Introduction to Public History

Catalog description

This course will introduce students to public history by teaching them skills to be both consumers and creators of historical narratives that are present in the public sphere. While public historians use the same research and analytical skills as academic historians, they also must find ways to engage, entertain as well as educate their public audience. Public historians are trained professionals who work in historic sites, archives, museums, government agencies, historical societies,. Students will learn how public histories are never neutral, but they always engage the public on issues involving power and identity. Just look at the news on any given day and one will find arguments over statues of Columbus or Robert E. Lee in public spaces. There are fights over the interpretation of slavery at National Civil War Battlefieds or at presidential homes such as Mt. Vernon or Monticello. There are debates over which groups get museums on the National Mall or have other representation in public spaces or in a public conversation. Students will discover that all public history projects somehow engage with controversial issues from both the past and the present. We will explore the challenges of interpretation and re-interpretation through local histories (St. Marie Among the Iroquois/Skanonh Center, Columbus Statue, well-documented arguments over projects of national importance (the Smithsonian Enola Gay exhibit and the Vietnam War Memorial), the creation of the Harriet Tubman NP and the Seneca Falls NP and Women's Hall of Fame, to name a few topics. We will also discuss digital history tools and methods and how they are changing the practice of public history.