This week's readings focused on how the practice of history has been changed by the continually emerging technology, especially since the 1990s. Each piece placed emphasis on computers and the internet as new methods for teaching and storing history.
Joshua Brown's piece on History and the Web examines history placed on the internet and removed from the pages (and comforts) of books. His work on the Who Built America? Website, that complimented a book of the same name, shows a lot of the strengths that the internet and digital formats have to offer public historians and teachers. The CD-ROM composed of 5,000 pages and thousands of primary sources (music, charts, articles, pictures, film, etc) shows just how ellaborate historic research can become- if historians can imagine it then programmers can design it. One interesting feature of the CD was that allowed students/historians the opportunity to examine their documents in their own order. This allows viewers to create their own narratives and analysis. Books, even with indexes, cannot do this as well. When a person reads a book they must read it in the order the author chooses for them; they may skip from chapter to chapter or topically but ultimately they are reading the sentences in the layout already chosen by the writer. The allowance of choice that technology provices is a real step forward in the democratization of historical understanding.
Daniel Cohen's pieces focused on the digitization of historical resources, particularly primary resources. Unlike other pieces which focused on the scanning of images and documents and making them available on the internet, Cohen looks at how the internet itself is an archive of webpages. Like the events of Pearl Harbor, after September 11, 2001 historians and others new that they were watching history right at that moment in time and that efforts to archive these great events must happen immediately, rather than waiting years to start. When historians began to archive Pearl Harbor they focused on media coverage, soldiers' experiences, and other memorirs. However, with September 11th the materials are just astounding. Instead of three major television networks there are 100. Firefighters and police officers experiences were saved but so too were average citizens. These citizens saved and donated their experiences via pictures and text but also via webpages and blogs. The sheer amount of materials is astounding.
Reading these articles and thinking about other materials on digital archives has resulted in a variety of complicated thoughts. The internet is a great tool and a fact of life but there is something so impermanent about it. An example of this is when searching the September 11th digital archives- you cannot go someplace and examine the materials. You can only find them on the internet. This results in a variety of limitations for historians. In traditional paper-based archives a researcher can often search the catalogue but they can also go into the folders and just sit and find materials that did not come up in the search. I experienced this personally when I started a project on the Tallahassee Garden Club. A search at the state archives yielded three folders- two were entirely pictures. The third was writings from a woman who had been a member of the garden club (which is why her work showed up in the search) but whose actual documents were about something entirely different. I ended up researching this woman and her events and leaving the club behind. I would never have found this if I had not been able to go in and handle the materials because I would not have known what to search. With digital archives (be they scanned or websites) researchers are at the mercy of the archivists who provide the search terms and key phrases. Scholars will only find what they know to search for and other things may be left out of results. Much like the class's work on the Heritage Protocol, if someone looks at our work they will only find it if they search a phrase that we thought to put in, otherwise they may never find what they are looking for. That, I think, has made the importance of what the class did weigh more heavily on me than at the start of the semester.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
A Shared Authority
Michael Frisch's book A Shared Authority points out that by encouraging a more democratic approach to the telling of history, then both professional historians and the public can simultaneously particpate in how history is expressed.
One of the more interesting essays in this book is"Oral history and the presentation of class consciousness." It deals with The New York Times and how their editorial choices told a story of bluecollar angst when the oral histories of Buffalo, New York were, in actuality, more expressive of how unemployment affected all kinds of people at all stages of their lives. The histories also presented a narrative that was more general to the country, rather than specifically to the hardships of Buffalo alone. The point that Frisch makes here, and in last week's article, is that the presentations of oral histories are often enmeshed in presentations of power. The editors of the oral histories wanted to tell a specific story and used the resources to tell it rather than shaping a narrative around the documents presented. Frisch, just as Rose and Corley last week, argues that more democratic approaches to storytelling would result in richer, fuller, more complex histories.
However, maybe the editors didn't want a more complex history. They wanted something simple and, just as Corley and Rose accused Burns of doing, the editors found proof of their argument in the histories rather than finding an argument in the evidence. They would certainly get an A + in Bad History 101.
Some of Frisch's argument, while impressive for its time, feels stale in 2009. It seems that historians today are constantly trying to find more democratic approaches in their work and if they fail to do so it is one of the first criticisms that other academics will point out. Perhaps today's historians today have gotten more better about keeping other scholars accountable.
One of the more interesting essays in this book is"Oral history and the presentation of class consciousness." It deals with The New York Times and how their editorial choices told a story of bluecollar angst when the oral histories of Buffalo, New York were, in actuality, more expressive of how unemployment affected all kinds of people at all stages of their lives. The histories also presented a narrative that was more general to the country, rather than specifically to the hardships of Buffalo alone. The point that Frisch makes here, and in last week's article, is that the presentations of oral histories are often enmeshed in presentations of power. The editors of the oral histories wanted to tell a specific story and used the resources to tell it rather than shaping a narrative around the documents presented. Frisch, just as Rose and Corley last week, argues that more democratic approaches to storytelling would result in richer, fuller, more complex histories.
However, maybe the editors didn't want a more complex history. They wanted something simple and, just as Corley and Rose accused Burns of doing, the editors found proof of their argument in the histories rather than finding an argument in the evidence. They would certainly get an A + in Bad History 101.
Some of Frisch's argument, while impressive for its time, feels stale in 2009. It seems that historians today are constantly trying to find more democratic approaches in their work and if they fail to do so it is one of the first criticisms that other academics will point out. Perhaps today's historians today have gotten more better about keeping other scholars accountable.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Filmmakers as Public Historians
Can a movie be accurate enough to please historians? This seems to be the thematic question asked by the majority of this week's readings regarding the interaction of history and Hollywood. That is simplifying the issue surely but certainly no more than how some historians accuse producers, directors, and screenwriters of downsizing historical events and people.
The articles from this week were motivated by the inclusion of filmmakers as public historians. Including the creators of movies into the realm as public historian is both exciting and frustrating. Some, like Toplin, find the medium of film as incredibly revealing about both and present and past cultures. Others find plenty to criticize.
The first to consider are documentaries. Frisch examines the oral histories in a PBS special on the Vietnam War experience. Rose and Corley research the documentaries made for PBS by Ken Burns. Both articles find documentaries lacking and for similar reasons: both Burns and the documentary on the War selectively choose what to present to the public which results in a less than honest depiction of history. Burns claims that he is compensating for poorly trained history teachers and he blurs the line between director and educator. Sometimes he seems to purposely be both and using either to support his goals of the moment. In this way the authors find him particularly dangerous to the public because he plays both sides of the coin and the authors seem to want him to fit neatly into either one category or the other.
