Flattening the Curve: Learning the lessons of world history to mitigate societal crises

The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runaway inequality, mass impoverishment, and rising sectarian violence. Such crises are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, lessons can be learned from societies that managed to avoid the more devastating and destructive outcomes. Here, we present a preliminary analysis of outcomes from periods of crisis in 50 historical societies and examine closely four cases of averted crisis in world history, highlighting common features. A key observation is that the structural-demographic cycles that give rise to societal crises typically incorporate a ‘gilded age’ during which more future-minded governance could avert future crises. To accomplish more forward-thinking public policy, capable not just of ‘flattening the curve’, but of actually breaking the cycle that produces societal crises in the first place, we argue that systematic quantitative analysis of patterns in world history is a necessary first step.

Unruly Memory and Historical Order

This paper explores the complex history of “undisciplined histories” by looking at the tension between political engagement and scientific detachment in revolutionary scholarship, a field perpetually torn between historicist methods and presentist purposes. From the controversies surrounding the 1889 Jubilee to the patriotic uses of history during the Great War, the historiography of the French Revolution continuously challenged the principles and methods of history as an academic discipline. This period’s omnipresence in nineteenth-century “memory wars” delayed its academization, which became effective only in the aftermath of the Centenary when newly implemented university chairs, scholarly journals, and historical societies established the history of the French Revolution as a central research topic. However, the advent of the First World War challenged the historians’ impartiality and detachment as they committed to defend their homeland in their historical writings while striving to preserve their intellectual autonomy.

From Bricks to Clicks: How Digital Heritage Initiatives Create a New Ecosystem for Cultural Heritage and Collective Remembering

Cultural heritage institutions, such as museums, libraries, archives, and historical societies, are increasingly using digital heritage initiatives and social media platforms to connect and interact with their heritage communities. This creates a new memory ecosystem whereby heritage communities are invited to contribute, participate with, and share more of what they are interested in collectively remembering, rather than simply accepting the authoritative narratives of heritage institutions, which raises questions about what this means for cultural heritage writ large and whose versions of the past these heritage communities will hold onto as their digital inheritance. The primary contributions of this article are to provide both an extended view of the issue by building on several qualitative studies involving in-depth interviews and digital observations with eight cultural heritage communities over a five-year period and to better understand how their digital heritage initiatives are creating a new ecosystem for cultural heritage and collective remembering.

The Brown Family archive : assigning intellectual order & physical arrangement to a private photographic collection

This project focuses on the methodology of assigning intellectual and physical arrangement to private family photographic collections. I selected the Brown Family Archive as a case study, working directly with the Brown Family and Lake County Historical Museum in Crown Point, Indiana. The collection brings together photographs and related artifacts from the Civil War, the First National Bank of Crown Point, Indiana, and several interrelated families. The size and scope of the collection is analagous to many family collections. It is historically and culturally significant due to its visual documentation of a sociological milieu in the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. Equally important, the photographs offer insight ito the widespread problem of deterioration due to improper housing, mishandling, and chemical break down. Through research and best practices in photographic preservation and collections management, the project delivers a model for use by family historians, museums, historical societies and libraries.

The Brown Family archive : assigning intellectual order & physical arrangement to a private photographic collection

This project focuses on the methodology of assigning intellectual and physical arrangement to private family photographic collections. I selected the Brown Family Archive as a case study, working directly with the Brown Family and Lake County Historical Museum in Crown Point, Indiana. The collection brings together photographs and related artifacts from the Civil War, the First National Bank of Crown Point, Indiana, and several interrelated families. The size and scope of the collection is analagous to many family collections. It is historically and culturally significant due to its visual documentation of a sociological milieu in the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. Equally important, the photographs offer insight ito the widespread problem of deterioration due to improper housing, mishandling, and chemical break down. Through research and best practices in photographic preservation and collections management, the project delivers a model for use by family historians, museums, historical societies and libraries.

The Social Media “Magic”: Virtually Engaging Visitors during COVID-19 Temporary Closures

The purpose of this study was to explore what types of digital content cultural institutions implemented during COVID-19 temporary closures and their effects on social media engagement. Existing research identified the role of digital content and social media in cultural institutions, but only in times of normal operations. This study adds to the existing literature by exploring the types of digital content implemented, impacts on social media engagement, measures of social media engagement, and future implications in regard to COVID-19 temporary closures. This study recruited 66 cultural institutions from across the United States to take part in in-depth semi-structured phone interviews to fulfill the research goals. Museums, zoos, aquariums, performing arts organizations, heritage foundations, and historical societies were represented. A qualitative approach was adopted, and content analysis on the interview transcripts indicated that cultural institutions implemented digital content to build communities through live and serialized content, partnerships, fundraising, increased transparency, and increased accessibility during temporary closures. Using primarily Instagram and Facebook with their digital content, cultural institutions increased social media engagement during this time. Although there was no consensus on best practices in measuring social media engagement, many institutions highlighted tracking active engagement such as likes, comments, and shares. As a result of the success of the digital content, cultural institutions planned continued digital content campaigns such as videos, blogs, partnerships, and paid educational content in times of normal operations.

National cultural heritage and its originality

The problem of the complex nature of the cultural identity of the local historical societies, including social, religious, political and ethnic identity backbone traits, situational dominance with each type. However, in different historical periods it has been a predominance of certain types. Analyzed the most common (frequency) algorithm for the formation of local identity features.

Gender and Ethnicity: Life Stories of Jewish-American Immigrant Women in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

In the first half of the twentieth century, immigrants left oral and written testimonies of their experience in the United States, many of them housed in various ethnic-American archives or published by ethnic historical societies. In 1942, the Yiddish Scientific Institute in New York City encouraged Jewish-American immigrants to share their life stories as part of a written essay contest. In 2006, several of these autobiographical accounts were translated and published by Jocelyn Cohen and Daniel Soyer in a volume entitled My Future Is in America. Thus, this essay examines the autobiographies of two Jewish-American immigrant women, Minnie Goldstein and Rose Schoenfeld, with a view to comparing how their gendered identity (as women and as members of their families) has impacted their choices and lives in their home countries and in the United States in the first part of the twentieth century.

The Expansion of Early National History Culture

This chapter examines the rapid growth in the presence and role of the past in the cultural production of the early republic. The first half of the chapter charts the vast increase in historical cultural production in a variety of print forms and literary genres. The second half of the chapter explores one of the processes behind this increase in production by uncovering an informal network—including historians, antiquarians, poets, essayists, painters, publishers, politicians, and others—that provided supportive relationships for those engaged in historical cultural production. Ultimately, that network, and the support it offered, provided the impetus and model for the institutionalization of history culture in this period through the establishment of the nation’s first historical societies and museums.