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

The Archivist's Dilemma: Choosing What to Keep

                                                                                           by Juan Carlos Sanabria

                                                                                                    March 18, 2013

           By now, I've drawn a decent mental map of the Floridian Federal Writers' Project collection in the +Florida Historical Society 's archive. Although it covers major time periods in Florida, I cannot help but feel that there is more to the collection as compiled by FWP editors. But this is a constant in the field of historical study. The whole story is never complete. Yet I have no doubt that this is the source of the excitement that historians experience when digging through boxes of files in search of that overlooked quote or photograph. For them, and anyone else dedicated to the honest study of history, there will be no end to the search. No end to the excitement. But there's a problem.

           Part of the reason the entire story won't be completed is because there is a practical selection process by which professional historians and public historians choose the “history” they will study, interpret, and communicate to the public. Professional historians, like those at the university, usually specialize and therefore value the historical people, places and periods most closely tied to his or her focus. The more material on a item, the more publishing that he or she can potentially accomplish. Public historians strive to get “history to work in the world,” as the National Council on Public History's website puts it on the “What Is Public History?” page. This means that the history that will be preserved, interpreted, presented, and/or recorded will be dictated by the public's “consumption” of history. Ultimately, because there is a demand for a history of a particular time, place or thing, there will be a greater focus on that subject rather than other subjects. Also, a demand for a particular interpretation of that history can leave certain historical subjects uninterpreted or even undiscovered.

           If both types of historians select the histories they cover on account of interest and therefore “profit,” many histories will rarely be covered or covered truthfully – especially given the tight budgets many historical societies and university departments possess at this time.

           Still, it's important to remember that being completely objective in the selection of history is impossible. Historians of all kinds are people and people have passions and prejudices. They also have appetites and mortgages, so focusing on subjects like Native Americans, American Slavery, and Civil War may be a better idea than focusing on the Spanish-American War, early Catholic missions in Florida, or the United Fruit Company's political influence in Central America. There is demand for books on the latter three, but my experience is that more people show up at the archive to research Native Americans, Slavery, and the Civil War. The other big hit is local history, which demonstrates how demand for history is much like the demand for any other product. Different places and people will have different demands for the field of historical study.

           It comes down to the archivist to decide what to keep and what to give away. If the archivist wants the archive/research library to stay open, he or she must balance professional opinion on what ought to be kept with the demands of the patrons. Of course, this can produce dilemmas. Sometimes a whole box of material that would be incredibly valuable to some researcher somewhere gets neglected by patrons and eventually transferred elsewhere because of the lack of space. Documents that, as far as he or she knows, cannot be found elsewhere must leave the archive to make room for more well-known or demanded documents. The archivist can only hope that the material that departs will be taking care of, lest a whole chapter of history be lost, and the larger historical narrative left more incomplete than before.

Until next time,

JCS

Archiving: A History Buff's Alternative to Teaching

                                                                   by Juan Carlos Sanabria
                                                                        February 18, 2013

            Many times when I mention that I'm a history major, people ask me, “so you're going to teach?” I've become very skilled at answering that question. I would then go into how a history degree can allow you to work as a curator, a researcher, a journalist, or an archivist - careers that, one way or another, deal with the field of historical study (like a history teacher would). Then some people respond by saying those careers don't entail as high an income as teaching, with which I don't disagree. Teaching has 17% job growth, beating archiving's growth by five percent on the United States' Bureau of Labor Statistics website. There are also a lot more teaching jobs than archiving ones, and many of those archiving jobs entail traveling to other parts of the country. But as a twenty-five year old with no children, working as, say, a civilian archivist for the military, I can make a decent living for myself – and hopefully remain nearby my family in Florida.

            What many of these inquirers forget or may not know is that the experience I get from working as an archiving assistant can also land me a job in business and/or industry, dealing with a organization or a company's records, documents – any type of material requiring oversight. These jobs may not involve the type of historical study history buffs enjoy, but depending on the employer, the salaries are typically higher than working for organizations strictly within the field of historical study.

            If a history buff wants an alternative to teaching, then one of the options I'd mention is archiving. It may not pay as well as teaching, but it allows the avid history buff access to documents that can help expand his or her knowledge of a period and place. As he or she reviews, chooses, and classifies the items for a collection, the history buff can indulge in his or her favorite past time by reading up on little-known facets about a person, place, event, or thing. Being an archivist places the history buff within the process of writing history. Professors come to archives to analyze and interpret history, and to help them, archivists must understand what collections will aid them in solidifying their conclusions. So in a way, an archiving career at a historical society, entails some of the same analysis and interpretation a professor would demonstrate in his or her publications.

            I hope this has been helpful for those considering archiving.

Best,

JCS

What I've Learned So Far

                                                                   by Juan Carlos Sanabria
                                                                        February 18, 2013

            My internship at the +Florida Historical Society  in Cocoa, Florida, entails that I familiarize myself with a collection in the archive, categorize all outside documents that may belong to that collection, write a new finding guide with the added documents, and then use a computer program called PastPerfect to present the fully organized collection through the organization's online databases. The title for my internship is “archiving assistant,” but I feel as though I might as well be doing the work of an actual archivist.

            The collection that I am working on is the Federal Writers' Project papers on the state of Florida. The Federal Writers' Project was a part of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal Program established in April 1935 as a way of finding jobs for the unemployed during the Great Depression. The goal of the FWP was to write and compile extensive collections of local and oral histories, ethnographies, children's books, and field guides. At the same time, the FWP created jobs for historians, researchers, writers, editors, archaeologists, geologists, and cartographers.

            From a historian's standpoint, there are two ways to approach the collection: as a collection of primary sources or one of secondary sources. A primary source is original material from the past. A secondary source is material building upon a primary source. The FWP papers on Florida are ideal primary sources for late Depression-era American views on Florida history. As secondary sources, the writings are decent; I would recommend them first as primary sources for Depression-era American views on Floridian history before I recommend them as secondary sources for events like the Seminole Wars or the Spanish-American War. Every now and then, however, I find transcripts of interesting first hand accounts buried in some folder. It certainly is an important collection, covering most aspects of Florida and its history.

            In reflecting on what I have learned, I am overwhelmed with happiness. In the last several weeks I have learned how a research library functions, like the dynamics between the various jobs in the building and the importance of taking notes (and notes on notes), among other things. I have learned about aspects of Florida and Cuba's history I have never known about, which helps to supplement my focus on Cold War Florida and Cuba. In relation to my classes, the experience has increased my understanding of how the information taught came to be. There is also the aspect of selecting documents for archiving and/or for highlighting, as well as the process of predicting what researchers and the public may want to look for.

            More importantly, working alongside other individuals who care about history reminds me of the tentative nature of what we call history, those “real” stories that individuals and nations use to define their characters. As far as I can tell, those working alongside me care about the truth in the documents, but finding that truth can be an ordeal. The subjectivity of human nature and the circumstances pressing upon it are too evident when I pore through Florida's history according to Americans in the 1930s. I knew about the relativity involved in history when I first signed up for the internship, but to see it and to make sense of it has been enlightening.

Until next time,

JCS