Website Review

The New Georgia Encyclopedia, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/. Created and maintained by the Georgia Humanities Council in partnership with University of Georgia Press, the University System of Georgia/GALILEO, and the Office of the Governor. Reviewed November 20-22.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia (NGE) was created with the intention of making information on Georgia history easily accessible on one comprehensive website. The site is very readable and contains a vast amount of data on nearly any imaginable topic related to Georgia’s past from Native American history, to Georgia’s founding, to civil rights, to more recent history, and even articles on native Georgian plant and animal life, among many others. From the site’s homepage, users can click on their chosen subject in a list on the left hand side, ranging from “The Arts” to “Transportation.” Each topic is further broken down into categories. For instance, the “History and Archaeology” section is arranged by era, from prehistoric Georgia, to more contemporary events. Clicking on an era results in a list of links to articles related to that particular time period. The links presented in these lists yield compositions written in thoughtful, concise prose by scholars in related fields. The text of each article contains several hyperlinks which provide more specific information on certain details. Most of these links go to NGE pages, but a few lead to outside historical sites. Unfortunately, the articles do not cite sources as one might expect, but they do helpfully provide books and articles readers can consult for further information. Many of the pages also include illustrations and photographs to enhance interest and understanding. The pictures are embedded into the articles as thumbnails, which, once clicked, open a new window wherein the image is enlarged and accompanied by a caption.

NGE is an exhaustive source for Georgia history, and one would be hard-pressed to come up with neglected topics or events. Many of the subjects have broader appeal than simply local history, and many are related to national events. NGE provides a Georgia angle to well-known occurrences. While NGE offers information across the entire spectrum of history, the authors are remarkably unflinching in their coverage of past events. Users can learn about the poor treatment of Native Americans, Georgians’ roles in slavery, and the fight for civil rights, including atrocities committed in the name of the Ku Klux Klan. In addition to topics both broad and specific, NGE users can find information on particular individuals of local and national fame. Under each topic is a list of the influential people of the time period in question. While many are native Georgians, some are Americans of national repute with ties to the state.

The NGE is an excellent resource which would be helpful to scholars at many levels, beginning, most likely, with high school students, or possibly advanced middle schoolers. The NGE attempts to put forth content that is as accurate as possible so as to be a reputable resource for research and education. The website is an excellent model for a comprehensive and engaging history site despite a lack of multi-media content. The interface is extraordinarily user-friendly and the look of the site is quite appealing. Overall, the NGE would be an excellent starting point from which to learn about an extensive array of topics in Georgia history.

Digital History: The Final Frontier?

I loved the way all of the readings cohered this week. I think the defining aspect of this course has been that it’s laid bare a lot of my shortcomings and dislikes. And actually, this isn't a bad thing. Now I know the areas in which I need to improve. One of my shortcomings recently further exposed (I knew of it before) is a certain level of ineptness when it comes to technology. I’' not such a big fan of computers and the like and I have a sneaking suspicion the feeling is mutual. Sure, I'm proficient in all the ways that count, but not at doing things like creating and maintaining a website. I've certainly got to reckon with the burgeoning range of hardware, software, etc., that has developed quite rapidly as of late. The same is true for museums and historians.

As an aspiring archivist, the notion that paper and books won’t be around in physical form is fairly unsettling. Even just as someone who loves books, the idea is discomfiting. There is nothing like the smell of an old book, or the tactility of turning the pages of a spellbinding novel. Can’t get that from your Kindle.

Seemingly, some historians want digital archives to be free and accessible to all. My problem with this is similar to the one currently facing the newspaper industry: how would that enable the purveyors of digital archives to turn a profit? After all, everything comes down to making money. Also, once everything goes out onto the Web, how can historians discern the reputable from the bunk? The Internet lacks pretty much every check and balance of the publishing/academic/museum model of doing history. Then, there's no finding a rare first edition copy in the digital world. Part of the fun of books is seeking out different editions to view the evolution of a particular text over time. We're not consistently saving editions of webpages and I think that’s a problem. Lastly, turning everything into bits and bytes takes up far less space. History may look very different if nothing ever gets trashed or lost. I'm not sure if this is good or bad or both.

