WHAT IS PUBLIC HISTORY?

PUBLIC HISTORY: HOW DO WE DEFINE IT?

“the presentation of history to the non-academic community”

“the popular presentation of the past to a range of audiences”

“the employment of historians in history-related work outside

academia”

“the many ways in which historians recreate and present

history to the public- and sometimes with the public”

PUBLIC HISTORY: HOW DO WE DEFINE IT?

“Public history is history that is seen, heard, read, and interpreted by a popular audience. Public historians expand on the methods of

academic history by emphasizing non-traditional evidence and presentation

formats, reframing questions, and in the process creating a distinctive historical

practice....Public history is also history that belongs to the public. By emphasizing the

public context of scholarship, public history trains historians to transform their research to reach audiences outside the academy.”

PUBLIC HISTORY VS. HISTORY Historic site

The development of the site for modern public visitation; altered to be a site for instruction on history

Exhibits Tours Historic markers Monuments Documentaries Reenactments

Historic sites Important

location of an actual historical event, group, and/or individual that still exists

Primary sources Secondary

sources

STRENGTHS AND DRAWBACKS

Enables a larger audience to access important and sometimes unknown history

Conserves historical sites/locations

Increases dialogue on important historical issues that still have relevance

Creates tourism

Dilutes historical narrative in order for mass consumption Voices from history usually

left out or overemphasized Controversies tend not to

be fully addressed Site reconstruction alters

historical record (buildings updated)

Certain parts of a site developed at the expense of developing entire location can result in decontextualization (one battle field versus all)

TYPES OF PUBLIC HISTORYEXHIBITS

Museums Permanent Traveling

Visitors Centers Historic Buildings

Indoors Outdoors

Often incorporate the use of artifacts, performance, text, interactive screens, lectures, etc.

TYPES OF PUBLIC HISTORYHISTORIC SITES

Homes of Important Figures Ex. Betsy Ross

House, Benjamin Franklin House

Government Buildings Ex. Independence

Hall Battlefields

Ex. Gettysburg

Benjamin Franklin’s home in

Philadelphia

Betsy Ross House, Philadelphia

TYPES OF PUBLIC HISTORYTOURS

Audio Ex. IPod tours

Walking Exhibit Driving

Bus tours Duck boat tours

Virtual Ex. Online exhibits

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours.aspx

TYPES OF PUBLIC HISTORYPERFORMANCES

In-Exhibit Performances

Reenactments

Reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg, Gettysburg, PA

TYPES OF PUBLIC HISTORYWEBSITES

Museums

University projects

Historic Sites

Student projects Ex. National History

Day

http://www.nhd.org/studentsites.htm

http://constitutioncenter.org/ncc_home_Landing.aspx

http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/

http://www.nps.gov/inde/index.htm

TYPES OF PUBLIC HISTORYFILMS

Documentaries

Television Shows

Online videos

Constitution Hall Pass

TYPES OF PUBLIC HISTORYHISTORIC MARKERS

DOS AND DON’T’S OF PUBLIC HISTORY DON’T:

1. Make a public history that only appeals to a small group of people.

2. Conduct research without consulting other scholars. 3. Create a public history that is overly long and drawn-out. 4. Use unreliable sources.

DO: 1. Create a public history that appeals to a wide ranging audience. 2. Work collaboratively with other scholars to create your public

history. 3. Ensure that information is conveyed quickly and can be

consumed actively. 4. Maintain high standards of scholarship by using reliable primary

and secondary sources.

QUIZ: PUBLIC HISTORY OR NOT?

About the Film

Baseball. Ken Burns, 2010

“We divided our story into nine chronological chapters, or innings, and

insisted as much as possible that the past speak for itself through contemporaneous

photographs, drawings, paintings, lithographs, newsreels, and chorus of first-person voices read by distinguished actors

and writers. We dissected the ballet of baseball with special cameras that ran at

500 frames a second (instead of 24); interviewed on-camera nearly ninety writers, historians, fans, players and managers: employed the services of

twenty-one scholars and more than two dozen patient and talented film editors, delighted in getting to know one of the most remarkable men the game or this country has ever produced, Buck O'Neil;

filmed for weeks with the gentle and generous people at the archives of the

National Baseball Hall of Fame; and hovered for hours above ancient

diamonds in Iowa, West Texas, South Carolina, and a particularly beautiful old

park built in a marshy area of Boston called the Fens.”

YES! This is public history!

Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, 1989

“An Iowa corn farmer, hearing voices, interprets them as a command to build a baseball diamond in his fields; he does, and the Chicago Black Sox come.”

Trailer, Field of Dreams

NO! This is not public history!

“From May 29 through September 7, 2009, the National Constitution Center will host NAPOLÉON, an exhibition

offering visitors a rare opportunity to explore the private life of the Emperor of France and to see beyond the

legend to gain an understanding of this complex political leader whose actions reshaped the landscape of Europe and America. Created from the extraordinary collection

of First Empire authority and author, Pierre-Jean Chalençon, NAPOLÉON showcases rare, personal

belongings of Napoléon I, as well as some of the most famous depictions of him by important artists of the

time.” 

YES! This is public history!

“Jean Valjean, an ex-con, has transformed himself to become mayor

and the owner of a factory. But when he is moved to help one of his former workers, Fantine, Valjean's past is

brought to light, and he is forced to abandon everything to run from Javert, the chief of police, dead set on bringing him to justice. Nine years later, Cosette,

Fantine's child, has been raised by Valjean and has fallen in love with

Marius, a fighter in the French revolution (after whom another, named Eponine,

also pines). With Javert on the hunt and a revolution tearing the city apart, in the end, everyone is forced to question what

they're willing to sacrifice in pursuit of love and justice.

Based on the novel by Victor Hugo.”

No! This is not public history!

SUMMARY QUESTIONS

What is public history?

Why is public history important?

Where do we find public history?

Who creates public history?