History 659: Public History
Fall 2011
Herter 342
Tues 2:30-5:00
D. Glassberg
Herter 608
545-4252
glassberg@history.umass.edu
This course will introduce you to public history theory and practice. A fundamental premise of
the course is that practicing public history well requires an outlook, ethical stance, and set of skills that go
beyond what is usually required of historians. Public historians intervene responsibly in the memory
streams of the communities in which they practice. During the course of the semester, we will analyze
how these interventions take place in oral history projects, archives, civic celebrations, museums, and
historic sites; in mass media such as television, film, and the internet; and in the environment through
historic preservation and landscape conservation. We will consider how various versions of the past are
created, institutionalized, and communicated as the public history, as well as the relationship of those
public histories to more private versions of past communicated among family and friends. Along the way,
you will learn the various dimensions of shared authority and shared inquiry that inform contemporary
public historical practice.
Plan ahead:
On Monday night September 19, class will meet 7:00-8:30 PM in Herter 601 to see the film, “Objects and
Memory.” Note that this film will be broadcast on Springfield Public Television (WGBY) on
September 11 at 4:00. The broadcast version is slightly shorter than the DVD version.
On Friday September 23 and Saturday September 24, we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the
Public History Program with a conference on campus: “Public History 2036: The Next 25 Years.” It’s a
great opportunity to learn from the really smart people we are bringing in. Please attend.
On Thursday night October 13, class will meet 7:00-8:30 PM in Herter 601 to discuss readings about
Popular History and Documentary film.
On Tuesday October 25, class will meet 12:30 – 3:30 at Lowell NHP. Including travel time, this means
leaving Amherst by 10:30 and returning by 5:30. We will go by van or carpool.
On Wednesday November 16 through Friday November 18, the New England Museum Association will
be meeting in Hartford. More information to follow.
On Friday December 9, 2:00-5:00, students will present their final projects in a workshop open to the
department and invited guests. Unlike the other events noted above, you absolutely must show up for
this one!
Course requirements:
1) five short (800 word) analytical essays: a review of either Richard White OR Rosenzweig/Thelen
book, due 9/20; a summary of the PH 2036 session you are assigned to cover, due 9/27; a review of a
museum exhibit, due 10/18; a review of a website, due 11/8; and a review of your choice of public history
product that appears in some other form, such as a commemorative ceremony, historic preservation plan
or historic structure report, monument or preserved landscape, collections guide or finding aid,
documentary film, popular novel, or NPS general management plan or other NPS document. That paper
will be due the week after we discuss that form in class. (30%)
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History 659: Public History
2) active participation in class discussions of assigned readings; (20%)
3) active participation in a group field project for a local public history organization. This allows
you to connect public history theory and practice, You will be assigned to a group. The work is structured
this way because public historians almost invariably work on projects that others have deemed desirable
(rather than follow their own interests), and perform their work as part of a team. Early on, I will ask each
of you to rank your preferences, but I will make the ultimate assignments.
4) a 20 minute group oral presentation of your project in a conference style event that will be open to
the Department and invited guests on the afternoon of Friday December 9 from 2:00-5:00 (25%), and
5) a 10-12 page final paper reflecting on your experience with the group project, and how the
insights and lessons that you learned from it relate to course readings and themes. Toward that end, it
will be useful to keep some sort of journal or log reflecting on the readings and your field experience as it
happens. (25%).
The 2011 Field Service Projects for History 659 are as follows:
1) Documentary film project: “The Civil Rights Movement in Springfield” with WGBY TV,
Springfield. During Spring 2011, WGBY’s Latino Youth Media Project interviewed 19 Springfield civil
rights pioneers on digital video. UMass Public History students will work with this footage plus local news
footage already digitized by WGBY, still photographs, and other materials to begin the process of
producing a narrative film for possible broadcast.
2) Digital history project: “The Springfield Tornado of June 2011” with students from Dawn
Fontaine’s high school classes at Central High School and/or Commerce High School, Springfield.