However, there are aspects of this new digital age that excite me. I love the idea of museums as being one of the last bastions of physical "things." That’s job security for sure. Additionally, utilizing technology effectively could be a really viable way to get young people engaged with and interested in history. The use of video games to achieve this as in museums as suggested in the AAM document is intriguing to me.

There's no way of predicting the future, but one thing's for sure: we're all about to become a lot more familiar with advanced technology. I'm working on brushing up and I hope museums and historians are, too. After all, we can't let museums become...history.

Memory and Public History

Yet another week in which I had strong reactions to the readings. I greatly disagreed with a great many of Alison Landsberg's interpretations of the literary works she uses as examples of memory in her book, Prosthetic Memory. I suppose that literary interpretations are neither here nor there for our purposes. Alas, having seen none of the movies she references, I can't speak on her interpretations of those. However, I can accept that there are various ways to interpret great literature as well as good movies. That being said, Landsberg stretched my incredulity a bit too far when she claimed that after having spent a prolonged amount of time in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the experience affected her psyche so much that she wondered if she and the other attendees were being gassed when she saw smoke coming from a vent. That seems an outrageous assertion for someone who is not a Holocaust survivor. For me, that part of the book made Landsberg's other claims seem less plausible. This saddened me because I really wanted to buy what Landsberg was selling. I also thought that she relied entirely too heavily on long quotes to communicate her argument rather than using quotes sparingly and putting forth her beliefs in her own words.

I do think that museums can serve to create variations on screen memories (as in Freud's theory) which can be quite beneficial. As the readings have shown us this semester, people want to feel like they are a part of history; as if history has some relevance to their lives. I think that museums can utilize prosthetic memories to help history feel relevant to visitors. Clearly, people learn differently than previous generations, so technology needs to be a big part of the way museums integrate learning with entertainment if you will. I'm greatly interested in memory and oral history and I suspect that utilizing both will be an important part of getting people into learning about the past. I appreciate Landsberg's call to arms with which she ends her book, but I was left feeling like the entire text was a little too pie-in-the-sky, rather than serious scholarly work.

As for Jay Winter's article, "The Generation of Memory: Reflections on the 'Memory Boom' in Contemporary Historical Studies," I felt a little bit like a child overhearing her parents' conversation on a topic she's too young to understand. Winter has spent a lot of time overseas and writes from a different, more Euro-centric perspective than many historians I've recently read. The different perspective threw me a bit. I am intrigued by Winter's assertion that memory has become a popular way of thinking about the past because of greater affluence among both governments and people. Again, he asserts that people love to be able to connect themselves or their families to the larger historical picture. Clearly, it is our job as future public historians to wrangle that impulse and use it to get people back into going to museums.

Blame It All on TV

Nancy Raquel Mirabal's Public Historian article entitled, "Geographies of Displacement" provides me with the perfect way to clarify my position on public history and politics. I'm not advocating that we not admit to our own politics or hide the political reasons for what we're doing. I realize that politics dictate most of my daily choices, down to the foods I eat. This is just as true for any historic site; denying that there are political reasons for their existence is counterproductive. I object to the idea that public historians are not doing their jobs if they aren't constantly challenging the wrongs in society. To me, Cathy Stanton implied that public historians have no choice but to be crusaders for justice at all times. My objection lies in not being able to choose the battles one fights in the course of doing one's job for reasons that Mirabal briefly touches on in her article. Fighting for a cause takes a toll. Taking on an issue requires a lot of drive and energy, even when one believes wholeheartedly in that issue. Burnout is a very real possibility. For this reason, I'd like to be a historian first and a community activist second. A person spread too thin isn't able to do good for anyone. Fighting only for that in which one believes goes toward ensuring that one doesn't get worn out.

