Occupied Philadelphia

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-48
Author(s):  
Tyler Rudd Putman
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Public History ◽  
Living History ◽  
Pilot Program ◽  
Historical Empathy ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Walking Tour

This article explores the aims and delivery of a living history event conducted in a contemporary urban environment. It reports on a pilot program, “Occupied Philadelphia,” delivered in October 2017 by the Museum of the American Revolution in downtown Philadelphia. This program re-created events and incidents from the fall of 1777 and included a walking tour with three main stops highlighting the lives of everyday Philadelphians and British soldiers. Occupied Philadelphia provided a framework for volunteer interpreters to engage in a form of “guerilla interpretation,” taking public history into unexpected places as a means of inspiring historical empathy and encouraging the public to make connections between the past and present.

Theatre: A Neglected Site of Public History?

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
David Dean
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
Living History ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Theatrical Representations ◽  
And Performance

Abstract Although theatrical representations of the past have been examined by theatre and performance studies scholars, public historians have preferred to focus on historical re-enactments in living history sites, museums, or on film and television. This article argues that theatre is a compelling site for representing and understanding the past through a case study of one of the most performed plays in recent Canadian repertoire, Vern Theissen's Vimy. Drawing on a survey of audience members and the author's experiences as an academic historian working with a national theatre company, it proposes ways in which further study and practice can illuminate our understanding of the public and its pasts.

Reflections on the Public Interpretation of Regional Environmental History In Western Pennsylvania

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-69
Author(s):  
Chris J. Magoc
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Public History ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Interpretation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Natural Resource Extraction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Environmental Histories ◽  
Western Pennsylvania

This essay attempts to counter the scarcity of efforts to address issues of natural resource extraction and environmental exploitation in public history forums. Focused on western Pennsylvania, it argues that the history of industrial development and its deleterious environmental impacts demands a regional vision that not only frames these stories within the ideological and economic context of the past, but also challenges residents and visitors to consider this history in light of the related environmental concerns of our own time. The essay explores some of the difficult issues faced by public historians and practitioners as they seek to produce public environmental histories that do not elude opportunities to link past and present in meaningful ways.

scholarly journals Public History in Movement – Present Pasts: the Memory of Slavery in Brazil

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juniele Rabêlo de Almeida ◽  
Larissa Moreira Viana
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Historical Representation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractPresent Pasts: The Memory of Slavery in Brazil is a sound testament to the Brazilian public history movemen.This problematization of the “present pasts of slavery” finds fertile ground in Brazilian public history because of the urgent need to record and analyze representations of this traumatic past, going beyond professional and academic contexts to the public sphere. Public history offers reinvigorating possibilities for mediation between, and intervention in, the past and its publics.The Present Pasts Research Network provides a thought-provoking example of public history’s ability to be sensitive to broad public debate and how the needs, interests, and representations of communities can be addressed through historical representation, interpretation, and active history-making.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Beiner
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Living History ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
The Past ◽  
Shared History ◽  
Folk History ◽  
Subaltern History

Questioning the inevitability of an inherent opposition between myth and history opens possibilities for rethinking our engagement with the past through the lens of ‘mythistory’. In the same vein, the concept of ‘vernacular historiography’ is introduced in relation to a number of related historiographical developments, namely: living history, history from below, people’s history, subaltern history, democratic history, ethnohistory, popular history, public history, applied history, everyday history, shared history, folk history, grass-roots history, as well as local and provincial history. In turn, the study of forgetting and of lieu d’oubli is identified as a new direction for advancing the field of Memory Studies and moving beyond our current understanding of lieux de mémoire. In particular, ‘social forgetting’, whereby communities try to supress recollections of inconvenient episodes in their past, is conceptualized as thriving on tensions between public reticence and muted remembrance in private. Finally, charting the forgetful remembrance of the 1798 rebellion in Ulster—known locally as ‘the Turn-Out’—is presented as an illuminating case study for coming to terms with social forgetting and vernacular historiography.