Hollywood movies result in different analysis. In the article on Le Retour de Martine Guerre, the author Natalie Davis laments how her research on a 16th century French story resulted in a less than realistic understanding of peasant life. Her frustration of the style of trial shown in the movie did not lend itself to sympathetic ears. Without the filmmakers ability to account for their actions the debate is one sided. The directors expressed sincerity at including Davis and used her counsel regularly throughout the film process. Perhaps the choice in a public trial had to do with other things, like making the judges less of the villian that private trials would certainly have implied. Davis critiques the directors anachronistic choices without accounting for the development of plot and narrative functions (symbolism, simile, metaphor, etc).
Toplin's conclusions are different. He understands artistic license and expects less historical accuracy because he sees the movies as products of the present rather than exploration of the past. Toplin's article is the most interesting because he evaluates movies much as other texts from the class have evaluated museum exhibits. By allowing movies to speak about the present instead of criticizing every mistake, the films could become more valuable to historians. Contextualizing the time that the movies were made could yield much to to cultural and social historians.
When it comes to film, be they blockbusters or PBS specials, the public and historians should take what they can and discard the rest. It is plausible that more should be expected from documentaries but when profit is the motive than is is understandable that people would make something that would sell to investors and an audience. Burns is backed by General Motors. If he failed to make things that did well than he might lose funding. The reality of having millions of dollars pulled from projects is something that few professors will ever have to face, until then maybe we should cut them some slack.
Winston Churchill once said "the farther back you look, the further forward you will see."
The articles from this week were motivated by the inclusion of filmmakers as public historians. Including the creators of movies into the realm as public historian is both exciting and frustrating. Some, like Toplin, find the medium of film as incredibly revealing about both and present and past cultures. Others find plenty to criticize.
The first to consider are documentaries. Frisch examines the oral histories in a PBS special on the Vietnam War experience. Rose and Corley research the documentaries made for PBS by Ken Burns. Both articles find documentaries lacking and for similar reasons: both Burns and the documentary on the War selectively choose what to present to the public which results in a less than honest depiction of history. Burns claims that he is compensating for poorly trained history teachers and he blurs the line between director and educator. Sometimes he seems to purposely be both and using either to support his goals of the moment. In this way the authors find him particularly dangerous to the public because he plays both sides of the coin and the authors seem to want him to fit neatly into either one category or the other.
Hollywood movies result in different analysis. In the article on Le Retour de Martine Guerre, the author Natalie Davis laments how her research on a 16th century French story resulted in a less than realistic understanding of peasant life. Her frustration of the style of trial shown in the movie did not lend itself to sympathetic ears. Without the filmmakers ability to account for their actions the debate is one sided. The directors expressed sincerity at including Davis and used her counsel regularly throughout the film process. Perhaps the choice in a public trial had to do with other things, like making the judges less of the villian that private trials would certainly have implied. Davis critiques the directors anachronistic choices without accounting for the development of plot and narrative functions (symbolism, simile, metaphor, etc).
Toplin's conclusions are different. He understands artistic license and expects less historical accuracy because he sees the movies as products of the present rather than exploration of the past. Toplin's article is the most interesting because he evaluates movies much as other texts from the class have evaluated museum exhibits. By allowing movies to speak about the present instead of criticizing every mistake, the films could become more valuable to historians. Contextualizing the time that the movies were made could yield much to to cultural and social historians.
When it comes to film, be they blockbusters or PBS specials, the public and historians should take what they can and discard the rest. It is plausible that more should be expected from documentaries but when profit is the motive than is is understandable that people would make something that would sell to investors and an audience. Burns is backed by General Motors. If he failed to make things that did well than he might lose funding. The reality of having millions of dollars pulled from projects is something that few professors will ever have to face, until then maybe we should cut them some slack.
Winston Churchill once said "the farther back you look, the further forward you will see."
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Hard Times and Oral Histories
This week's reading was a collection of oral histories, taken by Studs Terkel in his book Hard Times. The histories were taken from a variety of people who lived during the Great Depression as well as young adults, growing up in the late 20th century, and how they understood the Depression, if at all.
Oral history is a funny thing. It feels more permanent than a conversation but less reliable. It is, after all, a memory and we all know how fuzzy they can be. In class it was discussed that the reliability of the memory is not at all detracting from a historian's work; that the feelings and emotions evoked were what was important. These feelings are what make oral histories so useful.
However, the real bugger of this topic is accuracy. In class it was discussed that with the rise of literacy and the believed permanencec of printed documents that these documents were somehow more reliable, more evidentiary, more accurate, and more Truthful than anything else. Historians and archivists held on to diaries and newspapers and receipts, as well as photos, advertisements, film reels, and anything else from the time as somehow more honest and accurate than other sources. What were these other sources? They aren't always described but the point here is that if it was printed on paper than it was taken as somehow more accountable for historic study than living people's memories.
It seems problematic to argue that something taken from the past is somehow more accurate than anything else. The argument here is about perspective. All of these materials are equally honest because they are all the subjective truths of the person who writes them or emits them. They are neither more or less honest than other documents- what matters is that they are true to them. Accuracy in any source is not the point because historians may never get to that material.
It is somehow flawed to argue that oral history is legitimate because it evokes memories and feelings and that accuracy is somehow unimportant. Oral history is legitimate because it is history. Accuracy is something that no written or oral document can produce because all of it is truthful to the person associated with it and one can be neither more or less accurate than the other. Whether it is contemporary or removed by decades does not matter because neither can be held acccountable as being more accurate than the other. What about documents of numbers? Surely numbers are more accurate but censuses are lost, people lie, estimates are made. Numbers provide a level of accuracy about certain experiences but even they only seem to marginally increase information.
It is interesting that Hard Times evoked such feelings. It certainly was unexpected.
Oral history is a funny thing. It feels more permanent than a conversation but less reliable. It is, after all, a memory and we all know how fuzzy they can be. In class it was discussed that the reliability of the memory is not at all detracting from a historian's work; that the feelings and emotions evoked were what was important. These feelings are what make oral histories so useful.
However, the real bugger of this topic is accuracy. In class it was discussed that with the rise of literacy and the believed permanencec of printed documents that these documents were somehow more reliable, more evidentiary, more accurate, and more Truthful than anything else. Historians and archivists held on to diaries and newspapers and receipts, as well as photos, advertisements, film reels, and anything else from the time as somehow more honest and accurate than other sources. What were these other sources? They aren't always described but the point here is that if it was printed on paper than it was taken as somehow more accountable for historic study than living people's memories.