I think the Mirabal piece is an excellent example of combining political purposes with public history. I was fascinated to learn why gentrification was happening in San Francisco's Mission District. I also thought that Mirabal brings up uncomfortable, but excellent points. I've always thought of it as a good thing when neighborhoods "improve," when "nicer" shops come and things get cleaned up. But this is my white, middle-class perspective speaking. What is the true cost of these "improvements"? That's what Mirabal is asking us to consider and I think the answers might hit a little unpleasantly close to home.

As for Eric O'Keefe's "Auctioning the Old West to Help a City in the East," my only reaction was one of amazement. How unbelievable that Harrisburg's Mayor Stephen Reed spent $7.8 million in public funds without anyone noticing for so many years. I was surprised more details of the fallout weren't given in the article, but I suppose that wasn't the story's point and would've increased word count. However, Mayor Reed's encompassing vision of the items that create a comprehensive story of the Old West is impressive for a politician, excellent one he apparently was. He certainly seemed to cover all the bases.

Finally, Cary Carson's article for The Public Historian, "The End of History Museums: What's Plan B?" was compelling. Carson clearly knows of whence he speaks and his particular vision is also quite sweeping. How unfortunate that there are no national statistics on museum attendance, and that what there is, isn't standardized. I feel like in order to fix what's wrong, knowing attendance numbers would be useful. Also, it seems to me that someone should at least attempt to do the market research that Carson suggests at the top of page 12. Where are Rosenzweig and Thelen when you need them? Until we can figure out why people aren't enticed by history sites, it seems like we will be stuck in a cycle of finding alternative ways to fund their upkeep, such as the "jumble sales" to which Carson so objects. Clearly technology is the way of the future, but as Aaron Goldblatt pointed out when he visited our meeting, technology comes with it's own set of issues: high cost, upkeep and quick obsolescence are only a few. Carson seems to pinpoint the popularity of TV as the downfall of the "traditional" museum structure. Everyone needs to feel like he or she is important today, which is certainly unfortunate, but that's reality. Finding a way to incorporate technology and give people the feelings they want to have is the challenge we're facing now. Carson's visions may or may not solve the problem. I'm not sure that incorporating Second Life and YouTube is the long-term solution here. But I just keep thinking that the wave of retirements mentioned in the 2008 AAM report we read a while back might be the chance for a new generation of public historians to tackle some of these big issues facing museums today.

Interpreting Our Heritage

I have to admit to being thoroughly disenchanted last week by Cathy Stanton's The Lowell Experiment. That feeling wasn't aided this week by either the West or the Handler and Gable readings. The idea of politicizing public history is completely off-putting to me. I am certainly self-aware enough to know that public history in general and preservation more specifically is a left-leaning activity. I am also self-aware enough to know that my political tendencies are also quite liberal and I am driven by a genuine desire to help others and do good in the world. However, I didn't choose public history as a career out of any sort of political motivation. I left Washington, D.C., because I found out I did not want to fight political battles on a daily basis. This is my goal for a career in public history: I would love to have a job that would allow me to be surrounded by history, present the subject matter well and in a thought-provoking manner. If people make connections from past events to the present day, nothing would please me more. I firmly believe that we cannot move forward without working knowledge of where we've been. I do not think that the majority of public historians run or work a museum or historical site with the intention of shortchanging one group of people over another or with any other sort of malicious wilfullness. I think more often the case is that someone gets left out because someone is unsure of an alternative way to handle the situation. Most people are good people with good intentions; museums and others sites, along with those who run them must do their best to work with the resources they have in the environments in which they find themselves. Often, the resources and the average person's energy just don't stretch to fighting the battle of correcting every wrong in the surrounding community. Certainly burying one's head in the sand is not the way to go, but picking one's battles is essential to survival. Though, I could be wrong. I'm still unsure that I'm properly enunciating my feelings on this.