Abusing Public Visual History

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-85
Author(s):  
Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public History ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Codes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Illustrated Press ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Visual History

The covers of the two mainstream right-wing magazines in Poland, (W) Sieci and Do Rzeczy, have put numerous images on display that refer to well-known events from the past. However, most of the images suggest incorrect interpretations or even falsify historical facts. Asserting that visual history as presented in the illustrated press belongs to the field of public history, the author discusses the consequences of such a deceptive use of history in the public sphere. The article challenges the affirmative approach of public history by showing that scholars should pay more attention to those who ignore ethical codes and do not follow what are considered to be best practices.

Revolution in Boston? Eight Propositions for Public History on the Freedom Trail

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred F. Young
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
Public History ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Public ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Freedom Trail ◽  
The Many ◽  
Collaborative Efforts ◽  
The Revolution

The author reassesses the public presentation of history on Boston's Freedom Trail, founded in the 1950s, in light of the reinterpretation of the American Revolution which has brought into focus the multi-sided struggle for liberty and equality within America. In eight propositions, he questions whether the many sites of the trail with a minimum of coordination, do justice to the "popular" side of the Revolution. Boston is at risk in dealing with race and gender, he suggests, of fragmenting the Revolution. In avoiding the "dark" side, it can fall into an exclusively celebratory history. To present a more coherent history, the author points to the need for greater collaborative efforts by the sites which make up the trail.

Contesting History

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Black
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Original Material ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Western Model ◽  
Fundamental Significance ◽  
The Media

Contesting History is an authoritative guide to the positive and negative applications of the past in the public arena and what this signifies for the meaning of history more widely. Using a global, non-Western model, Jeremy Black examines the employment of history by the state, the media, the national collective memory and others and considers its fundamental significance in how we understand the past. Moving from public life pre-1400 to the struggle of ideologies in the 20th century and contemporary efforts to find meaning in historical narratives, Jeremy Black incorporates a great deal of original material on governmental, social and commercial influences on the public use of history. This includes a host of in-depth case studies from different periods of history around the world, and coverage of public history in a wider range of media, including TV and film. Readers are guided through this material by an expansive introduction, section headings, chapter conclusions and a selected further reading list. Written with eminent clarity and breadth of knowledge, Contesting History is a key text for all students of public history and anyone keen to know more about the nature of history as a discipline and concept.

scholarly journals Official and Vernacular Public History: Historical Anniversaries and Commemorations in Newcastle, NSW

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Eklund
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Permanent Establishment ◽  
Heritage Politics ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
The City

The city of Newcastle commemorated two bicentenaries within the space of seven years. In 2004, the city marked 200 years since the permanent establishment of the settlement on 30 March 1804. But 2004 was not the city’s first bicentennial. In 1997, Newcastle celebrated the 1797 journey of Lieutenant John Shortland, who named and sketched the Hunter River and brought back samples of coal to Sydney. These anniversaries, and earlier ones such as Newcastle’s centennial in 1897 and its sesqui-centennial in 1947, were crucial moments of history making in the public sphere. History was evoked to celebrate progress, encourage civic loyalty and, more recently, to emphasise the city’s transition into a post-industrial era. This article will explore the way in which commemorative dates in Newcastle’s history were interpreted, utilised and presented to the general public. It will examine how history, heritage, politics and policy come together to use the past in a public way. Utilising US historian John Bodnar’s terms, the shift in the themes and tenor of public history in Newcastle over this period has been from an ‘official’ to a more ‘vernacular’ style. Official public history emphasised unitary notions of progress while vernacular styles presented more diverse and occasionally more critical versions of public history. By the time of the 2004 commemorative events there was more scope for active popular participation. Newcastle public history was being nourished by community groups often with conflicting notions of public history, generating a multivalent, multilayered sense of the past, though older themes persisted with remarkable durability. In a city where ‘history’ has such an ambivalent position, large-scale historical commemorations make for intriguing analysis. After a review of the principal themes in the Newcastle commemorations of 1897, 1947, and 1997, I consider the 2004 ‘Newcastle 200’ programme. In particular, I will be considering my own movement from an apparently objective historical analyst of the earlier commemorative events to a participant in the history-making process in the 2004 program.

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