Mrs. Fontaine’s students wrote first person accounts of the Tornado right after it happened, took
photographs, and gathered other materials. UMass students will help the high school students organize
what they have collected into a public website and on-line exhibit.
3) Exhibit project: W.E.B. Du Bois and Springfield, with the Pan African Historical Museum USA,
Springfield, MA. Students will make use of the Du Bois Papers in Special Collections and University
Archives, UMass Amherst, to develop an exhibit for PAHMUSA in downtown Springfield that
complements the “Becoming a Son of Great Barrington” exhibit created by UMass Public History students
during 2010-11 currently on display in the lobby of the Triplex Theater, Great Barrington, MA
4) Oral History project: oral history of UMass Music Department, with UMass Music
Department/Archives. The UMass Amherst Music Department has an illustrious 40 year history that it
wants to record for posterity through interviews with retired faculty and staff. Students will undergo oral
history training, be assigned interview subjects, perform an interview or interviews, and supply a
transcription as well as digital recording (audio, video, or both) to the UMass Archives.
5) Historic Preservation project: Nomination of Guantanamo Navy Base in Cuba for the National
Register of Historic Places. This team project will be undertaken with members of Professor Max
Page’s fall 2011 Historic Preservation class. Liz Sevcenko, Founding Director of the International
Coalition of Sites of Conscience, will explain more about this project when she visits campus on 9/23.
Note: Since several of these are large ongoing projects, we will define a product that you can realistically
complete in a semester and expect that you or another group of students will advance the project further
in subsequent semesters. Also, transportation and/or travel subsidies may be available for students
working on the three Springfield projects.
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History 659: Public History
Books: on reserve at Du Bois Library and available for purchase at Amherst Books, 8 Main Street,
Amherst. Most of these books are on the field list for Public History; still, we are only reading parts of
some, so you may want to consult the syllabus before making purchases.
R. White, Remembering Ahanagran: Storytelling in a Family’s Past
R. Rosenzweig & D. Thelen, Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life
D. Glassberg, Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life
J. & L. Horton, eds. Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory (also
available on-line)
E. Linenthal & T. Englehardt, eds. History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the
American Past
P. West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums
C. Stanton, The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Post-Industrial City
D. Cohen & R. Rosenzweig, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the
Past on the Web (also available on line)
M. Page & R. Mason, eds. Giving Preservation a History
P. Korza and B. Bacon, eds. History as a Catalyst for Civic Dialogue: Case Studies from
Animating Democracy
Additional books on Reserve or SPARK site are marked with a (*) in the schedule of topics/readings
below. Journal articles available electronically through the UMass Library are marked with a @.
Some journals and organizations to know about (organizations all have websites):
H-Public (H-Net listserv for public historians)
The Public Historian (National Council on Public History)
Oral History and Oral History Review (Oral History Association)
History News (American Association of State and Local History)
Museum News (American Association of Museums)
CRM: The Journal of Heritage Stewardship (National Park Service)
Common Ground: Preserving Our Nation’s Heritage (National Park Service)
Prologue (National Archives)
American Archivist (Society of American Archivists)
Historic Preservation and Preservation Forum (National Trust for Historic Preservation)
Journal of American History (Organization of American Historians)
American Historical Review (American Historical Association)
American Quarterly (American Studies Association)
History and Memory (representations of the past)
Film and History
Winterthur Portfolio (arts and material culture)
Landscape and Places (built environment)
Note: Print issues of these journals are in the Library stacks under call number.
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History 659: Public History
Schedule of topics/readings: (Readings above the space are required for all; those below the space
will be divided up among class members; @ means available on line, * means on SPARK site)
9/6
Introduction: What is Public History?
@K. Corbett & H. Miller, “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry,” Public Historian 28 (Winter 2006): 15-38.
@R. Grele, "Whose Public? Whose History? What is the Goal of a Public Historian?" Public Historian 3
(Winter 1981): 40-48.
*M. Frisch, "The Memory of History," Radical History Review (1981): 9-23; also in A Shared Authority
(1990), pp. 15-27, and Benson, Brier, & Rosenzweig, eds, Presenting the Past (1986), pp. 5-17.
@ S. Bookspan, “Something Ventured, Many Things Gained: Reflections on Being a HistorianEntrepreneur,” Public Historian 28 (Winter 2006): 39-66, 67-74..
*J. Green, “Prologue: Making Movement History,” in Taking History to Heart (2000), pp. 1-21.
*M. Wallace, "The Politics of Public History," in J. Blatti, ed., Past Meets Present (1987), pp. 37-53 (also
in Mickey Mouse History)
@K. Jackson, “Power of History: Weakness of Profession,” Journal of American History 88 (March 2002):
1299-1314.
*P. Mooney-Melvin, “Professional Historians and the Challenge of Redefinition,” and C. Schulz,
“Becoming a Public Historian,” in Gardner & LaPaglia, eds. Public History: Essays from the Field
(1999)
9/13
History, Historical Thinking, and Memory
R. White, Remembering Ahanagran: Storytelling in a Family’s Past
@Margaret Strobel, “Getting to the Source: Becoming a Historian, Being an Activist, and Thinking
Archivally: Documents and Memory as Sources,” Journal of Women’s History Vol 11 No. 1
(Spring 1999): 181-92.
*S. Wineburg, “Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts,” in Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural
Acts, pp. 3-27.
*D. Glassberg, “Sense of History,” in Sense of History, pp. 1-22; or “Public History and the Study of
Memory,” Public Historian 18 (Spring 1996): 7-23.
C. Becker, "Everyman His Own Historian," (1932) repr. in S. Vaughan, ed., The Vital Past, pp. 20-36.
P. Nora, "Between Memory and History," Representations 26 (Spring 1989): 7-25.
C. Maier, "A Surfeit of Memory? Reflections on History, Melancholy, and Denial," History and Memory 5
(Fall/Winter 1993): 136-52.
Monday 9/19: Film, “Objects and Memory” 7:00-8:30 PM, Herter 601
9/20 Individual and Collective Memory
R. Rosenzweig & D. Thelen, Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life
@Cameron and Gatewood, “Excursions into the Unremembered Past: What People Want from Visits to
Historic Sites,” The Public Historian 22 (Summer 2000), 107-27
*M. Bowman, “Tracing Mary Queen of Scots,” in Dickinson, Blair, and Ott, eds. Places of Public Memory
(2010), pp. 191-215
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History 659: Public History
*S. Wineburg, “Psychology of Teaching and Learning History,” in Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural
Acts, pp. 28-60.
*M. Halbswach, "Individual Memory and Collective Memory," in The Collective Memory (1980), pp. 22-49.
*R. Butler, "The Life Review: Interpretation of Reminiscence in the Aged," Psychiatry 26 (February 1963):
65-76.
@J. Fulkerson, “Climbing the Family Tree,” American Demographics (December 1995): 42-50.
@H. Schuman & J. Scott, "Generations and Collective Memories," American Sociological Review 54
(June 1989): 359-81.
@J. Bodnar, “Generational Memory in an American Town,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 26 (Spring
1996): 619-37.
Assignment due: review of either Remembering Ahanagran or Presence of the Past
Friday 9/23 and Saturday 9/24: “Public History 2036: The Next 25 Years” conference
9/27
Sharing Authority: Community Oral History
Rachel Martin
@P. Hamilton & L. Shopes, eds. Oral History and Public Memories (2008), Intro, ch 1, & another chapter
*A. Portelli, “The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Memory and the Event,” in The Death of Luigi Trastulli, pp. 1-26.
*K. Olson & L. Shopes, "Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges: Doing Oral History among WorkingClass Women and Men," in Gluck & Patai, Women's Words (1991), pp. 189-204.
*Ronald J. Grele, “Movement Without Aim: Methodological and Theoretical Problems in Oral History,” in
Perks and Thomson, The Oral History Reader (1998), 38-52.