Onto Freeman Tilden and Interpreting Our Heritage. What a little gem of a book, though I did surprise myself with a couple of strong reactions to it. At first, all of his talk about "love" and other mushiness was getting to me. I'm all for having passion for one's work and probably would have felt better about it had that been the word used. I also thought that his writing style took a little getting used to. However, this could just have been a symptom of how disheartened I'd been feeling. Once I got into the book, I loved it. Tilden's 6 principles of interpretation are invaluable, though I'm unsure I have the storytelling prowess he feels is vital to a good interpreter. I thought that, "When in doubt, say 'no'" was wonderful advice both for interpretive work as well as life in general. I was also intruigued by Tilden's assertion that a good interpreter thinks carefully about words used in reference to, in, and around historic sites, but shouldn't overthink what he's going to say. Tilden's work is full of priceless insights such as these. I can see why many interpreters refer back to Interpreting Our Heritage so often.

Historic Preservation

As usual, this week’s reading spurred a great many thoughts. We finished Cathy Stanton's The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City and read Diane Lea's introduction to A Richer Heritage entitled "America's Preservation Ethos: A Tribute to Enduring Ideals."

The Lea piece was a fairly straightforward history of preservation, both of land as well as buildings. However, while reading the article, I started thinking about two things. First, America is a growing, ever-changing nation with limited space and land. How can we draw the line when deciding what gets preserved as historic and what doesn't? I certainly do not believe that everything should be paved over to make way for something new, but I think we must be smart about preservation and city planning in order to maintain the balance of community heritage and history with progress. For this reason, I was really interested when Lea wrote about how a desire to preserve led to improvements in city planning and developments in architecture. On the flip side, Lea discusses the use of preservation as a means of preventing overcrowding and overgrowth in cities. The dichotomy there is food for thought. Second, the issue of who makes preservation decisions is intriguing. Should wealthy individuals get to decide what to buy and preserve or should this be a community effort? Maybe the best solution is a balance of both. The answer to some of my questions may just be preservation through repurposing. For instance, living in restored old homes preserves the homes while keeping them usable. Or, turning an old, historic office building into apartments means that the building remains standing, but there is room for residential growth as well. For me, though, Lea's most interesting anecdote was that the federal government thought that the National Register of Historic Places was a list that could be compiled and then remain static as if new things would never become old.

I'm still not quite sure what I think about Cathy Stanton's book. Stanton is an anthropologist and an ethnographer; she clearly writes from a very different perspective than a historian. In her book, Stanton hopes to address whether or not public history can change or challenge the status quo and if so, how that might occur. What I took from the reading is that Stanton wants public historians to do two things. They should do good history which engages the community and makes the public want to learn about the past. But, she also wants public historians to bring attention to issues people are facing in the present. Clearly, she’s been disappointed with how Lowell National Historic Park did the latter, particularly in the case of the local Cambodian community. I feel that there is quite enough of a challenge in presenting good, accurate, interesting history which encompasses everyone’s voice and makes people want to come learn. In an ideal world, public historians might be able to be community activists as well, but I’m not sure doing both is possible. It’s something I’ll have to keep thinking about.

"If You Don't Tell It like It Is, It Can Never Be as It Ought to Be"

I think Roger Launius’s article, "American Memory, Culture Wars, and the Challenge of Presenting Science and Technology in a National Museum" might just be my favorite reading so far. Dr. Launius writes with self-awareness and humor which is much-appreciated. His article nicely demonstrates more pitfalls of shared authority in a museum setting. He candidly expounds on the trickiness of sorting through what history is versus what people’s perception of history is and shows just how difficult this can be with a topic as controversial as the moon landing. The challenge facing all public historians is how to address the zeitgeist while still doing accurate history that people will want to come and see in a museum. Is there some way to take a "customer is always right" approach while presenting good history that teaches people and encourages them to question what they know?

Launius’s article definitely showcases how harsh criticism of museums and their exhibits can be. Some of the critiques cited in the article were tremendously severe. However, I think that controversy is worthwhile when it starts important conversations and brings attention to little-known or vital topics. As I was reading, though, I was wondering if national, publically-funded, government-affiliated museums like the Smithsonian are more lightning rods than privately-funded museums might be. Are there different or higher expectations? Certainly, more voices must be brought into the mix.

