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
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