*L. Shopes, "Oral History and Community Involvement: The Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project," in
Benson, et. al, Presenting the Past, pp. 243-63, 339-59.
*J. Green, "Engaging in People's History: The Massachusetts History Workshop," in Benson, et. al.,
Presenting the Past, pp. 339-59; also in Green, Taking History to Heart, pp. 51-70.
D. Pollock, ed., Remembering: Oral History Performance (2005)
See also the website for the New England Center for Oral History:
http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~cohadm01/neaoh.html and Judith Moyer’s “Step-by-Step Guide to
Oral History” at: http://www.dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html
Assignment due: summary of PH 2036 session
10/4 Contesting Authority: Politics of Public Memory
J. & L. Horton, eds., Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory, ch. 1, 5, 6, 9.
D. Glassberg, “Remembering a War,” and “Celebrating the City,” in Sense of History, pp. 23-85.
E. Linenthal & T. Englehart, eds. History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past,
“Intro,” “Anatomy of a Controversy.”
R. Rudin, “Celebration versus Commemoration,” in Remembering and Forgetting in Acadie: A Historian’s
Journey Through Public Memory (2009), pp. 148-78.
M. Sturken, “The Wall and Screen Memory: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” in Tangled Memories: The
Vietnam War, the Aids Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering (1997), pp. 44-84.
*J. Bodnar, “The Memory Debate,” in Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and
Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (1992), pp. 13-20.
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History 659: Public History
*R. Bellah, "Civil Religion in America," Daedalus 96 (Winter 1967): 1-21.
*M. Frisch, "American History and the Structures of Collective Memory," in Memory and American History,
pp. 1-26. (also in JAH (March 1989) and Shared Authority, pp. 15-27).
*M. Kammen, "Degrees of Distinctiveness: Comparisons," in Mystic Chords of Memory: The
Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991), pp. 689-704.
E. Hobsbawm, "Mass Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870-1914," in The Invention of Tradition (1983), pp.
263-307.
C. Workman, “The Woman Movement” Memorial to Women’s Rights Leaders and Perceived Images of
the Women’s Movement,” in P. Shackel ,ed. Myth, Memory, and the Making of American
Landscape , pp. 47-66.
Assignment: review of public ceremony or commemoration
10/11 No class: UMass on Monday Schedule
Assignment: on your own, visit Memorial Hall Museum, Deerfield or another museum
Thursday 10/13 Popular History/ Documentary Film 7:00-8:30 PM, Herter 601
*T. Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic, ch.
D. Glassberg, “Watching the Civil War,” in Sense of History, pp. 87-108.
*G. Edgerton, “Television as Historian: A Different Kind of History Altogether,” in G. Edgerton & P. Rollins,
eds., Television Histories (2001), pp. 1-16.
*R. Rosenzweig, "Marketing the Past: American Heritage and Popular History in the United States," in
Presenting the Past, pp. 21-49; also Radical History Review 32 (1985): 7-29.
*R. Carr, "Writing the Historical Romance," Writer's Digest 63 (July 1983): 38-40.
*M. Wallace, "Mickey Mouse History," in History Museums, pp. 158-80. (also in Mickey Mouse History)
*G. Lipsitz, "The Meaning of Memory," in Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular
Culture (1990), pp. 39-75.
R. Toplin, History By Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past (1996)
*J. Cullen, "Screening the Book: The Civil War of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, in The Civil
War in Popular Culture (1995), pp. 65-107.
10/18 History Museums
*P. West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums
@H. Skramsted, “An Agenda for American Museums in the 21st Century,” Daedalus (Summer 1999): 10929.
S. Weil, “From Being About Something to Being For Somebody,” Daedalus (Summer 1999), pp 229-58.
*S. Greenblatt, "Resonance and Wonder," in I. Karp & S. Lavine, eds., Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics
and Politics of Museum Display (1991), pp. 42-56.
*J. Tchen, “Creating a Dialogic Museum: The Chinatown History Museum Experiment,” in I. Karp. C.
Kreamer, & S. Lavine, Museums & Communities: Politics of Public Culture (1992), pp. 285-326.