It seems problematic to argue that something taken from the past is somehow more accurate than anything else. The argument here is about perspective. All of these materials are equally honest because they are all the subjective truths of the person who writes them or emits them. They are neither more or less honest than other documents- what matters is that they are true to them. Accuracy in any source is not the point because historians may never get to that material.
It is somehow flawed to argue that oral history is legitimate because it evokes memories and feelings and that accuracy is somehow unimportant. Oral history is legitimate because it is history. Accuracy is something that no written or oral document can produce because all of it is truthful to the person associated with it and one can be neither more or less accurate than the other. Whether it is contemporary or removed by decades does not matter because neither can be held acccountable as being more accurate than the other. What about documents of numbers? Surely numbers are more accurate but censuses are lost, people lie, estimates are made. Numbers provide a level of accuracy about certain experiences but even they only seem to marginally increase information.
It is interesting that Hard Times evoked such feelings. It certainly was unexpected.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Archive Stories
The anthology Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History, edited by Antoinette Burton, attempts to contextualize the archive not only as a space for primary sources but also as a historical player as well; an actor in the discipline of history that participates in the making of history as much as scholars and those studied. The work is ambitious but overwhelmingly effective. Archive Stories uses Foucault’s analysis of the panopticon to argue that the archive is a place that constructs (and now deconstructs) power. The essays “attempt to denaturalize the presumptive boundaries of official archive space, historicize the production… of archives, and point to contemporary political consequences” of the archive (6).
One of the more interesting chapters on the ephemeral qualities of some archives is Renee Sentilles’ chapter on the use of the World Wide Web as archive. Her analysis is that almost every website is, in its own way, an archive. Simple searches through Google resulted in an ever-changing number of “hits” depending on the day she searched. The author struggled with the lack of accountability on the Internet; she repeatedly found mistruths and myths reported as certainties, without any attempt at noting the sources. This section had a particular effect on the reader. Each week the students in this class blog about their reactions to books; when the class is over, will there continue to be a record of discussions? All one has to do is delete the blog and it is as if the entire thing never happened. While at the beginning of the semester the blog idea seemed to provide a level of permanence, it now resembles a mist in the air- over in mere moments and easily replaced the next day.
As a graduate student in the 21st century, what Sentilles said about the usefulness of the Internet is interesting. She argues that the Web leads to research but cannot be an effective replacement for research in the traditional archive. An analogy of this would be the library online card catalogue: it can be searched but most materials are missed until someone looks in the stacks. In an age where things can be digitized and scanned, does the Internet offer more or less permanence to historical record? It certainly adds to the ever increasing scope of the record but as anyone who has ever experienced spontaneous computer failure knows, everything can be gone in a moment without the slightest chance of being returned. This is all rather cynical. Afterall, the Internet and digital archives in temporary existence are better than never having been, but while an improvement they are not a replacement. Digital archives do not yield the same tangible results or emotions in a person that the material histories do. Sentilles said it best: “virtual archives will never serve as more than a place to begin and end the research journey; never as a place to dwell,” (155).
One of the more interesting chapters on the ephemeral qualities of some archives is Renee Sentilles’ chapter on the use of the World Wide Web as archive. Her analysis is that almost every website is, in its own way, an archive. Simple searches through Google resulted in an ever-changing number of “hits” depending on the day she searched. The author struggled with the lack of accountability on the Internet; she repeatedly found mistruths and myths reported as certainties, without any attempt at noting the sources. This section had a particular effect on the reader. Each week the students in this class blog about their reactions to books; when the class is over, will there continue to be a record of discussions? All one has to do is delete the blog and it is as if the entire thing never happened. While at the beginning of the semester the blog idea seemed to provide a level of permanence, it now resembles a mist in the air- over in mere moments and easily replaced the next day.
As a graduate student in the 21st century, what Sentilles said about the usefulness of the Internet is interesting. She argues that the Web leads to research but cannot be an effective replacement for research in the traditional archive. An analogy of this would be the library online card catalogue: it can be searched but most materials are missed until someone looks in the stacks. In an age where things can be digitized and scanned, does the Internet offer more or less permanence to historical record? It certainly adds to the ever increasing scope of the record but as anyone who has ever experienced spontaneous computer failure knows, everything can be gone in a moment without the slightest chance of being returned. This is all rather cynical. Afterall, the Internet and digital archives in temporary existence are better than never having been, but while an improvement they are not a replacement. Digital archives do not yield the same tangible results or emotions in a person that the material histories do. Sentilles said it best: “virtual archives will never serve as more than a place to begin and end the research journey; never as a place to dwell,” (155).
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Remaking America
John Bodnar’s work, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century¸ (1992) uses cultural history to study the relationship between social meaning and public ceremony and memorials. Bodnar defines public memory as a system “of beliefs and ideas about the past that help the public or society understand both its past and present and, by implication, its future,” (Bodnar, 15). Although the author does not mention Michel Foucault, Bodnar does seem to use the theorist’s methodology regarding discourse as a multicultural, multivocal act. This discourse revolves around the cultural elite and what Bodnar calls the “ordinary people,” (16). Bodnar argues that the former uses public memory to emphasize as history of unity and nation building; the latter uses history to support its own goals, usually on a much more local level.
Bodnar begins his work by examining public memory at very regional or local levels by exploring and comparing twentieth-century Cleveland, Indianapolis, and different ethnic communities across the Midwest. His last portion of the book explores commemoration on a national level: the National Park Service, the Civil War Centennial, and the American Revolution Bicentennial. Overall Bodnar concludes that at the national level there is a consistent use of history that emphasizes a particular discourse of patriotism that relies heavily on service and sacrifice. On more local levels history is used in multiple ways. An example of this is the 1974 Kansas Wheat Centennial. The centennial celebrated the use of winter wheat which revolutionized Kansas’ economy. The commission pursued rhetoric of nationalism that placed Kansas’ agriculture at the center of nation building. However, Russian Mennonites- who had brought over the winter wheat seeds- used the ceremonies to place their unique contributions to Kansas into a national as well as local past.
Ultimately Remaking America illustrates that government officials and others who benefitted by keeping a status quo use history to their own ends. By examining the local uses of public memory Bodnar argues that history is used by different groups to insert their unique pasts into a nation’s history. This allows the “ordinary people” to feel as though they belong inside the past rather than the nation’s history being an unchanging nebulous of dates, names, and events that may have little or nothing to do with today’s individuals. There is something eloquent about Americans using something that Bodnar argues is highly standardized- US history- to teach a multicultural past.
Bodnar’s book is valuable to those seeking to study a kind of crossroads between social and cultural history. Sometimes his portrayal of the “ordinary people” is a bit too simplistic. It was disappointing that he did not include more research on African Americans’ and their relationship with public memory. His footnotes also suggest that he relied heavily on already published manuscripts, rather than primary sources, for much of his work. While the book is not exactly inspiring it will remain valuable to an audience trying to study public commemorations and their symbolic meanings.
Bodnar begins his work by examining public memory at very regional or local levels by exploring and comparing twentieth-century Cleveland, Indianapolis, and different ethnic communities across the Midwest. His last portion of the book explores commemoration on a national level: the National Park Service, the Civil War Centennial, and the American Revolution Bicentennial. Overall Bodnar concludes that at the national level there is a consistent use of history that emphasizes a particular discourse of patriotism that relies heavily on service and sacrifice. On more local levels history is used in multiple ways. An example of this is the 1974 Kansas Wheat Centennial. The centennial celebrated the use of winter wheat which revolutionized Kansas’ economy. The commission pursued rhetoric of nationalism that placed Kansas’ agriculture at the center of nation building. However, Russian Mennonites- who had brought over the winter wheat seeds- used the ceremonies to place their unique contributions to Kansas into a national as well as local past.
Ultimately Remaking America illustrates that government officials and others who benefitted by keeping a status quo use history to their own ends. By examining the local uses of public memory Bodnar argues that history is used by different groups to insert their unique pasts into a nation’s history. This allows the “ordinary people” to feel as though they belong inside the past rather than the nation’s history being an unchanging nebulous of dates, names, and events that may have little or nothing to do with today’s individuals. There is something eloquent about Americans using something that Bodnar argues is highly standardized- US history- to teach a multicultural past.
Bodnar’s book is valuable to those seeking to study a kind of crossroads between social and cultural history. Sometimes his portrayal of the “ordinary people” is a bit too simplistic. It was disappointing that he did not include more research on African Americans’ and their relationship with public memory. His footnotes also suggest that he relied heavily on already published manuscripts, rather than primary sources, for much of his work. While the book is not exactly inspiring it will remain valuable to an audience trying to study public commemorations and their symbolic meanings.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Sanford Levinson
Sanford Levinson’s Written in Stone analyzes monuments and how their interpretation changes over time as cultures evolved. Levinson focuses on the Southern United States primarily. Levinson argues that the messages interpreted by the public are seen as official statements by the state.
Levinson begins by examining the Millennium Monument in Budapest. With each regime change from Habsburg to State to Communist the previous characters on the monument are removed and replaced with whoever is deemed more appropriate at the time. Levinson uses the example of the Millennium Monument is illustrate how commemorative objects can be erased as if the history behind them never happened.
The author then goes on discuss one potential possibility for the state’s role in monuments. As a Constitutional lawyer, Levinson uses Owen Fiss’s argument over true state neutrality. It seems that Fiss (and Levinson) believes that real neutrality would result in the state funding of almost any and all public art or commemorative projects. An interesting example that Fiss makes is that true neutrality would require cities to cease naming streets after Martin Luther King, Jr. and instead also include ones named for Eugene “Bull” Connor (86). Levinson argues that this example reveals that true neutrality is not really accessible. Another possibility for neutrality would be to cease funding of public monuments entirely and even remove already existing ones. Would this solve any problems? Well, it might stop public argument over interpretations but what would a country be without heroes or memorials of important events? Some would argue that there could be no nation-state without people and events to celebrate. What would a national identity be without monuments?
Levinson begins by examining the Millennium Monument in Budapest. With each regime change from Habsburg to State to Communist the previous characters on the monument are removed and replaced with whoever is deemed more appropriate at the time. Levinson uses the example of the Millennium Monument is illustrate how commemorative objects can be erased as if the history behind them never happened.
The author then goes on discuss one potential possibility for the state’s role in monuments. As a Constitutional lawyer, Levinson uses Owen Fiss’s argument over true state neutrality. It seems that Fiss (and Levinson) believes that real neutrality would result in the state funding of almost any and all public art or commemorative projects. An interesting example that Fiss makes is that true neutrality would require cities to cease naming streets after Martin Luther King, Jr. and instead also include ones named for Eugene “Bull” Connor (86). Levinson argues that this example reveals that true neutrality is not really accessible. Another possibility for neutrality would be to cease funding of public monuments entirely and even remove already existing ones. Would this solve any problems? Well, it might stop public argument over interpretations but what would a country be without heroes or memorials of important events? Some would argue that there could be no nation-state without people and events to celebrate. What would a national identity be without monuments?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Week Six- Saving South Beach
A week ago Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story opened in theatres. Allegedly the movie discusses how unrestrained capitalism has led to this country’s current economic frustrations. This week for class M. Barron Stofik’s Saving South Beach traces how capitalism simultaneously jeopardized and revitalized a dying community known as Miami Beach and South Beach in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Stofik concludes her work by stating that “in the end, capitalism threatened to demolish South Beach; capitalism saved the hotels and apartments, and capitalism had wrought its extreme makeover,” (Stofik, 249). Ultimately, both Stofik and Moore were largely correct.
M. Barron Stofik’s Saving South Beach is a narrative history of how Miami Beach and South Beach were shaped by the three-decade debate over the Art Deco district. In the 1930s a variety of resorts and buildings were constructed to attract any potential customers not made destitute by the Great Depression. In 1966 the architectural style was titled Art Deco. However, by the 1970s many of the buildings were run down and dilapidated. They were also populated by elderly Jewish citizens and Cuban refugees living off of Social Security or pensions; this hurt the city’s possible image as a young, vibrant escape for tourists. Developers wanted to tear down the Art Deco buildings and build newer, sleeker, more expensive hotels and condominiums to attract new clientele. This would force many of the current residents to relocate to unspecified areas. Miami Beach residents saw this as a threat to their community and organized preservation groups to save the Art Deco buildings so that they could save their homes and neighborhoods. In conclusion there were victories and losses. Private hotel owners like Abe Resnick who did not see historic value in buildings only forty years old demolished a prime example of 1930s architecture, like The New Yorker. However, ultimately preservation won out over development and the TV show Miami Vice spiced up the city’s image. Contractors, forced by districting legislation, refurbished and renovated Art Deco buildings. Tourists started to once again flock to Miami Beach and South Beach. It was historic preservation that saved the area and injected millions of dollars in revenue to the city; all that development had been hoping to accomplish.
