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.