*M.Miller & A. Lanning, „Common Parlors: Women and the Recreation of Community Identity in Deerfield,
MA, 1870-1920,“ Gender and History (November 1994): 435-55.
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History 659: Public History
B. Greenfield, “Highboys and High Culture: Adapting an American Aesthetic in Deerfield, MA,” in Out of
the Attic: Inventing Antiques in 20th Century New England (2009), pp. 131-66.
*R. Rosenzweig & W. Leon, "Introduction," & G. Kulick, "Designing the Past," in History Museums in the
U.S., pp. 3-37.
*M. Ettema, "History Museums and the Culture of Materialism;" W. Leon, "A Broader Vision: Exhibits That
Change the Way Visitors Look at the Past" in J. Blatti, ed., Past Meets Present, pp. 62-85, 13352.
*N. Harris, "Museums, Merchandising, and Popular Taste: The Struggle for Influence," in Material Culture
and the Study of American Life, pp. 140-74.
Assignment due: review of museum exhibit
10/25 Historic Sites and Heritage Areas (12:30-3:30 at Lowell National Historical Park, Lowell, MA)
Cathy Stanton, The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Post-Industrial City
*R. Diamant, “From Management to Stewardship: The Making and Remaking of the US National Park
System” George Wright Forum 17 (2000): 31-45.
@C. Goldstein, “Many Voices, True Stories, and the Experiences We are Creating in Industrial History
Museums: Reinterpreting Lowell, MA,” Public Historian 22 (Summer 2000): 129-37.
@H. Skramsted, “Mission of Industrial Museum in Post-Industrial Age,” Public Historian 22 (Summer
2000): 25-32.
@S. Holt, “History Keeps Bethlehem Steel From Going Off the Rails: Moving a Complex Community
Process Toward Success,” Public Historian 28 (Spring 2006): 31-44.
@R. Weible, "Lowell: Building New Appreciation for Historical Place," Public Historian 6 (Summer 1984):
27-38.
@M. Wallace, “Industrial Museums and the History of Deindustrialization,” Public Historian 9 (Winter
1987): 9-19.
Assignment: review NPS general management plan or another NPS document (Du Bois Library, 6th Floor)
11/1 The Importance of Place
*D. Hayden, “Urban Landscape History: Sense of Place and the Politics of Space,” in The Power of
Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History, pp. 14-43.
*D. Glassberg, “Place and Placelessness in American History,” “Rethinking New England Town
Character,” and “Making Places in California,” in Sense of History, pp. 109-202.
*J.B. Jackson, "The Necessity for Ruins," in The Necessity for Ruins (1980), pp. 89-102.
*B. Allen, “The Genealogical Landscape and the Southern Sense of Place,” in Sense of Place: American
Regional Cultures ed. Allen and Schlereth (1990), 152-63.
*Yi-Fu Tuan, “Rootedness versus Sense of Place,” Landscape 24 (1980): 3-8.
N. Kaufman, “Protecting Storyscapes,” in Place, Race, and Story: Essays on the Past and Future of
Historic Preservation (2009), 38-56.
*C. Cooper Marcus, "Environmental Memories," in I. Altman & S. Low, eds., Place Attachment, pp. 87112.
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History 659: Public History
*M. Fried, "Grief and Adaptation: The Impact of Relocation in Boston's West End," and K. Neustadt, "It is
Indeed a Strange and Wonderful Emotion You Arouse: Memory, History, and the Old West End,"
in Fisher & Hughes, eds. The Last Tenement: Confronting Community and Urban Renewal in
Boston's West End (1992), pp. 80-93, 94-105.
Assignment: assessment of monument or landscape
11/8 New Media: History on the World Wide Web Jon Olsen
D. Cohen & R. Rosenzweig, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past
on the Web , also available on line at http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory
@S. High, “Telling Stories: Reflections on Oral History and New Media,” Oral History 38 (Spring 2010):
101-12.
