The History of History on the Internet

     Digital archives are useful, but ultimately unreliable, and according to Cohen should be incorporated into future archiving.  Using technology as a teaching tool has promise, but can actually be more confusing, as Brown suggests.  Brennan and Kelly’s case study demonstrates how the difficulty of a site’s technology can hinder its usefulness as a historical depository.  Between these three readings, one thing is clear: the internet is the future of historical inquiry.

     While books will always be useful, and traditional archives will always be necessary, digital forums have provided not only larger storage space for material that would not make it into the space-conscious traditional archive, but also a space for open communication and the spontaneous collection of oral histories.  The internet has provided a wonderful resource that is both full of opportunities and pitfalls.  This is why public historians have to beware.  The temptation of nearly unlimited archive space threatens the carefully constructed parameters of previous research methods, and it also makes the digital materials precariously dependent on servers and constantly updating technology.  There are few 8-track players left.  What about when the floppy drive and compact disc drives are no longer viable one hundred years from now?  There are even concerns that compact discs are breaking down and some from twenty years ago are no longer readable, either due to physical damage or different HTML formats.

     Digital archiving from the public is also valuable but overwhelming.  Archives of post-9/11 will contribute to research of this event years from now, just as the archives of the Pearl Harbor attack have serve researchers today.  Yet, the websites archived that day, and the subsequent websites set up to collect memories in photos, videos, and stories are a jumbled mass of information not easily organized.  In Brown’s article teaching devices and their organization figure prominently, and can impede research just as much as encourage it, as Brennan and Kelly found.  Overall, I support the move towards digital communication and archiving, but only so far as it is a supplement to traditional sources.  After all, aren't we all using some of that technology to communicate our thoughts about public history right now?!

Historical Accuracy?... In Hollywood?... Yeah right....

     The relationship of history and Hollywood, as Glassberg mentions, is complicated and much more based in profit than accuracy.  Toplin critiques the critics of cinematic history, wanting to place the fictionalization of characters and timelines in the context of cinema as a genre.  Davis argues that history told through film should also be told through a book in order to remain closer to the factual information, and allow readers to know the holes in the historical record, and plausible conjectures in accordance with contemporary society.  Frisch also deals with a war documentary, like Glassberg, but Vietnam was still alive in living memory, unlike the Civil War.  All of these readings have both positive and negative things to say about the adaptations of history in the media.

     I thoroughly enjoyed Glassberg’s look at the letters Burns received about his Civil War documentary.  The interesting divide between the letter writers consists of a regional difference along gender lines.  The fact that most women who wrote to him were from the North, and most of the men from the South is an interesting way to look at how America reacted to this representation of the Civil War.  The largest criticism seemed to be the glossing over of slavery, including the reasons for actually fighting the Civil War.

     The overly critical historians whom are dissatisfied with historical representations in film should consider the points that Toplin and Davis make about the limitations of film and providing history to a general audience.  Simplifying timelines, and focusing more on character development than events are necessities for translating history to the screen.  Unfortunately this means that romanticized affairs and misrepresentations of village life create collateral damage of actual relationships and social strata from that time period.  For some reason, movie directors seemed to think that the public cannot handle accurate interpretations of “foreign,” bygone eras, and will not be able to figure out the motivations of a wife claiming an imposter as a husband unless they injected feelings of love.

     While I admit that I do not give the general public much credit when it comes to understanding cultures from the past, maybe movie directors should give their audience a chance.  Although documentaries are not as lucrative as box-office movies, movies do not have to sacrifice exciting story lines in order to portray historical characters in a complicated, and realistic light.  Whether dealing with war, or with legal history, there are considerations that have to be made when critiquing historical films due to the medium of communication.

Personal vs. Public: The Challenges of Oral History and Public Memory

     Oral history and public memory are similar endeavors, but with very different trajectories.  Oral history depends on the individual, and their experiences.  Memory projects focus on the collective experience of a community, however, which minimalizes the experience of the individual, which also means glossing over differing experiences.  The book has an incredible range of international experiences, really opening up public historians to the way oral history has developed around the world. 