One lesson for public historians to learn is that of shared authority and how to work with developers and contractors. Barbara Capitman, along with others, started the historic preservation movement in Dade County. However, her brash behavior and “my way or the highway” attitude regularly resulted in conflict between herself, Abe Resnick, city officials, and others. In the end she was hardly ever elected to any position of power, despite her enthusiasm and commitment. Instead Nancy Liebman became the elected face of preservation in the community. Her kind smile won over opponents. The old adage “more flies with honey” certainly rang true for this story.
In the end this story was one of economics and two minorities that developers believed were disposable: elderly Jews on severely limited incomes and Cuban refugees. Legislation that saved Art Deco buildings forced contractors to seek economic opportunity within limitations that proved to save South Beach. This comes as no surprise, similar things happened in Denver, Charleston, Savannah, and other areas around the country that used history to attract consumers. However, unlike Boston or Atlanta that preserved buildings associated with people or events, South Beach did not have historic figures to justify the saving of buildings, only architectural uniqueness and community importance- a much harder sell. Stofik concludes her book by stating that most of the Jewish community has moved on, either through death or economic push outs. Similar fates awaited the Cubans but because they had created neighborhoods of families and kinships Cubans had been much harder to move and some were entering a time of economic stability and prosperity. Incredibly readable, Saving South Beach outlines how communities revolve around buildings and how the constructions become as much a part of the community as the people who inhabit them.
M. Barron Stofik’s Saving South Beach is a narrative history of how Miami Beach and South Beach were shaped by the three-decade debate over the Art Deco district. In the 1930s a variety of resorts and buildings were constructed to attract any potential customers not made destitute by the Great Depression. In 1966 the architectural style was titled Art Deco. However, by the 1970s many of the buildings were run down and dilapidated. They were also populated by elderly Jewish citizens and Cuban refugees living off of Social Security or pensions; this hurt the city’s possible image as a young, vibrant escape for tourists. Developers wanted to tear down the Art Deco buildings and build newer, sleeker, more expensive hotels and condominiums to attract new clientele. This would force many of the current residents to relocate to unspecified areas. Miami Beach residents saw this as a threat to their community and organized preservation groups to save the Art Deco buildings so that they could save their homes and neighborhoods. In conclusion there were victories and losses. Private hotel owners like Abe Resnick who did not see historic value in buildings only forty years old demolished a prime example of 1930s architecture, like The New Yorker. However, ultimately preservation won out over development and the TV show Miami Vice spiced up the city’s image. Contractors, forced by districting legislation, refurbished and renovated Art Deco buildings. Tourists started to once again flock to Miami Beach and South Beach. It was historic preservation that saved the area and injected millions of dollars in revenue to the city; all that development had been hoping to accomplish.
One lesson for public historians to learn is that of shared authority and how to work with developers and contractors. Barbara Capitman, along with others, started the historic preservation movement in Dade County. However, her brash behavior and “my way or the highway” attitude regularly resulted in conflict between herself, Abe Resnick, city officials, and others. In the end she was hardly ever elected to any position of power, despite her enthusiasm and commitment. Instead Nancy Liebman became the elected face of preservation in the community. Her kind smile won over opponents. The old adage “more flies with honey” certainly rang true for this story.
In the end this story was one of economics and two minorities that developers believed were disposable: elderly Jews on severely limited incomes and Cuban refugees. Legislation that saved Art Deco buildings forced contractors to seek economic opportunity within limitations that proved to save South Beach. This comes as no surprise, similar things happened in Denver, Charleston, Savannah, and other areas around the country that used history to attract consumers. However, unlike Boston or Atlanta that preserved buildings associated with people or events, South Beach did not have historic figures to justify the saving of buildings, only architectural uniqueness and community importance- a much harder sell. Stofik concludes her book by stating that most of the Jewish community has moved on, either through death or economic push outs. Similar fates awaited the Cubans but because they had created neighborhoods of families and kinships Cubans had been much harder to move and some were entering a time of economic stability and prosperity. Incredibly readable, Saving South Beach outlines how communities revolve around buildings and how the constructions become as much a part of the community as the people who inhabit them.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Displays of Power
Disclaimer: this book elicited a very powerful feeling in me and this essay is very personal and heated.
Steven C. Dubin’s Displays of Power: Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation (1999) details six case studies (including Sensation as a part of the afterward) of museum exhibits that have elicited excitement, protest, and outrage. Dubin’s book attempts to argue that controversial museum exhibits, like Harlem on my Mind or The Last Act (more commonly known simply as the Enola Gay Exhibit), are battles over public space, history, and culture.
His first chapter, “Crossing 125th Street: Harlem on my Mind Revisited,” explores the fiasco that was Tom Hoving’s, then curator of the Met, pet project. This is perhaps Dubin’s best work as it is the most historically contextual of the other studies. By emphasizing the political culture of race, ethnicity, and ideology of the late 1960s Dubin is able to argue how contemporary battles between African Americans and Jews of the Lower Eastside shaped the understanding of the Met’s displays. Dubin also outlines how at each opportunity for community support the curators of Harlem on my Mind made the wrong decision. From failing to include African American arts of a more traditional medium to including a racially charged essay written by a teenage girl, Hoving and his staff made every wrong choice offered to them, except perhaps to have the exhibit in the first place.
Dubin has little to say about the decades between the 1960s and the 1990s. He spends the rest of his book detailing different museum displays and tries to understand why they elicited controversy. He makes great use of various interviews with museum personel which will prove to be great resource someday. However, Dubin quotes many of these respondents at such length that most of the controversies sound like catty, juvenile battles of curatorship rather than cultural space. This does little for Dubin’s work and detracts from his writing. Aside from one chapter on The West as America exhibit which uses anonymous comments from museum guests, the audiences of these exhibits are largely ignored. Their contributions would have added more to Displays of Power than those of journalists, who Dubin accuses of being out of touch or unwilling to examine the exhibits for themselves (196-197). Dubin’s chapter on the Enola Gay adds little because so many other scholars have already written on that subject.
Perhaps the most offensive part of Dubin’s book is his afterward and its emphasis on the Sensation exhibit which featured an artist’s interpretation of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung. New Yorkers, especially Catholics, were outraged and the mayor, Rudy Giuliani, wanted the exhibit moved to a private venue. Here Dubin calls Christians and others who might be offended by such a painting homo censorious. He accuses those that believe in absolutism as opposed to moral relativism of being the real villains of America’s free speech. He argues that religion in America is antiquated and irrelevant and that these “manifold fears” are the real reasons Christians would feel compelled to picket, not the offensive nature of the exhibit. If he finds a picture of a religious figure covered in dung so understandable, what family photo of his should the public cover in excrement and argue that it is in fact a compliment to Dubin’s work. He attempts to discredit those that picketed this painting while praising those that picketed Harlem on my Mind. What Dubin fails to understand is that taxpayer dollars fund these public exhibits and as such museums, as have been discussed in other books for this class, are accountable in multiple ways to the viewing public.
Overall this book was a waste. His best chapter was his first and any book that eclipses itself in the first fifty pages should probably be left as an article. He did little to improve the public’s perception of museums and what it is that historians actually do. If anything, he probably damaged it even more. His afterword reads like the whining of an impatient toddler who blames everyone else for not getting his way. The book fails to move readers towards a deeper understanding of cultural space and power.
Steven C. Dubin’s Displays of Power: Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation (1999) details six case studies (including Sensation as a part of the afterward) of museum exhibits that have elicited excitement, protest, and outrage. Dubin’s book attempts to argue that controversial museum exhibits, like Harlem on my Mind or The Last Act (more commonly known simply as the Enola Gay Exhibit), are battles over public space, history, and culture.
His first chapter, “Crossing 125th Street: Harlem on my Mind Revisited,” explores the fiasco that was Tom Hoving’s, then curator of the Met, pet project. This is perhaps Dubin’s best work as it is the most historically contextual of the other studies. By emphasizing the political culture of race, ethnicity, and ideology of the late 1960s Dubin is able to argue how contemporary battles between African Americans and Jews of the Lower Eastside shaped the understanding of the Met’s displays. Dubin also outlines how at each opportunity for community support the curators of Harlem on my Mind made the wrong decision. From failing to include African American arts of a more traditional medium to including a racially charged essay written by a teenage girl, Hoving and his staff made every wrong choice offered to them, except perhaps to have the exhibit in the first place.
Dubin has little to say about the decades between the 1960s and the 1990s. He spends the rest of his book detailing different museum displays and tries to understand why they elicited controversy. He makes great use of various interviews with museum personel which will prove to be great resource someday. However, Dubin quotes many of these respondents at such length that most of the controversies sound like catty, juvenile battles of curatorship rather than cultural space. This does little for Dubin’s work and detracts from his writing. Aside from one chapter on The West as America exhibit which uses anonymous comments from museum guests, the audiences of these exhibits are largely ignored. Their contributions would have added more to Displays of Power than those of journalists, who Dubin accuses of being out of touch or unwilling to examine the exhibits for themselves (196-197). Dubin’s chapter on the Enola Gay adds little because so many other scholars have already written on that subject.
Perhaps the most offensive part of Dubin’s book is his afterward and its emphasis on the Sensation exhibit which featured an artist’s interpretation of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung. New Yorkers, especially Catholics, were outraged and the mayor, Rudy Giuliani, wanted the exhibit moved to a private venue. Here Dubin calls Christians and others who might be offended by such a painting homo censorious. He accuses those that believe in absolutism as opposed to moral relativism of being the real villains of America’s free speech. He argues that religion in America is antiquated and irrelevant and that these “manifold fears” are the real reasons Christians would feel compelled to picket, not the offensive nature of the exhibit. If he finds a picture of a religious figure covered in dung so understandable, what family photo of his should the public cover in excrement and argue that it is in fact a compliment to Dubin’s work. He attempts to discredit those that picketed this painting while praising those that picketed Harlem on my Mind. What Dubin fails to understand is that taxpayer dollars fund these public exhibits and as such museums, as have been discussed in other books for this class, are accountable in multiple ways to the viewing public.
Overall this book was a waste. His best chapter was his first and any book that eclipses itself in the first fifty pages should probably be left as an article. He did little to improve the public’s perception of museums and what it is that historians actually do. If anything, he probably damaged it even more. His afterword reads like the whining of an impatient toddler who blames everyone else for not getting his way. The book fails to move readers towards a deeper understanding of cultural space and power.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Slavery and Public History
This week’s reading, Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory edited by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton (2006), centered itself on the legacies of slavery and how public historians and their guests exhibit and relate to those difficult memories. James Oliver Horton states that this anthology is about the contradiction of “the history of American slavery in a country dedicated to freedom (Horton, vii). All of the chapters attempt to understand the contested public memory and its relationship to history.
The clash of historical ownership and debated interpretation most often takes place at sites of public history. Because memorials, museums, and other public spaces are often linked to various groups’ heritage and national identity different interpretations of history can be seen as points of power as well as pride. However, with the topic of slavery and the history of one group of people owning and oppressing another distinct group the contemporary public often expresses reluctance at hearing histories that can call into question the country’s past. Because sites of public history are often seen as locations of ancestry and family they can be places of continued debate.
The feelings that much of the white public audience, especially in the South, expresses towards discussions of slavery is predictable, even understandable. In National Parks and museums across the country white guests continue to prefer histories that minimize African American experiences and contributions to our nation’s past. Much of this is not perhaps because white audiences continue to choose nostalgia over sources or narratives of white supremacy but rather because many white Americans would like to forget the sins of their ancestors. History that forces white audiences to confront slavery can reinforce a public memory of shame that many white visitors would choose to forget rather than seek forgiveness and understanding.
Perhaps some of the most interesting work in this book is John Michael Vlach’s chapter “The Last Great Taboo Subject: Exhibiting Slavery at the Library of Congress.” This essay discusses an exhibit called “Back of the Big House” that Vlach took part in creating. The exhibit displayed a variety of pictures, testimonies, and architectural recreations so as to depict a Southern plantation from various slaves’ points of views. Within minutes of opening the African American employees of the Library of Congress protested the exhibit and before noon the museum had completely dismantled the displays and locked them in storage (Vlach, 58). This article goes on to explain that the legacies of slavery are too troubling for many black audiences who correctly continue to link slavery to contemporary racism. There are similar reactions in James Oliver Horton’s research on Colonial Williamsburg’s recreation of slave auctions. Protested by the NAACP, the auction was seen as trivializing and insulting to the African American experience. Edward T. Linenthal adds an interesting interpretation to these chapters. He argues that when African Americans boycott or protest such displays they choose to “inhabit therapeutic history that would support their … acceptable identity for themselves as well as their ancestors,” (Linenthal, 216).
The fact that both white and black Americans choose to participate in histories that minimize or quiet slave experiences is telling of just how much the past continues to shape the present. This book eloquently examines how slavery and sites of violent history struggle to fit into a national narrative of democracy, freedom, and battles legitimized by “just causes.” Slavery and Public History argues that sites of great violence and oppression must be remembered. Indeed, just as the Holocaust museum and the Enola Gay controversy emphasize, violent histories cannot be dismissed as inconvenient lest they be repeated.
