Public History: When Historians Work Outside of Academia

By Juan Carlos Sanabria

April 16, 2013

            When I first started the blog, I was asked to talk about public history. At first, I didn't have the slightest clue about public history. I knew it was not like being a traditional history practitioner, specifically a professor conducting research at a university and publishing work in academic journals and books. As I carried out research on the topic, I found some interesting things about public history that placed the +Florida Historical Society 's public history practices within proper context.

           All history practitioners active within the field of historical study engage in some form of public history work. It is from the public, with their boxes of old photos and letters, their artifacts and stories, that supply historians with the fuel for further research. The public is presumed to be as much a part of the history's course – perhaps even more so – than those which observe and interpret its procession from an objective standpoint. But at some point, the field of historical study, as led by historians seeking academic appointment, was cut loose from its public roots ingrained within the historical societies, museums, archives, and government offices. This is the case, as told by the “What is Public History?” page of the National Council on Public History. The page's unmentioned author wrote that it was a job crisis for Ph. D.'s during the 1960s and 1970s that made many traditional historians realize their distance from those roots.

           Pressed financially and philosophically, some of these professionals shifted their intents from academic appointment in a university to working with historical societies, museums, and the other various institutions that hold closer ties to the public than the ivory towers of your typical university. These towers may maim a historian by distancing them from the way the public thinks about and consumes historical study. Within those towers, a historian's main concern is his or her peers, historians which can contribute to the perfection of his or her highly specialized research. In turn, that historian hopes to contribute to his or her peers' work.

           Public history became the movement that it is today because of the schism between traditional, academically-inclined historians and those who may not prefer that career path equally. Consequently, public historians gradually emerged from the field's professional downturn as historians with greater interdisciplinary experience because of the shifting audiences that consume public history work. In contrast, traditional historians' audience is their peers in academia or other professionals focusing on that particular subject. Though public history requires the same level of reputable scholarship, its audience is presumably less historically educated, and thus public historians must find innovative ways of communicating history and getting support for further research. And since public history work became more than just the publication of scholarly papers and books, practitioners may take up techniques from film and radio producers, curators, local historians, genealogists, the tourism industry, and community activists. By doing so, public historians make history interesting and/or useful, thus making history profitable not only for those involved, but for the local community. It's public historians, in particular, that hope to build a cultural and financial symbiosis with the surrounding community so that the local history can be a resource for further public history work and a cultural resource for the locals and tourists to marvel at.

           It's no secret: studying history has been a more successful discipline than it has been a fruitful profession. It made sense for dedicated practitioners to focus on academia or law, considering how well those careers pay. That pay may not distract from the deep commitment to a truthful study of history (the main thing uniting public and traditional historians), but it will likely separate historians from the general public. Public history removes those barriers, at least, as far as I can tell volunteering at the +Florida Historical Society . Several times a week, long-time locals of Brevard County stop by to ask about information regarding family members, to donate photos or original material (objects or writings from a particular time period), or to convey oral histories about the community back in the day. It's obvious the Historical Society understands what it means to conduct history outside the classroom and conferences. My only hope is that some of those professors in the ivory towers come down to join the larger discussion with the public.

As always, thanks for reading and have yourself a great day.

Best regards,

JCS

Keeping Track of History: My Experience Working with PastPerfect

by Juan Carlos Sanabria
April 9, 2013

 

           For the past two weeks, I've been working with PastPerfect, the software program used by the +Florida Historical Society to keep track of all of its documents, books, photos, and objects. Despite the vast degrees of cataloging its capable of, PastPerfect is fairly easy to learn. I did, however, find it useful to keep side notes to highlight search terms for others to use to find the series of documents I've already entered into the database, as well as notes on whatever labels I used in the cataloging fields (keep in mind my additional ones jotted down to remember the general Works Progress Administration Collection). To put it simply, its a slightly more intricate Microsoft Excel, but geared toward digitally labeling and managing material in the field of historical study.

           I must admit, the notes I mentioned above – those I took to remember the general Collection – were not sufficient to register material into PastPerfect. The program requires basic information like date of creation, title, container, author, subject, etc. My notes took down some of these, but they were primarily on points of interest to the public, researchers, myself, and the people I work with (especially the other interns). Sometimes, these notes were on subjects I knew little about, explaining why I jotted them down. If I had a larger exposure to the history field some of these notes would have never existed. It also would have helped to know more about the collections researchers and the public frequently demand. Still, I managed, though not without spending some time to make sure that what I'm entering in will show up for the most basic PastPerfect search. This translates to me spending almost all of my time at the Florida Historical Society's Research Library methodically going over WPA memos, letters, source lists, notes, finished documents, and typed up versions of old documents.

           For those resistant to clerical work, I do not recommend archival work. Careful attention to a memo or letter's sender, receiver, contents, and date of creation is a must. Solid reading comprehension and delicate skimming are required when summing up long or convoluted documents. Other times, documents will be handwritten photocopies, so figuring out the subject of the document requires the ability to decipher people's hand writing. Furthermore, you are required to peer into the white of a lit computer screen for considerable periods of time. Finally, a keen sense of organization becomes your ultimate tool in cataloging a collection as large as the WPA one (21 boxes with an average of 6 folders in each, each folder containing an average of 6 documents). It's a good thing the interns before me took time to make notes. Archiving is serious clerical work, but the work environment at the Florida Historical Society in Cocoa is comfortable and cheery, so the pressure is alleviated.

           Anyways, thanks for reading. Hope this has been informative. Expect frequent posts in the coming days.

Cheers,

JCS