I was really interested to read about the exhibits that Dr. Launius would like to see come to fruition, but which haven’t due to difficulty or controversy. Since we read the AAM’s 2008 Annual Report, I’ve been thinking that maybe the wave of upcoming retirements won’t be such a bad thing. It might be useful to get some new blood into museums which could result in some innovative ideas for tackling tough issues and controversies.

I also enjoyed James Horton and Lois Horton’s Slavery and Public History. Again, this book emphasized for me how public historians must find a way to address all the voices in a conversation, which is extraordinarily difficult. That being said, I don’t think we should shy away from controversy just because it’s difficult. I loved David Blight’s essay, particularly his use of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude as a metaphor for the role of memory in history. Blight also had one of the most striking quotes in his essay when he discussed the forum he participated in. Here, Fred Shuttleworth said, "If you don’t tell it like it was, it can never be as it ought to be." This sums up exactly why I’m doing public history, but Shuttleworth put it more eloquently than I ever could have.

The Hortons’ book also made me wonder why as a society we’re so much more willing to accept museums and exhibits about the Holocaust than about slavery. I think some of the answers might be obvious, but maybe we can learn from the way museums deal with the Holocaust in order to better address slavery. Overall, I thought the book did an excellent job of laying out the problems and difficulties of including slavery in public history, but I wanted more suggestions on how to remedy the issues. I did, though, love the quote they used to end the book: "We accept this and together we will transcend it." Would that we, as the next generation of public historians, further that goal.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia - Audacious Freedom: African Americans in Philadelphia, 1776-1876

The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) brings to life the story of the African American experience for visitors to Philadelphia’s historic Old City district. The facility houses four galleries, two of which currently contain Audacious Freedom. The new exhibit is an exciting and engaging blend of history with technology that is a welcome and unique addition to the Old City region of Philadelphia.

Upon entering the museum, guests pay $10 for an adult admission or $8 for a child, student, or senior citizen ticket. One then walks into a small room designed to appear as a modern-day art gallery. Titled "Foundings," contained herein are 5 screens which highlight important influences on African American life and political thought at the time. Possibly the most striking aspect of “Foundings” is the illustration on the back wall. A rendering of John Trumbull’s painting, “The Signing of the Declaration of Independence” appears from floor to ceiling. However, there is a notable deviation from the original: this version includes depictions of minorities, including African Americans and Native Americans, in order to draw the observer’s attention to how much further the new nation would have to go before living up to the ideals of the Declaration.

In Gallery 1, guests find themselves facing a wall of photographs and reproductions of primary source documents. The wall serves as a timeline taking visitors through history from 1776 to 1876. A podium is situated in the center of Gallery 1. Museumgoers can choose, via touchscreen technology, to hear a portion or all of the audio relating tales behind the images on the timeline.

Once a selection is made, the lights go down and the show begins. Overhead projectors illuminate photos or documents relevant to the audio voiceover playing at the time. In addition, moving images are projected onto the white portion of the wall above the photographic timeline. These features come together to create an impressive show which is completely engaging. Panels below the timeline wall tell more in-depth stories of the images featured above. So as not to induce museum fatigue, these panels are not necessary to an understanding of the history presented, but are completely supplemental.

Visitors make their way to Gallery 2 by way of a ramp upon which a period map of Philadelphia has been superimposed. This map details the neighborhood in which many African Americans would have lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. Gallery 2 features nine large-scale panels containing video screens. These screens show actor portrayals of several Philadelphia African Americans. Each panel includes an interactive portion which presents visitors a set of questions to ponder. Guests can push the corresponding buttons and get the answers to the queries straight from the characters themselves. The performers are emotional and make their tales personal and as a result, the videos are powerful and convey the difficulties and challenges even free African Americans faced during America’s first 100 years.