The clash of historical ownership and debated interpretation most often takes place at sites of public history. Because memorials, museums, and other public spaces are often linked to various groups’ heritage and national identity different interpretations of history can be seen as points of power as well as pride. However, with the topic of slavery and the history of one group of people owning and oppressing another distinct group the contemporary public often expresses reluctance at hearing histories that can call into question the country’s past. Because sites of public history are often seen as locations of ancestry and family they can be places of continued debate.
The feelings that much of the white public audience, especially in the South, expresses towards discussions of slavery is predictable, even understandable. In National Parks and museums across the country white guests continue to prefer histories that minimize African American experiences and contributions to our nation’s past. Much of this is not perhaps because white audiences continue to choose nostalgia over sources or narratives of white supremacy but rather because many white Americans would like to forget the sins of their ancestors. History that forces white audiences to confront slavery can reinforce a public memory of shame that many white visitors would choose to forget rather than seek forgiveness and understanding.
Perhaps some of the most interesting work in this book is John Michael Vlach’s chapter “The Last Great Taboo Subject: Exhibiting Slavery at the Library of Congress.” This essay discusses an exhibit called “Back of the Big House” that Vlach took part in creating. The exhibit displayed a variety of pictures, testimonies, and architectural recreations so as to depict a Southern plantation from various slaves’ points of views. Within minutes of opening the African American employees of the Library of Congress protested the exhibit and before noon the museum had completely dismantled the displays and locked them in storage (Vlach, 58). This article goes on to explain that the legacies of slavery are too troubling for many black audiences who correctly continue to link slavery to contemporary racism. There are similar reactions in James Oliver Horton’s research on Colonial Williamsburg’s recreation of slave auctions. Protested by the NAACP, the auction was seen as trivializing and insulting to the African American experience. Edward T. Linenthal adds an interesting interpretation to these chapters. He argues that when African Americans boycott or protest such displays they choose to “inhabit therapeutic history that would support their … acceptable identity for themselves as well as their ancestors,” (Linenthal, 216).
The fact that both white and black Americans choose to participate in histories that minimize or quiet slave experiences is telling of just how much the past continues to shape the present. This book eloquently examines how slavery and sites of violent history struggle to fit into a national narrative of democracy, freedom, and battles legitimized by “just causes.” Slavery and Public History argues that sites of great violence and oppression must be remembered. Indeed, just as the Holocaust museum and the Enola Gay controversy emphasize, violent histories cannot be dismissed as inconvenient lest they be repeated.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Defining Memory
This week’s reading centered around the American local history museum. As an anthology, Defining Memory: Local Museums and the Construction of History in America’s Changing Communities edited by Amy K. Levin (2007), the work discusses how local history, or “nearby history,” is practiced across the country. While some of Levin’s own contributions discusses methodology other authors focus their work on specific museums and how public history professionals make the most (or least) of their exhibits and engage (or ignore) the public.
One section, “The Rebirth of the Nation,” studies how some museums are changing their scripts in order to attempt to meet the needs of audience expectations in light of social history. While the section on Colonial Williamsburg by Eric Gable and Richard Handler says little beyond their book on the subject, the section on the Old State Capitol Museum in Baton Rouge is very interesting. While Colonial Williamsburg and the House of the Seven Gables have both shifted their tours to emphasize African American contributions to history, the Old State Capitol Museum is emphasizing their gombo history. The curators in Baton Rouge choose to focus on a melting pot mentality that many visitors might expect to find in a New York City immigrant history museum, not a Southern plantation-era museum. Another notable difference regarding the Old State Capitol Museum is its focus on children as important museum guests. Their exhibit on the electoral and voting process is innovative and should be repeated at other institutions. By forcing children to take part in mock elections and state budget meetings the curators teach kids that the political process must involve all individuals in order to work properly and that all political actions have consequences. The Old State Capitol Museum also has exhibits on Native American, African American, French, and Spanish historical contributions but their emphasis on the importance of voting is noteworthy and most appropriate in a capitol building. This museum is using social history trends to not only do the expected- emphasize the contributions of women and minorities- but argue that history is made by every individual that participates and therefore belongs to everyone as well.
The many museums sponsored by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) teach valuable lessons as well. Their museums began as shrines to women’s unique experiences in nineteenth-century Utah. However, the future of the museums looks bleaks; an example is that of the hundreds of quilts donated to the DUP. The DUP exhibits depend on voluntary contributions and women have been generous. The DUP now houses dozens of quilts which the museums feel both proud and obligated to display. While this does pay tribute to the families who gave their quilts, to guests the sheer number of coverlets in no apparent order can be onerous. In order not to offend anyone the DUP has become a slave to their local public. Their exhibit suffers because the Daughters of Utah Pioneers want to display everything rather than design a truly creative museum that would require selectivity and elimination of many artifacts. That is their choice. However, their choices are making them undesirable to much of the public.
Defining Memory is an important work for anyone involved in public history. It allows readers to understand from those that have experience in the field as to what works and what does not. Local history is important because the public seems to find it the most accessible, interesting, and a point of regional pride. It is also necessary for young public historians to learn about local history museums because that is where the most jobs are thus potential employment rests in understanding the power of public local history.
One section, “The Rebirth of the Nation,” studies how some museums are changing their scripts in order to attempt to meet the needs of audience expectations in light of social history. While the section on Colonial Williamsburg by Eric Gable and Richard Handler says little beyond their book on the subject, the section on the Old State Capitol Museum in Baton Rouge is very interesting. While Colonial Williamsburg and the House of the Seven Gables have both shifted their tours to emphasize African American contributions to history, the Old State Capitol Museum is emphasizing their gombo history. The curators in Baton Rouge choose to focus on a melting pot mentality that many visitors might expect to find in a New York City immigrant history museum, not a Southern plantation-era museum. Another notable difference regarding the Old State Capitol Museum is its focus on children as important museum guests. Their exhibit on the electoral and voting process is innovative and should be repeated at other institutions. By forcing children to take part in mock elections and state budget meetings the curators teach kids that the political process must involve all individuals in order to work properly and that all political actions have consequences. The Old State Capitol Museum also has exhibits on Native American, African American, French, and Spanish historical contributions but their emphasis on the importance of voting is noteworthy and most appropriate in a capitol building. This museum is using social history trends to not only do the expected- emphasize the contributions of women and minorities- but argue that history is made by every individual that participates and therefore belongs to everyone as well.