     The book has three sections, but I found the second section on “Recreating Identity and Community” the most interesting.  Particularly the chapter on Apartheid South Africa, and how memory has helped in healing.  Yet now post-Apartheid oral histories have to take a more individual approach in order to differentiate their experiences.  The political contention present in a country as torn as South Africa during and after Apartheid was a wonderful example of how public memory takes on a political agenda, and higher purpose than just memory collection: the coalescing of a community trying to come together after severe social dislocation.  Oral history did contribute to the public memory, but went into larger narratives of one voice.  Oral history in post-Apartheid has the opportunity to use these memories in a more analytic way.  Although reconciliation is not complete, these collections of memory no longer have to serve the one-voice purpose.

     Public historians often rely on oral histories for interpreting contemporary experiences and translating those stories into history for public consumption.  This type of public memory comes form the individual, but memory studies have gone beyond the stories to a collective experience that should be representative of certain social and cultural events or periods.  This difference between detailed and broad shows the complications of the individual oral history approach, and the generalized pursuit of public memory.

Don't Throw ANYTHING Away!

     Archive Stories is both interesting and intimidating.  Made up of three parts, this book has fifteen stories of historians and their encounters with archival research.  Dealing with both domestic and foreign archives, these stories illuminate some of the challenges faced by researchers, and how archivists control quite a bit of the access most believe to be the foundation of “objective” research.  The materials are not just there to be discovered – some documents are privileged, and some are even destroyed if an archivist does not believe they have enough importance to warrant storage space and organization.

     The chapter I found the most intriguing was Kathryn J. Oberdeck’s “Archives of the Unbuilt Environment: Documents and Discourses of Imagined Space in Twentieth-Century Kohler, Wisconsin.”  The tensions between the planned community that Kohler put together with urban planners in order to control the sprawling industrial village before it got too out of hand, and the actual community that emerged can only be seen by comparing the intent with the actual result.  That would be comparing the plans (and there were many of them) to the actual built environment.  Today, the community serves as a golf resort... quite a bit different from the original intent of housing industrial workers who built the expensive faucets for Kohler.  Oberdeck lamented how archivists put the papers related to planned environments at a low priority due to the greater emphasis on papers that proved the existence of buildings that had actually been built.  Understandably, archivists had assumed that papers on an imagined community would not be as applicable to history as documentation of what actually happened. 

     This book serves as a guide for anyone interested in visiting or using an archive.  There is even a chapter that addresses digital archives, but the main focus is on physical, domestic archives and the experiences historians have had in both positive and negative ways.  Oberdeck’s chapter was the most challenging to me, since I agreed with the archivists at first, until Oberdeck demonstrates that yes, documentation of planned communities, even if they physically manifest into something else, are important to historical research when coming from a more abstract methodology.  Historians need these documents to get at how idealistic urban planning actually played out in a realistic economic, and social environment.  So according to Oberdeck, do not throw anything out!  Even if you think it is unimportant, future historians may find intriguing ways to reevaluate history through these seemingly “useless” documents.  Now, this may cause a huge back up in document storage, but how can you make accurate and objective value judgments on history?

Professional Public Pageantry, Parades, and Perception

     Everyone likes a parade.  Cities, and even the nation, recognized the appeal of these celebrations and took advantage of these shows of solidarity and patriotism, particularly during the 20^th century.  Through examples such as the Civil War Centennial, the Bicentennial of the Revolutionary War, and local celebrations like the Portola Festival in San Francisco, public historians can learn how these ephemeral displays of public sentiment incorporate their own interpretations of historical importance.

     The centennial and bicentennial celebrations provided opportunity for renewed patriotism in a time of social turmoil.  The Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and urban conflict characterized this period, but the patriotic fervor of the anniversaries was a way to overshadow the controversies.  Attempts to bring the disparate parts of national identity together as one “people” manifested as celebrations of Grant and Lee, and George Washington.  Pageantry has a purpose in public life as a symbolic representation of the people, but the Portola Festival was missing a noticeable chunk of the population: the labor party.

     The Portola Festival was seemingly inclusive, and a celebration of the area’s founding, but Glassberg mentions the significant absence of the labor party in the representation of the community.  The city brought out multiple neighborhoods, even the Chinese, but the façade of complete participation covered up the fact that political and economic issues influenced the labor party’s decision to abstain.  The festival ended up draining the city’s coffers, so it did not survive because of its economic insolvency, but the value for public historians comes from the turn-of-the-century view of public history as a method for consolidating the community, particularly the powers of community organizations.

