NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC HISTORY I
HIST GA1750
FALL 2013
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 publics, 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:
Write a four-page response to the National Park Service Study Team report that evaluates
its usefulness in light of the other readings concerning public history and the National Park
Service. Due: September 18.
Select a memorial that you find particularly interesting and prepare a brief (ten-minute)
oral class presentation that discusses its significance and contextualizes it within the history of
memorialization. Due: October 9.
Prepare a blog post based on your research concerning interesting court cases that are
held at the National Archives Northeast Region. Due: October 16.
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 6.
Prepare a presentation around a particular block or building, as assigned through our
collaboration with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Assignments
distributed on October 16. Final project and public presentation on: December 11.
Assignment Time Line:
September 18 -- Write a four-page response to the National Park Service Study Team report that
evaluates its usefulness in light of the other readings concerning public history and the National
Park Service.
October 9 – Select a memorial that you find particularly interesting and prepare a brief (tenminute) oral class presentation that discusses its significance and contextualizes it within the
history of memorialization.
October 16 – Prepare a blog post based on your research concerning interesting baseball court
cases that are held at the National Archives Northeast Region, due to coincide with opening of
World Series.
November 6 – 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 11 – Final project and public presentations due.
Readings:
Most of the class readings are freely available articles from online journals or scanned excerpts
from books that are available in your NYU Classes website for this course. You should,
however, purchase the following books that are available either in the NYU bookstore or at a
much cheaper rate directly from the publisher:
Robert B. Townsend, History’s Babel: Scholarship, Professionalization, and the Historical
Enterprise in the United States, 1880-1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013);
Denise D. Meringolo, Museums,Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of
Public History (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012);
Judith Richardson, Possessions: The History and Uses of Haunting in the Hudson Valley
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005);
Oliver Horton and Lois Horton, eds., Slavery and History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory
(New York: The New Press, 2006);
Erika Doss, Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2010);
Christopher Mele, Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New
York City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2000);
Andrew Hurley, Beyond Preservation: Using Public History to Revitalize Inner Cities
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010);
Cathy Stanton, The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2006);
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.
If you are absent for a class session, you will be responsible for submitting a 4-5 page paper that
analyzes the readings for that week, due the following class session.
Assignments are due by the end of class on the dates listed above. They may be submitted
electronically or (in the case of papers) turned in at the end of class.
Discussion Board postings should be submitted by 5 P.M. on the Monday before class.
Please observe page limits, pay attention to comments on written work, and take comments into
consideration.
Grades are determined according to the following criteria: Class Participation and Discussion
Board Postings (15%); National Park Service Response (15%); Memorial Presentation (10%);
Historic Site/House Analysis (15%); Court Case Blog Posts (15%); Final Research Project
(30%).
SEPTEMBER 4
-
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 subscribe to the H-Public listserv (a discussion group),
which provides similar services.
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 Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, founded by the late Roy
Rosenzweig, 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 11
-
PUBLIC HISTORY: DEFINITIONS AND PROJECTS
Required Readings: Robert B. Townsend, History’s Babel: Scholarship,
Professionalization, and the Historical Enterprise in the United States, 1880-1940 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2013) (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 18
-
THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Required Readings: Denise D. Meringolo, Museums,Monuments, and National Parks:
Toward a New Genealogy of Public History (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012)
(BOOK);
National Park Service Study Team, Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the
National Park Service (Bloomington: Organization of American Historians, 2011), download at:
http://oah.org/programs/nps/imperiled_promise.html;
Gary Nash, “For Whom Will the Liberty Bell Toll? From Controversy to Cooperation,”
in James Oliver Horton and Lois Horton, eds., Slavery and History: The Tough Stuff of American
Memory (New York: The New Press, 2006) (BOOK)
SEPTEMBER 25
-
LOCAL AND COMMUNITY HISTORY
Required Readings: Judith Richardson, Possessions: The History and Uses of Haunting
in the Hudson Valley (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005) (BOOK);
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);
Dolores Hayden, “Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of
Space,” in The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1995), pp. 14-43 (NYU CLASSES);
“Baltimore ’68: Riots and Rebirth” at the following URL:
http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/index.html;
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
Ex-Hulme project at http://www.exhulme.co.uk
OCTOBER 2
-
MEMORIALIZATION AND PUBLIC HISTORY
Required Readings: Erika Doss, Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2010) (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 1.4.”
available at the following URL: http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-newmedia/essays/?essayid=39
OCTOBER 9
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MEMORY AND PUBLIC HISTORY: CIVIL WAR
Required Readings: Alice Fahs, ed., The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) (BOBST E-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);
Dwight Pitcaithley, “’A Cosmic Threat’”: The National Park Service Addresses the
Causes of the American Civil War,” in James Oliver Horton and Lois Horton, eds., Slavery and
History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory (New York: The New Press, 2006) (BOOK);
Leslie Madsen Brooks, “I nevertheless am a historian: Digital Historical Practice and
Malpractice around Black Confederate Soldiers,” (Spring 2012 version)
http://writinghistory.trincoll.edu/crowdsourcing/madsen-brooks-2012-spring/
OCTOBER 16
-
PROJECT DISCUSSION
Required Readings: Christopher Mele, Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate,
and Resistance in New York City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2000), Chapters
1-4 (BOOK);
Janet L. Abu-Lughod, “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” in Abu-Lughod, From Urban
Village to East Village: The Battle for New York’s Lower East Side (NYU CLASSES);
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 23
-
HISTORIC PRESERVATION
Required Readings: Andrew Hurley, Beyond Preservation: Using Public History to
Revitalize Inner Cities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010) (BOOK);
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) (BOOK);
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);
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)
OCTOBER 30
-
HISTORIC SITES AND COMPLICATED HISTORIES
Required Readings: Cathy Stanton, The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a
Postindustrial City (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006) (BOOK);
John Michael Vlach, “The Last Great Taboo Subject: Exhibiting Slavery at the Library of
Congress,” in James Oliver Horton and Lois Horton, eds., Slavery and History: The Tough Stuff
of American Memory (New York: The New Press, 2006) (BOOK);
Lisa DiCaprio, “The Betrayal of Srebrenica: The Ten Year Commemoration,” The Public
Historian (August 2009), pp. 73-95 (E-JOURNAL);
Index of the Disappeared project at the following URL: http://www.kabulreconstructions.net/disappeared/
NOVEMBER 6
-
HISTORY MUSEUMS AND HISTORICAL SOCIETIES
Tammy Gordon, Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life
(AltaMira Press, 2010) (BOOK);
Katharine T. Corbett and Howard S. (Dick) Miller, “A Shared Inquiry into Shared
Inquiry,” The Public Historian (Winter 2006) (E-JOURNAL);
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);
Joanne Melish, “Recovering (from) Slavery: Four Struggles to Tell the Truth,” in James
Oliver Horton and Lois Horton, eds., Slavery and History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory
(New York: The New Press, 2006) (BOOK);
Cary Carson, “The End of History Museums: What’s Plan B?” The Public Historian
(November 2008), pp. 9-27 (E-JOURNAL)
NOVEMBER 13
-
PROJECT UPDATES
NOVEMBER 20
-
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
NOVEMBER 27
-
ORAL HISTORIANS AND PUBLIC HISTORY
Alessandro Portelli, “On the Peculiarities of Oral History,” History Workshop Journal
(1981) 12 pp. 96-107 (E-JOURNAL);
Valerie Yow, “’Do I Like Them Too Much?’ Effects of the Oral History Interview on the
Interviewer and Vice-Versa,” Oral History Review (1997) 24:1, pp. 55-79 (E-JOURNAL);
Linda Shopes, “Oral History and the Study of Communities: Problems, Paradoxes, and
Possibilities,” Journal of American History (2002), 89:2, pp. 588-598 (E-JOURNAL);
Michael Frisch, “Oral History and the Digital Revolution: Towards a Post-Documentary
Sensibility,” in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, The Oral History Reader: Second Edition
(NYU CLASSES);
“Oral Histories of the American South” on the Documenting the American South website
at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/
DECEMBER 4
-
FINAL PROJECT DRY RUN
DECEMBER 11
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FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS