NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC HISTORY I
HIST GA1750
FALL 2015
PETER J. WOSH
pw1@nyu.edu
(212) 998-8601
Office Hours: Thursdays, 2-6
Purpose
Provide an introductory overview to the public history field in its diverse venues and
manifestations.
Consider the ways in which historians have engaged various audiences, with particular
emphasis on public constructions of history.
Dissect such major theoretical constructs in the field as memory, heritage, community,
and commemoration.
Discuss current issues, trends, and theories that continue to change the nature of public
history.
Gain a basic understanding of the issues surrounding such public history work as
museum exhibits, house and site interpretations, historical societies, historic preservation, and
digital projects.
Examine sites where public history work occurs.
Introduce such public history methodologies as oral history, material culture, and archival
documentation that historians use to communicate their work.
Develop a sense of basic legal and ethical issues facing public historians who work
outside academia.
Supplement the theoretical component of the course with a variety of assignments that
analyze the ways in which public historians carry out their work and their responsibilities.
Assignments:
Reflect on the history of public history, as dissected in this week’s readings. Discuss the
changing nature and definition of the discipline, the issues and debates that appear to
characterize the movement, and your own stance as a public historian. Due: September 9.
Select a memorial that you find particularly interesting and prepare a three-four page
paper that discusses its significance and contextualizes it within the history of memorialization.
Due: October 7.
Draft an entry for the Clio.com app by identifying and selecting an historical landmark or
site, writing an essay that includes visuals, sources and links, and uploading it to the classroom
page. Due October 28.
Discuss a particular historic house, historical site, or “private history museum,” focusing
on its history, major accomplishments, effectiveness, issues, and programming challenges. Write
a four-five page paper that critically analyzes the site and contains some constructive suggestions
for future directions. Due: November 11.
Prepare a presentation around a particular topic concerning a block on Fourth Street, as
assigned through our collaboration with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
Group assignments will be distributed on October 21. Final project and public presentation on:
December 16.
Assignment Time Line:
September 9 -- Reflect on the history of public history, as dissected in this week’s readings.
Discuss the changing nature and definition of the discipline, the issues and debates that appear to
characterize the movement, and your own stance as a public historian.
October 7 – Select a memorial that you find particularly interesting and prepare a three-four
page paper that discusses its significance and contextualizes it within the history of
memorialization.
October 28 – Draft an entry for the Clio.com app by identifying and selecting an historical
landmark or site, writing an essay that includes visuals, sources and links, and uploading it to the
classroom page.
November 11 – Discuss a particular historic house, historical site, or “private history museum,”
focusing on its history, major accomplishments, effectiveness, issues, and programming
challenges. Write a four-five page paper that critically analyzes the site and contains some
constructive suggestions for future directions.
December 16 – Final project and public presentations due.
Readings:
Most of the class readings are freely available books, which you can access from Bobst Library’s
“Ebrary” or from “Project MUSE” on the Bobst website. Simply search for the authors, click on
the books, then click on the e-version and you should be ready to go. If you prefer hard copies
(or Kindle copies) feel free to order them from the publisher or download them to your e-reader.
There are two books (listed below) that do not seem to be easily available online, and I have
ordered copies in the bookstore for your convenience. The articles and book excerpts are either
from freely available online journals, or scanned excerpts from books that are available in your
NYU Classes website for this course. There are also some web-based resources, which I have
provided links for on the syllabus. I have tried to check all the links and mark them all
appropriately, but let me know if you have any questions or problems accessing materials.
Erika Doss, Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2010);
Tammy Gordon, Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life
(AltaMira Press, 2010)
Classroom and Grading Policy
There will be no incompletes in the course.
You are expected to attend all classes, complete all readings, and participate in large and small
group class discussions. If you are going to be absent, notify me prior to class. If you are absent
for a class session for any reason, excepting religious observance, you will be responsible for
submitting a 4-5 page paper that analyzes the readings for that week, due the following class
session. Assignments that are submitted late with no negotiated extensions will receive a
reduced grade.
Assignments are due by the end of class on the dates listed above. I prefer that you submit them
electronically as Word documents, since I like to send my reactions by using the “comment”
feature of Word. I will, however, accept “hard copy” documents.
Please observe page limits, pay attention to comments on written work, and take comments into
consideration when completing future assignments.
Grades are determined according to the following criteria: Class Participation (10%); Public
History Reflection (10%); Memorial Reflection (15%); Historic Site/House Analysis (15%);
Clio.com Assignment (20%); Final Research Project/Public Presentation (30%).
SEPTEMBER 2
-
INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
There are several public history resources that all students should be familiar with.
The National Council on Public History constitutes the major professional association that
engages most public historians. The web site: http://www.ncph.org, contains a wealth of
information concerning job opportunities, professional conferences and workshops, publications
and other resources. Students should also regularly follow the Public History Commons
http://publichistorycommons.org/ site, which includes the informative “History@Work” blog
that discusses current issues in the field.
Other more specialized web sites also exist that concern various aspects of the public history
movement. Historic preservation students at several universities banded together to establish
PreserveNet in 1994, which is based at Cornell University and which contains news, job
postings, calls for advocacy and internship opportunities for preservationists. This site can be
accessed at: http://www.preservenet.cornell.edu.
The American Association for State and Local History, which seceded from the American
Historical Association in 1940, constitutes the organization of choice for many local historians,
historic site managers, and history museum workers. It also publishes numerous handy how-todo-it manuals and can be found at: http://www.aaslh.org.
The Society of American Archivists, which also broke away from the American Historical
Association in 1936, serves as the principal North American organization for the archival
profession at: http://www2.archivists.org.
The Oral History Association, established in 1966, maintains a consciously international focus
and generates scholarship concerning the relationship between human memory and history. It
publishes a journal, Oral History Review, operates the H-Oral listserv, and has an informative
web site at: http://www.oralhistory.org/.
The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University constitutes
the principal source of information for historians interested in digital projects and also operates
the History News Network. This excellent resource is located at: http://www.chnm.gmu.edu.
The National Coalition for History is a Washington-based, non-profit educational organization
that provides leadership in history-related advocacy, acting as a clearinghouse for news and
information concerning history legislation and political developments. All students should read
its updates and subscribe to its RSS feed. Information concerning the organization may be found
at: http://www.historycoalition.org.
SEPTEMBER 9
THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AND THE PUBLIC
HISTORY MOVEMENT
Required Readings: Denise Meringolo, Museums, Monuments, and National Parks:
Toward a New Genealogy of Public History (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012)
(PROJECT MUSE E-BOOK);
G. Wesley Johnson, “Editor’s Preface,” Public Historian (Autumn 1978), I:1, pp. 4-10
(E-JOURNAL);
Robert Kelley, “Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects,” Public Historian
(Autumn 1978), I:1, pp. 16-28 (E-JOURNAL);
Ronald J. Grele, “Whose History? Whose Public? What is the Goal of a Public
Historian?” Public Historian (Winter 1981), pp. 40-48 (E-JOURNAL)
National Council on Public History, “What Is Public History?” at the following URL:
http://ncph.org/cms/what-is-public-history/
SEPTEMBER 16
-
HISTORIC PRESERVATION: PAST AND PRESENT
Required Readings: Andrew Hurley, “Preservation in the Inner City,” “An Experiment in
North St. Louis,” and “Scholars in the Asphalt Jungle” chapters in Beyond Preservation: Using
Public History to Revitalize Inner Cities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010)
(PROJECT MUSE E-BOOK);