War Memorials and Community Memory

     Memorials, particularly war memorials, are not for the dead, but for the living.  Just as tombstones and cemeteries do not benefit the dead, memorials provide a location and something tangible for those still living to remember those who have passed.  They are also testaments to the shared memory of a war experience.  David Glassberg’s chapter on “Remembering a War” discusses not only the public interpretations of war in memory, but also the reactions of veterans when they returned home to a less-than-enthusiastic welcome.

     Glassberg focuses on the town of Orange, Massachusetts, and with how the residents in this town commemorated their war heroes.  They had an obelisk for the Civil War already when the question of erecting some type of memorial for the Great War came up in the community.  Ultimately, the town decided to build a memorial park and reserved space for a physical monument.  The veterans were upset with this decision, since it appeared that the community was using the memorial as an excuse to get a beautification project approved.  Understandably, the veterans felt like outsiders in this process since the town did not even celebrate Armistice Day the next year.  Veterans continued to make their own memorials and remembrances without impetus from the community.

     The differences in how the community remembered war, and how the veterans remembered war shows the multiple aspects that go into public memory and memorials.  Whether the monument has the names of fallen soldiers inscribed on its face, or the memorial consists of a local gym or park, these tools are how the public reconciles multiple war narratives into a cohesive and easily understood symbol of patriotism and community.  The challenge to public historians comes from the simplification of war memories, and potentially explosive confrontations when the monolithic view is questioned, as in the Enola Gay exhibit.

Preservation as Cultural Resource Management

     This week, the readings are concerned with creating and regulating “history” in public places.  Glassberg’s chapters on “Rethinking New England Town Character,” and “Making Places in California” both rely on evaluating the public’s conception of history and how to represent authenticity.  Waldbauer’s discussion of the 1906 Antiquities Act’s centennial gives a concise overview of the progression in protecting both historical and natural land/resources in America and how these laws have shaped our understanding of preservation.

     Glassberg’s comment on how modern efforts contribute more to the New England sense of historicity than the age of the homes themselves really speaks to this rise in preservation.  Echoing the trend of Williamsburg, the Deerfield example shows how community involvement determines historical value, and the extent to which a town will be rehabilitated.  Although public historians do assist in preservation projects, most of the responsibility is in the hands of private citizens and the larger community.

     The tourist value of preservation is clearly in use for Glassberg’s discussion of Californians reviving the history of the Gold Rush.  One thing I really enjoyed about Glassberg’s chapters were the pictures, posters, and maps.  These different types of media provides an interesting view of preservation and how certain pictures were taken to raise money for preservation.  These appeals to local history lovers, and tourists alike, invested communities in their nearby historic resources.

     Waldbauer is less based in narrative, but is incredibly informative about the development of laws that created the National Park Service and regulated natural and historical sites around America, such as Devil’s Tower and monuments.  Included in these legal transactions of natural resources were tangles with American Indian interests and tribal lands.  The complications of setting aside land for public consumption or protection (or both) dealt with tribal sovereignty, which also overlaps with some of the issues in Glassberg’s chapter on California where interests differed on presentation.

     Overall, these selections provide the reader with information on how Americans have understood preservation, and how to regulate historical and natural resources for the public.  Senses of historic community, or tourist-minded publicity are two expressions of public history.  Since the Antiquities Act of 1906 the government has taken steps to protect and regulate our nation’s history.  All three of these readings speak to this private preservation for public enjoyment under the control of the government, but ultimately the impetus for preservation lies with the people.

Historic Preservation: Personalism vs. Professionalism, and Scientific vs. Postmodern

The two articles for this week discuss the interpretation of material culture associated with great white men significant in local and national history.  Lindgren focuses on the preservation of the Thomas Lee house from the 17^th century from a personal and professional perspective.  The conflict here is a microcosm of the larger trend of professionalization as men increasingly became involved in the preservation movement.  Nolan and Buckman’s article looks at the interpretations of Monticello and Montpelier as scientific versus postmodern, respectively.  I understand why the preservationists at Monticello wanted to “restore” the building and grounds, but attempting to control Monticello’s interpretation as static does not give the public much understanding of how Monticello has developed over the years.  Although Monpelier’s interpretation is more complex, I feel that this type of postmodernist viewpoint is more accurate to the property’s history.