The many museums sponsored by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) teach valuable lessons as well. Their museums began as shrines to women’s unique experiences in nineteenth-century Utah. However, the future of the museums looks bleaks; an example is that of the hundreds of quilts donated to the DUP. The DUP exhibits depend on voluntary contributions and women have been generous. The DUP now houses dozens of quilts which the museums feel both proud and obligated to display. While this does pay tribute to the families who gave their quilts, to guests the sheer number of coverlets in no apparent order can be onerous. In order not to offend anyone the DUP has become a slave to their local public. Their exhibit suffers because the Daughters of Utah Pioneers want to display everything rather than design a truly creative museum that would require selectivity and elimination of many artifacts. That is their choice. However, their choices are making them undesirable to much of the public.
Defining Memory is an important work for anyone involved in public history. It allows readers to understand from those that have experience in the field as to what works and what does not. Local history is important because the public seems to find it the most accessible, interesting, and a point of regional pride. It is also necessary for young public historians to learn about local history museums because that is where the most jobs are thus potential employment rests in understanding the power of public local history.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Week One
The great divide between academia and the rest of the world is lamentable. It is the joke of many history departments that historians write for each other and that David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose write for everyone else. This week’s readings centered on the midline between the professional historian and the public and how many public historians are actively trying to bridge the gap.
According to the public, what are the purposes of history? Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen’s The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life ask that question and others to over 2,000 interviewees. Their methodology resembles that of an anthropologist and their conclusions are very interesting. Overwhelmingly the respondents seemed to separate what they termed as “history” and “the past”. “History” was a subject taught in schools, most often about the formation of nation-states. “The past”, however, was intrinsically connected to the present and thusly linked to much of the public. The authors reported that interviewees did not see the past as “distant, abstract, or insignificant” and that they “pursue the past actively and make it a part of their everyday life,” (Rosenzweig and Thelen, 18). According to Rosenzweig and Thelen, the past is always involved in the shaping of the present and never really separate at all.
The authors also reported that the public did purposefully seek a connection to their past, or heritage, through artifacts, museums, elderly relatives, and other forms of media. The respondents emphasized family as their greatest connection to the past. They also argued that they considered family members to be among the most trustworthy keepers of historic knowledge.
Cathy Stanton’s article began as various responses on H-Net to the definition of “public history” as provided by the National Council on Public History. Their definition is “public history is a movement, methodology, and approach that promotes the collaborative study and practice of history; its practitioners embrace a mission to make their special insights accessible and useful to the public." It is easy to see why this definition would create a firestorm among public historians. Firstly, can there be an official methodology for all public history? Other historians argued that calling public history a “movement” was too political. However, the most problematic portion of the definition is that historians may “make their special insights accessible and useful to the public.” This kind of elitist statement argues that professional academics have the keys to deciphering history and that they must dutifully make the past available to the public. Public history should be an exchange between professional historians and their audiences.
This exchange between historians and the public is addressed by Corbett and Miller’s article on shared authority. This article seems to be a more in touch with reality that the opinion shared by the NCPH. Corbett and Miller describe the interplay between historians and audiences and argue that the public has quite a bit of power over public historians. An example of this is oral history: historians can initiate and interview but what is revealed and to whom are entirely in the hands of the respondent. Historians and audiences share agency in the creation of public history (Corbett and Miller, 20). Because of this shared authority and agency historians must be willing to tweak presentations of the past. In fact, historians and the public most often butt heads when the professional wants to display a person or group’s past in a way that is unfamiliar or controversial. The Smithsonian’s Enola Gay debacle is a great example of this.
What Corbett, Miller, Rosezweig, Thelen, and Stanton all want professional historians to understand is that a public historian’s responsibility is to engage the public. This commitment to a public audience should shape the historian’s methodology. Corbett and Miller propose that the public historian is the mediator between the truth they want to present and the truth the public wants to hear (38). However, this balance is easy to discuss but difficult to put into practice. If public historians always catered to the public this way then sites of history would most likely be shrines or temples rather than forums of discussion. This does not help anyone, historian or other, to come to terms with their past.
According to the public, what are the purposes of history? Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen’s The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life ask that question and others to over 2,000 interviewees. Their methodology resembles that of an anthropologist and their conclusions are very interesting. Overwhelmingly the respondents seemed to separate what they termed as “history” and “the past”. “History” was a subject taught in schools, most often about the formation of nation-states. “The past”, however, was intrinsically connected to the present and thusly linked to much of the public. The authors reported that interviewees did not see the past as “distant, abstract, or insignificant” and that they “pursue the past actively and make it a part of their everyday life,” (Rosenzweig and Thelen, 18). According to Rosenzweig and Thelen, the past is always involved in the shaping of the present and never really separate at all.
The authors also reported that the public did purposefully seek a connection to their past, or heritage, through artifacts, museums, elderly relatives, and other forms of media. The respondents emphasized family as their greatest connection to the past. They also argued that they considered family members to be among the most trustworthy keepers of historic knowledge.
Cathy Stanton’s article began as various responses on H-Net to the definition of “public history” as provided by the National Council on Public History. Their definition is “public history is a movement, methodology, and approach that promotes the collaborative study and practice of history; its practitioners embrace a mission to make their special insights accessible and useful to the public." It is easy to see why this definition would create a firestorm among public historians. Firstly, can there be an official methodology for all public history? Other historians argued that calling public history a “movement” was too political. However, the most problematic portion of the definition is that historians may “make their special insights accessible and useful to the public.” This kind of elitist statement argues that professional academics have the keys to deciphering history and that they must dutifully make the past available to the public. Public history should be an exchange between professional historians and their audiences.
This exchange between historians and the public is addressed by Corbett and Miller’s article on shared authority. This article seems to be a more in touch with reality that the opinion shared by the NCPH. Corbett and Miller describe the interplay between historians and audiences and argue that the public has quite a bit of power over public historians. An example of this is oral history: historians can initiate and interview but what is revealed and to whom are entirely in the hands of the respondent. Historians and audiences share agency in the creation of public history (Corbett and Miller, 20). Because of this shared authority and agency historians must be willing to tweak presentations of the past. In fact, historians and the public most often butt heads when the professional wants to display a person or group’s past in a way that is unfamiliar or controversial. The Smithsonian’s Enola Gay debacle is a great example of this.
What Corbett, Miller, Rosezweig, Thelen, and Stanton all want professional historians to understand is that a public historian’s responsibility is to engage the public. This commitment to a public audience should shape the historian’s methodology. Corbett and Miller propose that the public historian is the mediator between the truth they want to present and the truth the public wants to hear (38). However, this balance is easy to discuss but difficult to put into practice. If public historians always catered to the public this way then sites of history would most likely be shrines or temples rather than forums of discussion. This does not help anyone, historian or other, to come to terms with their past.
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