National Council on Public History Presidential Address

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-24
Author(s):  
Patrick K. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
National Council ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
The Public ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
Contested Space ◽  
Community History ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Social Privilege

In this reflective essay, the author addresses how, through the course of his professional public history career, he developed an evolving understanding of the complexities of interpreting community history, the nuances of contested space, and how social privilege fit within this process. Drawing upon decades of personal experiences and professional activities with community and oral history–based projects, he expresses how public historians can recognize multiple perspectives and then work in tandem with various constituencies to navigate an array of interpretive and preservation challenges. Finally, he encourages his fellow practitioners to acknowledge and understand the intricacies of social privilege, from both a personal and project-oriented perspective, in the practice of the public history craft.

Sticky History: Connecting Historians with the Public

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 76-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Babal
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
National Council ◽  
Marketing Communication ◽  
Economic Uncertainty ◽  
The Public ◽  
Thirtieth Anniversary ◽  
The Future

Abstract Public historians have long been putting history to work in meaningful ways, cultivating collaborative opportunities, building partnerships, and engaging with the public. In times of economic uncertainty, communicating the relevance of history and the work of historians is more important than ever. This article suggests ways to apply marketing communication principles to connect public historians with their audience. This article is a revised version of the presidential address delivered March 13, 2010 at the National Council on Public History's annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. Marking the thirtieth anniversary of the incorporation of NCPH, it recaps the origins and evolution of the organization over three decades, and proposes an action plan for its growth into the future.

OutHistory.org: An Experiment in LGBTQ Community History-Making

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 96-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Jae Gutterman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Public History ◽  
Digital History ◽  
The Public ◽  
Community History ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
Project Coordinator ◽  
Lesbian And Gay Studies ◽  
The City

Abstract This article describes OutHistory.org, the public Web site on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) history hosted by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. OutHistory.org uses MediaWiki software to compile community-created histories of LGBTQ life in the U.S. and make the insights of LGBTQ history broadly accessible. Project Coordinator Lauren Gutterman explains how the public history project employs digital history to collect, advance, and project LGBTQ history, and how it serves as a model for other interactive history Web sites.

Nothing Succeeds Like Succession: Ponderings on the Future of Public History

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick W. O'Bannon
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Public History ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
National Council ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Basic Approach ◽  
Cultural Resources Management ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
The Future

This revised version of the presidential address delivered at the National Council on Public History's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. extrapolates the question of succession within the leadership of the cultural resources management (CRM) industry to public history in general. A shift in leadership is beginning to occur both within CRM and within public history. The paper explores some of the issues associated with succession and attempts to outline a basic approach to educating the next generation of public historians.

National Council on Public History Keynote Address, 2015

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-17
Author(s):  
Tiya Miles
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Native American ◽  
Public History ◽  
Keynote Address ◽  
National Council ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
The Public

As public historians, we grapple not only with the “what” of history making (subject and argument) but also with the “how” (process and relationships). We strive to develop projects that are dialogic and collaborative in nature, and to widely share the results of our work with the public. In doing so, we often chart new academic territory, making our way by trial and error and taking risks. By focusing on a Native American and African American historic site as case study, this essay explores how the aim to illuminate ways in which history matters in the present often drives us to create “history on the edge.”

The Origins of "The Public Historian" and the National Council on Public History

1999 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Wesley Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
National Council ◽  
The Public

Cultures in Conflict: An Argument Against “Common Ground” Between Practicing Professional Historians and Academics

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
JACK M. HOLL
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Public History ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
National Council ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic History

Abstract There is a fundamental distinction between practicing professional historians and academics, and any celebration of a “common ground” tradition masks the fundamental cultural differences between historians who practice and historians who teach. Over the past three decades, since the founding of the Society for History in the Federal Government and the National Council on Public History, practicing professional historians have struggled with definitions of public history. “Struggling with our own identify,” the author states, “many federal historians did not want to be labeled public historians, the professor's euphemism for non-academic historians.” Rather, federal historians belonged to a “cadre of professionals who practiced their specialties in the public sector.” With extensive knowledge of the federal history sector (with particular attention given to the historical office of the Department of Energy) as well as academic history departments and policies, the author argues that “professional historians [should] be defined by what they do, rather than by where they work.” The historical profession must acknowledge that federal and other professional historians “occupy their own solid ground, perhaps not adequately mapped,” and represent more than a “middle ground” between the public and the academy.

The American Family and the Little Red Schoolhouse: Historians, Class, and the Problem of Curricular Diversity

Prospects ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 25-74
Author(s):  
Nora Faires ◽  
John J. Bukowczyk ◽  
Bruce Harkness
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
The Public ◽  
Total War ◽  
Education For Democracy ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Though the development of “public history” as a professional practice and its arrival as an academic field date back only to the mid-1970s, an emphasis on the role of historians as public actors with unique societal responsibilities has punctuated the self-reflective literature issuing forth from the profession throughout much of the 20th Century. In his 1949 presidential address to the American Historical Association (AHA), Conyers Read advised that “history has to justify itself in social terms.” In a postwar world whose grand drama shifted from the defeat of fascism to the crusade against communism, Read instructed historians in their highest role, namely, “education for democracy.” “Total war, whether it be hot or cold,” Read observed, “enlists everyone and calls upon everyone to assume his part.” Read's prescription has remained a canon in the profession. In 1986, for example, AHA former president C. Vann Woodward owned that historians have “obligations to the present.” Recognizing the problematical nature of the “relationship of history to the public realm,” AHA president William E. Leuchtenburg in like manner nonetheless recently observed that “generation after generation, a substantial corps of scholars has insisted that historians should concentrate on contributing to the solution of contemporary problems.”

Resurrected Bodies

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlene Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Organ Transplant ◽  
Transplant Recipients ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
Faith Traditions ◽  
Anthropological Literature ◽  
Religious Actors

The anthropological literature on transplant, though theoretically and ethnographically rich, does not address religion in any substantial way. And while bio-ethical considerations of transplant regularly address religion, treatments are generally circumscribed to a list of various faith traditions and their stance toward organ transplant. Such a presentation reduces “religion” to the world’s recognized faith traditions, “religious actors” to the official spokespersons of these traditions, and “religious belief” to moral injunctions. The objective of the thesis was to illuminate the prominent place of religion in the lived experience of transplant recipients and donors, in the public policy and professional activities of transplant officials, and in the transplant discourses of North America

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