The postmodernist view includes multiple narratives of Montpelier’s owners over the years, including the additions to the main house and changes of the landscape.  While this may confuse some visitors, this is a much more inclusive interpretation that shows the evolution of the home from Madison’s ownership until 1983.  Although Monticello has a more traditional and static history of the house, the scientific approach is not as traditional.  This trend towards scientific “discovery” of history comes when men begin to take over historic preservation from the women who had started the movement by saving George Washington’s Mount Vernon home.  Lindgren’s piece really makes this transition clear as a move from personalism to professionalism. 

Although some men practiced personalism, women overwhelmingly used this approach to preservation.  Even in the 20^th century men received training as anthropologists and pseudo-scientists, which led to a different approach to historic homes and the development of public history.  Women did not have as much access to this type of training, since women were part of this Republican Motherhood that valued the learning and appreciation of history, but not formal education in scientific preservation.  The largest issue between women and men’s approach to public history in the early 20^th century comes from differences in educational opportunities.  And while the Monticello interpretation comes from this scientific tradition that developed over the 20^th century, Montpelier’s use of postmodernism is more in line with the reclamation of multiple narratives.

The Enola Gay Controversy

     According to Dubin, controversy over museum exhibitions is a good thing, although controversy does present unique complications.  I agree with this assessment, because conflict indicates that the audience is engaging with the subject and they are invested in museum’s interpretation.  Without controversy, how would the dialogue about the Enola Gay become part of American consciousness? 

     What I found particularly interesting about the Enola Gay exhibit was the generational line between opposing sides.  The veterans supported a “victory culture” of hero worship and clearly delineated ‘good’ and ‘bad.’  The ‘disenchanted’ baby boomers, however, had a more postmodernist view of world culture that did not dictate the superiority of any specific group or people.  A comical point for me was when the veterans claimed the Smithsonian was taking too long to restore the plane and threatened to move it to the Truman library.  There was no winning!  If the Smithsonian meticulously restored the plane’s 1940s appearance they were taking too long, but if they did not do it correctly the vets would have been upset with the misrepresentation!  Contemporary issues over Japanese dominance in the world marketplace also affected the atmosphere of the Enola Gay exhibit.  Racial prejudice and fears of an Eastern takeover in the 1980s and 90s strangely mirrored some of the anxieties present during World War II.

     The second chapter of this Dubin excerpt also made sense, but I did not really understand the title.  I get that the Enola Gay has become an exhibit which public historians can all look to as an example of protest and controversy, but as a verb?  Yes, most museums enjoy plenty of visitors and community support without controversial exhibits, but why do researchers focus on the complicated cases?  I can answer my own question here.  The controversies provide wonderful examples of what to do, and what not to do, when dealing with a difficult exhibit, but why not have examples of the successful, peaceful museums?  This is probably my own concern talking because I am in the middle of planning a wedding and must choose the least resistant route in order to maintain my sanity, but besides the free publicity, the only benefit of a controversial exhibit seems to be the dialogue it sparks.  Mostly the exhibits cause heartache and anger without benefiting those who will not budge in their interpretation. 

     I’m sympathizing with the old curmudgeons supporting the victory viewpoint – not my usual.  It must be due to my cynical postmodernist sentimentality.

Slavery and Public History

     “The Tough Stuff of American Memory” is the subtitle for James and Lois Horton’s edited volume Slavery and Public History.  A very simple and colloquial phrase, but it gets to the heart of the issue.  Slavery and American history developed side-by-side, but frequently public presentations of history ignore this tension-fraught subject in order to make the visitors’ experience more palatable.  This book explores how public historians have attempted to integrate black history, specifically about slavery, into their interpretations since the mid-1980s according to the larger New Social History trend.    

     The two chapters I found the most interesting were Lois Horton’s look at the inclusion of Sally Hemmings in Monticello’s history, and Dwight Pitcaithley’s chapter on the National Park Service’s interpretation of what caused the Civil War.  Both of these chapters deal with an idealized look at our past that filters out the less-than-savory incidents.  The problem with this white-washed view of history is a lack of context.  Referring to slaves as “servants” and discussing their contributions in a passive voice in order to avoid the truth of their presence also avoids the affect slaves had on life at Monticello.  The response to this “integration” of slave history in the Monticello tours and history was mostly positive, as guests acknowledged the importance of slavery to American history overall.

