Public History

A Textbook of Practice

Thomas Cauvin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000576443
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The second edition of Public History: A Textbook of Practice offers an updated guide to the many opportunities and challenges that public history practitioners can encounter in the field.

Historians can play a dynamic and essential role in contributing to public understanding of the past, and those who work in historic preservation, in museums and archives, in government agencies, as consultants, as oral historians, or who manage crowdsourcing projects need very specific skills. This book links theory and practice and provides students and practitioners with the tools to do public history in a wide range of settings. This new edition reflects how much the field of public history has changed in the past few years, with public history now being more established and international. New chapters have therefore been added on the definition, history, and international scope of public history, as well as on specific practices and theories such as historical fictions, digital public history, and shared authority.

Split into four sections, this textbook provides approaches, methodologies, and tools for historians and other public history practitioners to play a bigger role in public debates and public productions of historical interpretations:

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• Part I focuses on the past, present, and future of public history.

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• Part II explores public history sources, and offers an overview of the creation, collection, management, and preservation of materials (archives, material culture, oral history, or historical sites).

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• Part III deals with the different ways in which public history practitioners can produce historical narratives through different media (including texts, fictions, audio-visual productions, exhibitions, and performances).

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• Part IV discusses the opportunities and challenges that public history practitioners encounter when working with different collaborators.

Whether in public history methods courses or as a resource for practicing public historians, this book lays the groundwork for making meaningful connections between historical sources and popular audiences.

Part I Public history Past, present, and future of the field

1 Defining public history

DOI: 10.4324/9781003045335-3

Why (not) a definition of public history?

A very difficult and potentially counter-productive task…

For more than three decades, practitioners have attempted to provide clear definitions of public history. However, as British historian Ludmilla Jordanova confessed “we should concede from the outset that ‘public’ is a difficult term” (2000, 141). The international scope of discussion makes the task of agreeing on a definition even more challenging. Proposing definitions in different languages raises translating issues too. For instance, while the English term “public history” is often translated into French (Histoire Publique), Portuguese (História Pública) or Dutch (Publieksgeschiedenis), the Italian Association for Public History (AIPH) (Associazione Italiana di Public History) and some programs in Europe have decided to keep the English expression.

Any definition of public history relates to a specific time and geographic context. For instance, referring to Liddington's 2002 article “What is Public History?”, British historian Hilda Kean points out “an article written with this title some 15 years ago seems already outdated in its somewhat timeless and prescriptive analysis” (Liddington 2002; Kean 2018, 33). Proposing a definition here and now might likely be doomed to similar comments in a few years. Therefore, in his 2008 article, “Defining Public History: Is It Possible? Is it Necessary?”, Robert Weible pointed out that

For all the talk of public history that we have been hearing for more than 25 years, it is a little awkward that historians are still uncertain about what “public history” might actually mean. So perhaps it is fruitless to seek consensus on a single definition.

(Weible 2008)

Definitions of public history can create tensions. In 2007, the National Council of Public History (NCPH) proposed a new definition of public history as “a movement, methodology, and approach that promotes the collaborative study and practice of history; its practitioners embrace a mission to make their special insights accessible and useful to the public” (Corbett and Miller 2007). This definition quickly prompted criticism, with Kathy Corbett and Dick Miller claiming that the statement assigned public historians the role of “missionaries” and denied “lay people a creative role” (Corbett and Miller 2007). Given the multiple approaches and understandings of public history, any unilateral and restricted definition of the field would exclude groups, practitioners, and types of projects. British historian Alix Green goes further. She points out that “the act of definition is problematic, however, for more important reasons than semantics”. She argues that any definition “sets ‘public history’ apart from ‘history’ in a way that has never applied to other specializations, such as social, economic, Black or women's history” (Green 2015). Instead of defining what public history is, some scholars have focused on what historians do, or where public history is practiced (Kean 2018, 33–45). It helps to shift from asking what public history is, to what public history wants, and therefore allows to consider the various contexts in which historians and other practitioners do public history.

Some networks and associations therefore prefer not to propose any clear-cut definition. For instance, the International Federation for Public History (IFPH) only points out that international public history is “a field in the historical sciences made up of professionals who undertake historical work in a variety of public and private settings for different kinds of audiences worldwide” (IFPH 2021). The least we can say is that the meaning is (purposefully) general. Although it may not be possible to provide a strict one-size-fits-all definition of public history that encompasses the multiple approaches, it is yet necessary to engage and encourage to defining the field, to propose theoretical frameworks of discussion in order to understand not only what public history is, but also who practices it, where, and how it affects the overall history-making process.

… that might yet be necessary

Founding members of the public history movement in the United States in the 1970s defined it loosely. When he proposed the term in the 1970s, Robert Kelley defined public history as referring “to the employment of historians and the historical method outside of academia” (Kelley 1978, 16). The historians who first presented themselves as public historians adopted a defensive, and anxious, tone (Conard 2002, 172). Kelley and other advocates for public history defined it in opposition to what they perceived as a traditional academic and isolated history that ignored the public. One purpose of the movement was to give a common identity to historians who were working outside the academy and who did not have official status in the overall historical enterprise. The loose definition resulted from a focus on the common aspect shared by those practitioners. In other words, public history was practiced, but not easily defined.

This lack of defining principles can lead to confusion. In the introductory lecture of the 2018 NCPH annual conference (Hartford, Connecticut), the mayor of the city confessed that he had never heard of public history. To prepare his speech, he googled “public history” and found the NCPH's page that compares public history to pornography “I know it when I see it” (National Council on Public History 2021). The mayor explained to a smiling audience that this definition did not really help him understand the field. Using Wikipedia may not have helped him much more. Public history is (in the English version) defined as “a broad range of activities undertaken by people with some training in the discipline of history who are generally working outside of specialized academic settings” (Wikipedia 2021).

Nevertheless, some subfields of historical studies have been defined. For instance, the Oral History Association defines oral history as “a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events” (Oral History Association 2021). Even though oral history is more established and more widespread than public history, this can be inspiring. As Faye Sayer argues in her public history guide

the failure of historians to agree (on) a satisfactory definition of public history risks the future of the profession by jeopardizing both recognition of its value to wider communities and its status as an academically respectable form of historical research.

She continues “As such, it is essential to the future practice of public history that it is clearly defined and that the role of the public historian is firmly placed within history's professional framework” (Sayer 2019, 3). One-sentence definitions of public history may not be satisfactory but we should strive for defining principles.

Public his'tree

Considering the broad variety of practices, several authors have used metaphors to define public history. Using metaphors has flaws and limits though. Visualization and comparison are never fully able to represent the complexity of broad concepts and theories. In his definition of the field – certainly one of the complete theoretical approaches – German historian Marko Demantowsky thus prefers focusing on the theoretical links between public history, identity, and narratives (Demantowsky 2019). Nevertheless, metaphors can help represent and discuss key issues, steps, and structures in the field.

British historian Ludmilla Jordanova defines public history as “an umbrella term, one which, furthermore, brings together two concepts ‘public’ and ‘history’” (2000, 149). In a similar vein, Jennifer Dickey compared public history to a “big tent”, borrowing the metaphor used for digital humanities (Dickey 2018). Italian historian Marcello Ravveduto compares public history to an “archipelago”, made up of small islands (practices) that are distinct but close to each other, connected by a sea (methodology) (Ravveduto 2017, 136). Those metaphors have two things in common. First, the fact that public history belongs to the broader discipline of history. The Italian Public History Manifesto starts by explaining that “Public History is a field of the historical sciences” (Tucci 2018). Public history is not a specific discipline, but a field within the history discipline (NCPH 2021). The second common point is the perception of public history as a process that includes distinct but connected practices. Public History: A Textbook of Practice similarly uses a metaphor with the aim of exploring what connects them all, how they convey or require new roles for history and historians.

Figure 1.1 Public His'Tree.

Credit: Thomas Cauvin, 2020.

Public history can be compared to a system with interconnected parts: a tree (Cauvin 2021). Genealogical companies and associations have used trees to show the connection between present and past, between individuals and their ancestors. This perception of trees can be problematic because it gives the impression of a linear and (overly) logical view, from roots to leaves, that does not leave space for ruptures, conflicts or change (Deleuze and Guattari 1987). While trees may be problematic representations of kinship, transmission, and ethnic identity, it works well as a metaphor for complex interconnected systems.

For instance, Allan Johnson explains patriarchy and gender systems through the metaphor of a tree (Johnson 2014). He uses the different parts of the tree (roots, trunk, branches, and leaves) to represent the articulation of the patriarchal system. Similarly, the metaphor of the tree connects the different layers, steps, sites, and practitioners of public history. The roots, the trunk, the branches, and the leaves are different but belong to an overall system; they cannot exist without each other. As much as leaves help trees to live, so do communication and engagement for historical research to develop public history.

The his’tree shows that public history can take many different forms and goes beyond scientific history. History as a scientific practice has traditionally been defined as a rigorous and critical interpretation of primary sources. But public history goes beyond the simple interpretation of primary sources. It includes other parts. It helps creating, recording, managing and preserving sources (roots). Public history includes archiving, managing collections in museums and other repositories, preserving sites and historical buildings and digitizing sources. Creating, managing and preserving sources require historical skills – we need to ask if the source is reliable and if it is relevant for our understanding of the past. Without the creation and preservation of primary sources – in the broadest sense, also including buildings, sites, objects, digital-born archives such as emails, and interviews – historical interpretations would not be possible. Roots and trunk are interconnected.

The trunk is perhaps the most visible part of the tree. Historical interpretation is similarly to what has long been considered the main activity for historians. However, it is crucial to understand that historical interpretations also take place beyond academic and research institutions. Historical research produced in academia and other institutions is crucial for public history. Public history relies on rigorous methodology and critical analysis of primary sources to interpret the past.

An important part of the his’tree is the disseminating aspect. Public history encourages us to communicate to large, often non-academic audiences through multiple media (branches). To make histor...