@M. O’Malley and R. Rosenzweig, “Brave New World or Blind Alley? American History on the World
Wide Web,” JAH (1997)
Hurricane Digital Memory Bank www.hurricanearchive.org
Bracero Archive www.braceroarchive.org
Maine Memory Network www.mainememory.net
Mass Memories Roadshow www.massmemories.net
Assignment due: review of website
11/15 Historic Preservation Christopher Skelly, Director of Local Government Programs,
Massachusetts Historical Commission
M. Page & R. Mason, eds. Giving Preservation a History (2004), Intro, ch 1, 4, 6, Conclusion
@R. Weyeneth, “Architecture of Racial Segregation,” Public Historian 27 (Fall 2005): 11-44
E. Hamin, L. Silka, P. Geigis, “Introduction,” Preserving and Enhancing Communities: A Guide for
Citizens, Planners, and Policymakers (2007), pp. 1-6.+
NPS, “Preservation Brief 36: Protecting Cultural Landscapes” (1994)
www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief36.htm
National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Basic Preservation Procedures” (1995)
National Trust for Historic Preservation, "Saving Place: Report Card for Protecting Community Character"
(1991)
*A. Lee, "Cultural Diversity in Historic Preservation," Preservation Forum 6 (July/August 1992): 28-41.
*C. Hosmer, "The Broadening View of the Historical Preservation Movement," in Material Culture and the
Study of American Life, pp. 121-39.
G. Dubrow, "Claiming Public Space for Women's History in Boston," Frontiers 13 (1992): 111-48.
*J. Barry & J. Derevlany, Yuppies Invade My House at Dinnertime (1987), prologue, pp. 41-6.
Assignment: review of historic preservation plan or structure report
November 16-18
New England Museum Association meets in Hartford.
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History 659: Public History
11/22 Archives Robert Cox, UMass Archives
“Historians and Archivists: Educating the Next Generation,” American Archivist 56 (Fall 1993): 716-49.
*H. Samuels, “Who Controls the Past,” American Archivist 49 (Spring 1986): 109-24.
A. Hague, “Never Another Season of Silence: Laying the Foundation for the Sophia Smith Collection,
1942-65,” in Revealing Women’s Life Stories (Smith College, 1992), 9-28.
*T. Schellenberg, “Archival Principles of Arrangement,” American Archivist 24 (January 1961): 11-24,
repr. in M. Daniels & T. Walch, A Modern Archives Reader (1984), pp. 149-61.
*J. O'Toole, Understanding Archives and Manuscripts
Assignment: review of collections guide or finding aid
11/29
New Agendas, New Audiences: History and Civic Dialogue
NPS, “The National Park Service and Civic Engagement” (2002)
*P. Korza and B. Bacon, History as a Catalyst for Civic Dialogue: Case Studies from Animating
Democracy (2005).
J. Elfenbein, “Bringing to Life ‘Baltimore ’68: Riots and Rebirth’-A How-To Guide,” Public Historian 31
(November 2009): 13-27. Also look at other essays on Baltimore in this issue.
R. Krim, “At the Corner of History and Innovation: Using Public History to Influence Public Policy” Public
Historian 32 (May 2010): 62-81.
“Sites of Conscience: Opening Historic Sites for Civic Dialogue,” Public Historian 30 (Winter 2008): 9-79.
R. Abram, “Harnessing the Power of History,” in Museums, Society, Inequality ed R. Sandell. pp. 125-41.
@S. Purcell, “Commemoration, Public Art, and the Changing Meaning of the Bunker Hill Monument,”
Public Historian 25 (Spring 2003): 55-71.
Browse these 2 websites: “Great Places, Great Debates; Opening Historic Sites to Civic Engagement”
http://www.nps.gov/nero/greatplaces/indexgreatplaces.htm and International Coalition of
Historic Site museums of Conscience (http://www.sitesofconscience.org/)
12/6 No class: work on final presentations
FRIDAY 12/9: 2:00-5:00 PRESENTATION OF FINAL PROJECTS conference
12/13
Final reflection papers due, 5 PM, Herter 608
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