Attend a public history event (a talk for a general audience, walking tour, etc. where a historian guides the discussion). Summarize the content of what you learned from your experience. Did you find the delivery method compelling? Why or why not?
Interview a Public Historian about their job. How do they include public audiences in collecting, preserving, and interpreting history? How do they work with colleagues in other disciplines?
Further Resources
Alderson, Jr, William T. “The American Association for State and Local History.”
Western Historical Quarterly
1, no. 2 (April 1970): 175–182.
American Association of Local and State History:
www.aaslh.org
.
American Historical Association:
www.historians.org
.
Ashton, Paul, and Alex Trapeznik.
What is Public History Globally? Working with the Past in the Present
. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
Corbett, Katharine T., and Howard S. Miller. “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry.”
The Public Historian
28, no. 1 (Winter, 2006): 15–38.
Davis, Terry L. “For History’s Sake, Associations Advance the Field.”
The Public Historian
22, no. 2 (Spring, 2000): 51–60.
Frisch, Michael.
A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History
. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Graham, Otis L. Jr. “Robert Kelley and the Pursuit of Useful History.”
The Journal of Policy History
23, no. 3 (2011): 429–437.
Holl, Jack M. “Cultures in Conflict: An Argument Against ‘Common Ground’ Between Practicing Professional Historians and Academics.”
The Public Historian
30, no. 2 (Spring, 2008): 29–50.
Johnson, G. Wesley. “The Origins of ‘The Public Historian,’ and the National Council on Public History.”
The Public Historian
21, no. 3 (Summer, 1999): 167–179.
Kelley, Robert. “Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects.”
The Public Historian
1, no. 1 (Autumn 1978): 16–28.
Meringolo, Denise D.
Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History
. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.
National Council on Public History:
https://ncph.org
Rosenzweig, Roy, and David Thelen.
The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life
. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Society for History in the Federal Government:
http://shfg.org/shfg
.
Townsend, Robert B. “History in Those Hard Times: Looking for Jobs in the 1970s.”
Perspectives on History
(September 2009).
Tyrell, Ian.
Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890–1970
. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
References
1
Robert B. Townsend, “History in Those Hard Times: Looking for Jobs in the 1970s,”
Perspectives on History
(September 2009).
2
Robert Kelley, “Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects,”
The Public Historian
1, no. 1 (Autumn 1978): 16 and 23.
3
Denise M. Meringolo,
Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History
(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), xxxi–xxxii.
4
Ian Tyrell,
Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890–1970
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 162–164.
5
“J. Franklin Jameson Biography,”
www.historians.org/about‐aha‐and‐membership/aha‐history‐and‐archives/presidential‐addresses/j‐franklin‐jameson/j‐franklin‐jameson‐biography;
http://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.19.3.007767111482qu14?code=same‐site
.
6
“Charles A. Beard Biography,”
www.historians.org/about‐aha‐and‐membership/aha‐history‐and‐archives/presidential‐addresses/charles‐a‐beard/charles‐a‐beard‐biography
.
7
War Cyclopedia
(Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), 104–105.
8
“Agricultural History Society,”
http://aghistorysociety.org/society
.
9
Tyrell,
Historians in Public
, 166–168.
10
Ibid., 175–180.
11
“Organic Act of 1916,”
www.nps.gov/grba/learn/management/organic‐act‐of‐1916.htm
.
12
Tyrell,
Historians in Public
, 173.
13
Ibid., 173–174.
14
Meringolo,
Museums, Monuments, and National Parks
, xiii–xiv and xxxii.
15
Ibid., 98.
16
Ibid., 104.
17
Ibid., 107.
18
Ibid., 108.
19
Ibid., 155.
20
Tyrell,
Historians in Public
, 185–191.
21
“GI Roundtable Series, Pamphlets,”
www.historians.org/about‐aha‐and‐membership/aha‐history‐and‐archives/gi‐roundtable‐series/pamphlets
.
22
William T. AldersonJr. “The American Association for State and Local History,”
Western Historical Quarterly
1, no. 2 (April 1970): 175–178. Terry L. Davis, “For History’s Sake, Associations Advance the Field,”
The Public Historian
22, no. 2 (Spring, 2000): 51–53.
23
Jack M. Holl, “Cultures in Conflict: An Argument Against ‘Common Ground’ Between Practicing Professional Historians and Academics,”
The Public Historian
30, No. 2 (Spring, 2008): 30–32.
24
Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen,
The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life
(New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998): 4.
25
“Guide to Public History Programs,”
https://ncph.org/program‐guide
.
26
“IFPH‐FIHP Bylaws,”
http://ifph.hypotheses.org/sample‐page/ifph‐bylaws‐fihp‐statuts
.
27
Paul Ashton and Alex Trapeznik,
What is Public History Globally? Working with the Past in the Present
(London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 2–3, German context, 70; Indian context, 79; and Scandinavian context, 121.
28
Michael Frisch,
A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), xx–xxi.
29
Katharine T. Corbett and Howard S. Miller “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry,”
The Public Historian
28, no. 1 (Winter, 2006): 21.
30
“Library of Congress, Digital Collections,”
www.loc.gov/collections;
“National Archives Catalog,”
https://catalog.archives.gov
.
2Exhibiting History
In 2007, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) defined a “Museum” as “a non‐profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.”1 This modern definition was centuries in the making. However, sometimes the word “museum” is employed in less formal arrangements. Sometimes museums are not permanent. Sometimes they are focused on only providing entertainment. Sometimes they are for‐profit organizations. Sometimes they are not interested in research. Public Historians must acknowledge that not all museums fit the ICOM’s definition. Still, studying those institutions that either fit within the rubric above or aspire to meet it is essential. These are the places with which most Public Historians will either work in or work with to collect, preserve, and interpret history with and for general audiences.
Museums are places of public trust. The evidence that supports this point is more than anecdotal. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, historians Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen studied the various ways Americans engaged with the past. They knew from social movements of the 1960s and 1970s that people’s engagement with history could be empowering.2 Using social science techniques in 1994, Rosenzweig and Thelen supervised a survey of 808 Americans, of whom they made sure there was diversity represented. Rosenzweig and Thelen learned that except for Native Americans, interviewees identified museums as the most “trustworthy source of information about the past.”3 The reason being is that, for most people, they could see the material artifact for themselves. Also, most people believed that the collaborative nature of museum work made museum workers honest in displaying material culture to the public.4 As a result, the infrastructure of the museum made it trustworthy.
This chapter begins with some significant examples that help historicize the development of institutions known as museums, with a focus on the United States. In particular, the emphasis is on those institutions that presented history (including natural history) as a major aspect of its work and those that grabbed public attention. What might be hidden to you at first but should become clear are the continuities between the motivations of museum visitors and museum makers. “How do I know?” was a fundamental question that audiences sought to answer in museums. Nothing about answering this question necessarily was at odds with the desire to be entertained. Individuals who built museums in the United States did not often see a contradiction between the goals of providing entertainment and education. Also, the term “museum” is a malleable one. At different moments, it has meant different things: a place of objects, a place of research, a place of education, a place of experience, a place of identity formation, and a place of power. How and why people have created museums is at the crux of this story.
In the theory section, we will look at how museum professionals approach their institutions in the twenty‐first century. Museums started as temples and, in many ways, they still are. However, in the late twentieth century ideas about democratic participation transformed expectations. Museums are now expected to be participatory spaces. In the theory section, we will look at the meaning of those changes for Public Historians. In addition, museums are places of interpretation. We will examine what this concept means for storytellers of history.
History
Americans were not the first to create a specific structure devoted to collecting objects believed to have historical significance.5