Behind the video screens is the Children’s Wall, the only portion of the museum aimed directly at youth. The wall tasks children with a small scavenger hunt, asking them to lift built-in flaps to find images which answer questions included on the featured scenes. Though the museum is intended to bring history to children, there isn’t much for youngsters beyond the Children’s Wall.

The strength of the museum lies not in its use of artifacts, but in its ability to make history come alive. In light of the dazzle provided by Galleries 1 and 2, Galleries 3 and 4 are a let-down. Gallery 3 features five pieces of contemporary art done by African American artists in a stripped-down room. Gallery 4 houses “Private Stock: Art from the Collection of AAMP and the Board of Directors.” This room contains many pieces of contemporary African American art. and does have labels. The star of the show is most definitely Audacious Freedom.

Audacious Freedom is an affecting feature housed in an important museum. The AAMP uses state-of the-art technology to enhance the museum experience. The exhibit does an excellent job of paring history down into palatable bites and bringing to life little-known stories which deserve attention. The AAMP has succeeded in blending memory with established academic fact and figured out how to make history serious and fun at once. Audacious Freedom proves that individual stories can enhance big-picture history and make what might be a daunting topic (the African American fight for freedom) accessible and approachable for the average person.

Making Museums Matter

This week's readings, as usual, left me with a lot to think about; we were assigned Stephen Weil's collection of essays, Making Museums Matter, Amy Tyson's article entitled "Crafting Emotional Comfort: Interpreting the Painful Past at Living History Museums in the New Economy," and the American Association of Museums's 2008 Annual Report called "A New Journey Begins."

Though there is no mention of Stephen Weil in the 2008 AAM report, it almost seems as though the AAM is taking up Weil's call to arms in effort to continue to make museums matter. The AAM report inspired some questions to which I may have to research the answers. For instance, the text alludes to "ambiguity" in pending legislation about which I'm curious and would like to know more. In the same paragraph, a mention is made of IRS Tax Form 990 and its bearing on the status of museum collections as financial aspects (8). I would love to know details and the outcome of the AAM's efforts.

I am intrigued by the trend Weil takes issue with, that museums have become public service institutions rather than places to gain knowledge. I think the readings this week highlighted some of the dark side of the concept of "shared authority." I am certainly not of the opinion that, as Weil says, that museums be places "maintained by the high for the low" (196). However, I'm really starting to think that education should be the first and foremost goal of museums and similar institutions, for reasons that Tyson highlights nicely in her piece, but more on that shortly.

I found the third section of Weil's book, "The Museum in the Public Sphere" particularly pertinent to the Wagner project. The portion really got me thinking about how an institution can and should interact with the public. Also, it dovetailed nicely with David Post's September 28 discussion regarding copyright and fair use. I think Weil's essays in the third section really brought the issues of how images are used and how this can be a problem even more to life for me.

I was most taken with Amy Tyson's article of the three readings we were assigned this week. I'm especially glad that we read Tyson's essay as it really got me thinking about how sensitive topics should be approached in museums. Tyson really got to the heart of the issues around shared authority and I thought she did an excellent job of approaching authenticity in ways that Kim and Jamal didn't quite reach in the reading from a couple of weeks ago. I appreciated that she tried to take a more psychological look at the phenomenon behind participants' reactions to living history experiences. I was quite arrested by her comparison of the "Follow the North Star" activity to participation in sadomasochistic sexual activities. I'm still not sure if I agree or disagree with the analogy. I think Tyson brings up a really good point about owning experiences. I don't share the view that sensitive topics such as slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, etc., are something to be swept under the rug. I think they should be dealt with and that getting people to own such history might be an important step in bridging some of the racial divide we're currently experiencing. I'm not sure that the right approach to interpretive history is to always ensure visitors' comfort. Sometimes history is uncomfortable and that's okay. Maybe in such a way we can start conversations. I don't feel that taking a "the customer is always right" approach is helpful to anyone. I've recently noticed a trend toward romanticizing portions of antebellum history that I find particularly disturbing; the customer is not right in that case. I really would love for Tyson to have interviewed African Americans or Native Americans for their views on how Fort Snelling and Conner Prairie dealt with the histories of oppression in their respective locales. Right now, I'm not sure what the best way is to handle sensitive issues like slavery or conflicts with Native Americans in living history contexts, but Tyson got my brain going. I don't think such issues should be ignored, but instead it's important to find a way to acknowledge that bad things happened; history isn't always happy.