Randall Mason, “Memory Sites: Buildings, Parks, and Events” in The Once and Future
New York: Historic Preservation and the Modern City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2009) (NYU CLASSES);
Chris Wilson, “Restoration is the Most Total Destruction,” in The Myth of Santa Fe
(University of New Mexico Press, 1997) (NYU CLASSES);
Stephanie E. Yuhl, “A Golden Haze of Memory and Association: The Creation of a
Historic Charleston Landscape,” in The Making of Historic Charleston (North Carolina Press,
2005) (NYU CLASSES);
Ned Kaufman, “Moving Forward: Futures for a Preservation Movement,” in Kaufman,
ed., Race, Place, and Story: Essays on the Past and Future of Historic Preservation (New York:
Routledge, 2009) (NYU CLASSES)
SEPTEMBER 23
-
PRIVATIZING AMERICAN HERITAGE
Required Readings: Jessie Swigger, “History Is Bunk”: Assembling the Past At Henry
Ford’s Greenfield Village (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014) (PROJECT
MUSE E-BOOK);
Mike Wallace, “Mickey Mouse History: Portraying the Past at Disneyworld,” in Mickey
Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1996) (NYU CLASSES);
David Lowenthal, “The Practice of Heritage,” in Possessed by the Past: The Heritage
Crusade and the Spoils of History (New York: The Free Press, 1996) (NYU CLASSES);
Christopher J. Castaneda, “Writing Contract Business History” Public Historian (21:1,
Winter 1999), pp. 11-29
SEPTEMBER 30
-
COMMUNITY-BASED AND DIY HISTORY
Required Readings: Andrea A. Burns, From Storefront to Monument: Tracing the
History of the Black Museum Movement (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013)
(PROJECT MUSE E-BOOK);
“Baltimore ’68: Riots and Rebirth” at: http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/index.html;
“Coney Island History Project,” at: http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/;
“SOHO Memory Project,” at http://sohomemory.com/;
Lauren Gutterman, “OutHistory.org: An Experiment in LGBTQ Community HistoryMaking,” The Public Historian (32:4) (2010), (E-JOURNAL) and also examine the website:
http://www.outhistory.org
OCTOBER 7
-
MEMORIALIZATION AND PUBLIC HISTORY
Required Readings: Erika Doss, Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2010) (BOOK);
Ari Kelman, “A Perfect Mob,” in A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of
Sand Creek (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013) (PROJECT MUSE E-BOOK);
Daniel J. Cohen, “The Future of Preserving the Past,” available at the following URL:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-new-media/essays/?essayid=39;
Sheila A. Brennan and T. Mills Kelly, “Why Collecting History Online is Web 1.5,”
available at the following URL: http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-newmedia/essays/?essayid=47
OCTOBER 14
-
HERITAGE AND CIVIL WAR
“Historians’ Forum: The American Civil War’s Centennial vs. the Sesquicentennial,”
Civil War History (December 2011), pp. 380-402 (BOBST E-JOURNAL);
David Blight, “Decoration Days,” in Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American
Memory (Harvard University Press, 2001) (BOBST ACLS HUMANITIES E-BOOK);
LeeAnnWhites, “You Can’t Change History By Moving A Rock: Gender, Race, and the
Cultural Politics of Confederate Memorialization,” in Alice Fahs, ed., The Memory of the Civil
War in American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) (BOBST EBOOK);
Reiko Hillyer, “Relics of Reconciliation: The Confederate Museum and Civil War
Memory in the New South,” Public Historian 33:2 (Spring 2011), pp. 35-62 (E-JOURNAL);
Kevin Allen, “The Second Battle of Fort Sumter: The Debate Over the Politics of Race
and Historical Memory at the Opening of America’s Civil War Centennial, 1961,” Public
Historian 33:2 (Spring 2011), pp. 94-109 (E-JOURNAL);
Marie Tyler-McGraw, “Southern Comfort Levels: Race, Heritage Tourism, and the Civil
War in Richmond,” in James Oliver Horton and Lois Horton, eds., Slavery and History: The
Tough Stuff of American Memory (New York: The New Press, 2006) (NYU CLASSES);
John M. Coski, “The Confederate Battle Flag in American History and Culture”
photoessay Southern Cultures 2:2 (Winter 1996), pp. 195-231 (BOBST E-JOURNAL)
OCTOBER 21
-
FINAL PROJECT DISCUSSIONS
Representatives from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation will visit
the class in order to discuss the final class project, hand out assignments, and present research
methodologies.