      The visceral response, however, from Southern groups to the NPS inclusion of slavery in battlefield interpretations differed greatly from the Monticello case.  They claimed that the federal park system was insulting the South both today and for their part in the Civil War due to the ‘supposed’ immorality of slavery.  Those who opposed this change in interpretation claimed that the federal parks were judging the South harshly and unfairly desecrating half the soldiers whom had fallen on those very battlefields.  This reminded me of the conversation in class on September 7^th when we read the news article on the gentleman separating the horrors of slavery from Southern heritage pride in his role as Frederick Douglass.  No, you cannot truly separate the history of the Civil War from the history of slavery, just as you cannot separate general American history from the history of slavery.  For accurate and inclusive representations of history, public historians, or any historians for that matter, cannot cherry-pick according to their own agenda while ignoring the larger cultural context.  That type of history is irresponsible.

Levin's Defining Memory

     Are the roadside attractions claiming to have the world’s biggest ball of string really museums?  According to Levin and the fifteen other contributors to her book, Defining Memory (2007), YES.  As I read, I was reminded of a museum I once saw in Gatlinburg, TN.  They even have a website (http://thesaltandpeppershakermuseum.com) and a sister museum in Guadalest, Spain.  There are over 20,000 salt and pepper shakers in their collection. 

     The difficulty of defining public history also extends to defining a museum.  As Levin mentioned, the American Association of Museums has multiple guidelines, one of which is a $25,000 annual operating budget.  Those institutions that do not meet the official requirements, though, are still museums, right?  I agree that the definition of museum should be inclusive rather than exclusive, but categorizing all of the off-the-wall roadside stops as “local museums” seems a bit of a stretch to me.  There should be an additional category of “strange, weird, and unrelated” museums that do not discuss local history. 

     This collection of essays focuses more on the local museum that engages with the community, and I found that the feedback concerning the Dillinger museum was a wonderful example of local museums responding to their communities.  Changing the exhibit to feature a spotlight more on those who fought crime, rather than those breaking the laws, was different from the initial concept of a ‘Robin Hood’ character from the Depression era.  The addition of a police memorial next to the Dillinger museum’s entrance to garner support from law enforcement is a clear response to the community’s dislike for the “hero” status of a career criminal.

     The challenges of incorporating the community’s viewpoints, as well as including a worldview of multiple cultures are the major hurdles for today’s museums.  The democratization of history museums, and the inclusion of multiple institutions as museums all lead to defining memory as a joint public and private venture.  Levin’s book is an attempt to clarify the function of a local museum, and I believe that Defining Memory achieves this on a basic level.

What is Public History?

            I have struggled myself to define Public History as a methodology.  The National Council on Public History’s website grapples with this issue.  I agree most with Mary Rizzo’s definition: that Public History is interdisciplinary and the goal is to “make scholarly research accessible to the public.”  She also mentions that public history should spark thinking about power/causation in our own communities.  The ultimate conclusion from this H-Net forum accepted that the definition is open and fluid, and should be without limiting boundaries.  The readings touched upon a concern I have also dealt with when dealing with making history accessible to public audiences: mainly the position of public historians in academia.  A phrase that continually turned up was this sense of being an ‘in-between academic.’  Making academia’s complicated theories and interpretations understandable to the general public seems like a position of mediator.  Hence the ‘in-between’ feeling. 

            The article by Corbett and Miller on shared inquiry reiterated what the other readings mention about public history being situational, and how this field has a special challenge to adapt the unique demands of the materials/community by sharing interpretive authority.  The example of the Filipino community’s participation in an exhibit on the St. Louis World Fair and how one controversial photograph of dog eating led to a breakdown of the collaborative relationship between the curators and the Filipinos.  The bottom line of interpretive power stayed with the curators, even though their was a negotiation that ended in the removal of the photo from the exhibit.  The “shared” part of inquiry leads to a questioning of how “shared” it really is when public historians are supported in part by the establishment of traditional historical institutions.  Public historians have more power in deciding the final inclusion/exclusion of interpretations and material representations.  The only real area in which public historians do not have more agency compared to non-professionals is in oral history.  Historians are dependent on the information interviewees are willing to provide, although the historian has some power over how the interview will contribute to public history projects. 

            The readings for this week focused on the challenge of defining public history and developing a valid methodology.  In-between historians mediate the research from historical institutions into publicly accessible interpretations.  The biggest hurdle for translating research is not the translation into the vernacular, but tailoring the information for public acceptance and interest.  Bridging the vocabulary is rather easy compared to adjusting the interpretation according to public wants and needs.  Public history is useless unless the public can appreciate the history in the context of their own experience.  As Greg Smoak said, “Public history is history plus.”