Memory and Authority

This week, we read Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen's The Presence of the Past, the Introduction and Chapter 12 of Michael Frisch's A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History, and Hyounggon Kim and Tazim Jamal's article, "Touristic Quest for Existential Authenticity." Once again, these readings left me with a lot to think about.

I'm interested to learn that public historians are just as fascinated by the role of memory in the creation of history as I am. The topic came up in both the Frisch reading and, obviously, in Rosenzweig and Thelen's book. I was especially struck by just how much difference among races there is in Rosenzweig and Thelen's survey results. For instance, African Americans and Native Americans seem to put much less store in books, teachers, and other "conventional" historical sources than do Caucasians. However, ethnic minorities seemed much more likely to discuss their collective memory and give their personal history a certain relation to past events and a larger history than whites were inclined to do. I think that this idea is something that public historians might be able to use to make exhibitions and the like more relatable to people of all races, but I also feel like it's something I need to think about more.

I felt Michael Frisch's book has a lot of practical applicability for public history. He sees public history as a two way street between historians and their audience. He states that public historians should not just view what they do as a passage of knowledge from one group to another, but as a way to "promote a more democratized and widely shared historical consciousness, consequently encouraging broader participation in debates about history." This seemed revelatory to me, though on its surface fairly simple. I think this is the idea we've been trying to iterate in class. Frisch talks about it as being an issue of "to" vs. "with." As in, public history shouldn't be something spoon fed to an audience, but created with them. Food for thought.

I haven't quite concluded how I felt about the Kim and Jamal article. I spent a lot of time with my trusty two-ton Webster's unabridged dictionary while reading the article and I'm not sure if that's a reflection of my lack of vocabulary or the technical jargon in the piece. I thought that Rosenzweig and Thelen did an excellent job of quantitating experience, but this is a practice of which I'm generally skeptical. I'm not sure that Kim and Jamal were able to quantitate experience to a similar effect. I noticed a few contradictions in their research, which made me question their bigger conclusions. For instance, "Bethany" says that she can unrestrain herself and flirt at the Renaissance Festival celebrations and that flirting means nothing to her; she claims her male counterparts are aware of the lack of meaning behind her actions. But later, "Edmund" says such female behaviors have changed his self-perception and self-esteem. Clearly, such flirting is not meaningless to him. This is but one example and I think maybe Kim and Jamal's study would have benefited from deeper psychological examinations of the factors at play at the Renaissance Festival events. Overall, I didn't take as much away from their work as I did from Rosenzweig and Thelen's survey. I am greatly interested to hear if others in the class had similar or differing views.

What Is History?

This week we were tasked with reading Carl Becker’s 1931 speech, “Every Man His Own Historian,” Ian Tyrell’s Historians in Public, and the introduction to Cathy Stanton’s The Lowell Experiment. These readings come at an interesting time in my consideration of history and just what history is. This has always been an interesting question in my mind and one I’ve long contemplated, but it’s come up for me in a big way recently. I’m also taking Dr. Farber’s Intro to U.S. History course and currently reading David Blight’s work, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. The tome is a controversial look at how Americans have chosen (or not) to interpret the events of the Civil War and how it has affected (or not) their lives. Additionally, during the first meeting of Managing History, Dr. Bruggeman discussed how a grant he prepared was shot down outright because it purported to view events through the memories of people who lived them. So, I’ve been thinking, what is history, if not memory?

This is a question that Dr. Becker addressed in his speech to the American Historical Association. Becker felt that historians could purport to study facts and primary source documents, but even primary source documents are authored; by their definition someone had to view the event detailed in a document, interpret that event and write down their interpretation. So in this way, historians study the memory of events and take those memories as fact. I loved Becker’s definition of history: “History is the memory of things said and done.” So simple, yet sometimes so difficult for those in academia to accept.

Becker also noted that there cannot be a wall between the historian and the general public, but instead historians have a responsibility to interact with the general population and shape the debates regarding history as they occur. Historians, he felt, must make sure that history doesn’t stray too far from ostensible facts into the realm of opinion and speculation while being aware that history is collective memory. Without the general public, he said, history would be pointless. People participate in and make history. Without the Mr. Everyman the work historians do would go unnoticed and unread.

Of the readings, I was most taken with Becker’s speech. He was tremendously eloquent and apparently quite the orator. I found the end of his speech a little melancholy but also incredibly self-aware in that he seemed to understand that the views he presented may eventually become obsolete. However, I don’t think that is the case. I thought it was quite interesting that the issues Becker’s peers seemed to be struggling with are the very issues that present themselves to historians today. I felt that his words still had resonance even 78 years later.

Ian Tyrell’s book Historians in Public makes a similar case for historians to work in concert with the public. He posits that historians and the public are more intertwined than historians might like to believe and are more influenced by the public than they might realize. Tyrell points to historians’ use of various avenues to reach out to the public, such as government programs, film, television, the media, radio, etc. He also puts forth the idea that historians sometimes exaggerate their marginalization from public discourse on history and their influence on the public. He says that public participation in the study of history may have ebbs and flows, but has never gone completely away and may now be at its highest point yet as exemplified by how well historical books are presently selling, among other trends. Tyrell says that historians are now realizing that history is public memory and so have been reaching out to the public more than in the past to the benefit of the profession. But, he says, historians should not try too hard to be relevant and should look at the history of historians in public so as to understand where they’ve been and where they should go.

In reading the introduction of The Lowell Experiment by Cathy Stanton, I found that I will be interested to read what she found in her study of Lowell National Historic Park. Stanton is concerned with the role of public historians and how they influence a town – its culture, its history, its economy and its memory of local events. I’m not sure that I agree with her statement that the relegation of the past to a museum is detrimental to the public; that this means that the events are dead and no longer relevant to people living now. I think that some museums can bring history back to life and make certain events more alive to the public. To back up her argument, Stanton uses an extreme example of the miners who became trapped in a mine in Somerset, PA in 2002 because they were using an outdated, inaccurate map. There was an accurate, up-to-date map in the town’s local museum, but the mining company didn’t realize the document existed.

Stanton puts forth the notion that history is a reflection of interpretation and choices of a particular entity. To illustrate her point, she discusses Lowell’s guided tours. She feels that those who created the tours chose to omit certain facts in order to shape the identity that they want the city to have. She dislikes that there seems to be a separation between the ethnic, working class roots of the town and the current “official” interpretation of history and is interested in investigating how that gap can be bridged. Again, the question, “What is history?”

I think that as historians, we just may have to struggle with this question our entire careers. But I think that history is certainly collective memory. I’m quite interested in putting more thought into this quandary and exploring the question further.

The Requisite Introductory Post

I have recently begun the MA program at Temple University with a concentration in Public History. I graduated from Arcadia University in 2004 with a BA in history. After working in various capacities at non-profits and exploring other educational pursuits, I realized that history is my passion and that I must pursue employment in the field in order to fulfill my professional desires. Upon graduation from Temple, I hope to become an archivist and am very excited to be in the University’s Public History program in order to finally make my dreams reality.

Recently, after much soul-searching, I figured out that I've always been an archivist at heart, constantly cataloging, organizing (and re-organizing) and finding new ways to preserve my various collections. I am determined to have a career I love and about which I'm passionate, so pursuing employment in archives seems a natural fit for me. I'm elated, after what I feel was too long a break in my education, to have found myself at a university like Temple, which offers such strong curriculum in history and public history, led by extraordinary faculty. I'm determined to make the most of this wonderful opportunity.