OCTOBER 28
-
LOCAL AND COMMUNITY HISTORY
Required Readings: Judith Richardson, Possessions: The History and Uses of Haunting
in the Hudson Valley (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005) (BOBST E-BRARY);
Carol Kammen, “Local History’s Past,” from her book On Doing Local History
(Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 2003) (NYU CLASSES);
Leon Fink, “When Community Comes Home to Roost: The Southern Milltown as Lost
Cause,” Journal of Social History 40:1 (Fall 2006), pp. 119-145 (E-JOURNAL);
David Glassberg, “Place and Placelessness in American History” in Sense of History: The
Place of the Past in American Life (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001) (BOBST
E-BOOK)
NOVEMBER 4
-
HISTORIC HOUSES
Required Readings: “Open House: Reimagining the Historic House Museum,” Special
Issue of The Public Historian (37:2, May 2015), pp. 10-111 edited by Lisa Junkin Lopez (articles
by Grossi, Stone, Lowe, Pharaon et al, Scott, Radke/Al-Senan, and Vagnone et al. (EJOURNAL);
Patricia West, “Gender Politics and the Orchard House Museum” in Domesticating
History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums (Smithsonian Press, 1999) (NYU
CLASSES);
Tiya Miles, “Showplace of the Cherokee Nation: Race and the Making of a Southern
House Museum,” The Public Historian (33:4, November 2011), pp. 11-34 (E-JOURNAL);
Christine Arato “This House Holds Many Memories: Constructions of a Presidential
Birthplace at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site,” in Seth Bruggeman, ed., Born
in the U.S.A.: Birth, Commemoration, and American Public Memory (Amherst: UMass Press,
2012 (NYU CLASSES)
NOVEMB ER 11
-
HISTORICAL SOCIETIES AND HISTORY MUSEUMS
Tammy Gordon, Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life
(AltaMira Press, 2010) (BOOK);
Andrew Ferguson, “The Past Isn’t What It Used To Be,” in Land of Lincoln: Adventures
in Abe’s America (New York: Grove Press, 1987), pp. 69-89) (NYU CLASSES);
Richard Rabinowicz, “Eavesdropping at the Well: Interpretive Media in the Slavery in
New York Exhibition,” Public Historian 35:3 (August 2013), pp. 8-45 (E-JOURNAL);
Required Readings:
John Kuo Wei Tchen and Liz Sevcenko, “The ‘Dialogic Museum’ Revisited: A
Collaborative Reflection,” inn Bill Adair, et al, ed., Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in
a User-Generated World (Philadephia: Pew Center, 2012) (NYU CLASSES);
Cary Carson, “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B?” The Public Historian
(November 2008), pp. 9-27 (E-JOURNAL)
NOVEMBER 18
-
PROJECT UPDATES
DECEMBER 2
-
HISTORIC SITES AS WORKPLACES
Required Readings: Amy Tyson, The Wages of History: Emotional Labor on Public
History’s Front Lines (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013) (BOBST PROJECT
MUSE E-BOOK);
Richard Handler and Eric Gable, “The Front Lines: Smile Free or Die,” in The New
History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg (Duke University Press,
1997) (NYU CLASSES);
Cathy Stanton, “Rituals of Reconnection: Work as History and History as Work in
Postindustrial Lowell,” in The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006) (BOBST PROJECT MUSE E-BOOK)
DECEMBER 9
-
PROJECT DRY RUNS
DECEMBER 16
-
PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS