Structures of power and the ways in which they craft limits around (public) history work affect all historians. They affect the topics that are studied and interpreted, they affect levels of funding for history work, and they ultimately influence the ability of the public to be historically literate. National Park Service units such as the one with which I am connected exist in a unique structure of power that is both highly centralized and broadly dispersed, and I wish to explore how the themes of this working group can best be approached in the context of this sort of environment, neither academic nor nonprofit; the NPS operates one of the largest networks of public history sites in the United States. While my personal experiences are particular to the NPS, it is likely that they have relevance to other organizations with geographically and thematically diverse sites that, at some level, report to one central office.
While it may appear as though the NPS structure of power emanates from Washington, the reality is much murkier, especially concerning history practice. The NPS is divided into seven geographical regions, and park superintendents generally report to a regional director, not directly to a Washington official. Similarly, historians and interpreters in parks report to a specific individual at that park. The chief historian and the chief interpreter in Washington have bully pulpits, but no authority, direct or indirect, over work in the field. While this may not be the case for every historian working in a park (and the 2011 Imperiled Promise report notes the diversity of history practice throughout the NPS), setting the scope of history work in Dayton, where we
interpret the lives and works of the Wright brothers and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and the
context in which they lived, is largely a local responsibility.
Nevertheless, Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park is, as stated in
its name, a site of supposed national significance. Like most NPS sites, the park does not
charge an entrance fee; the cost of collecting one would be prohibitive. Its stakeholders
are at some level everyone in the United States, and sharing authority with everybody is
essentially the same as sharing authority with nobody; the park cannot be all things to all
people. So, most shared authority is exercised through a variety of partnerships, some
of which are defined in the park’s establishing legislation. The NPS officially partners
with the local nonprofit Dayton History (the county historical society), which owns and
is primarily responsible for interpretation at the park’s Hawthorn Hill and 1905 Wright
airplane units; the United States Air Force, which owns and maintains Huffman Prairie
Flying Field (which is a publicly accessible area of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base),
though the NPS interprets that site; the Ohio Historical Society’s Paul Laurence Dunbar
house, which the NPS staffs and interprets. Part of the park’s principal visitor center is
owned by another local nonprofit partner, Aviation Trail. So, most shared authority
takes place with designated organizations of local or statewide scope. These partners
actively participate in relevant public meetings and activities, as do representatives of the
local chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, so
in some ways the park has been practicing shared authority since its 1992 establishment.
Additionally, stakeholders of any sort can comment on any park planning documents that happen to be under development during public comment periods at parkplanning.nps.gov.
Dayton Aviation’s role in economically benefitting community stakeholders is more indirect. The community groups that agitated for the park’s creation in the 1980s believed that the establishment of a national park would ignite economic redevelopment in a distressed section of west Dayton that was a vibrant commercial and residential district during the park’s period of significance, often using the creation of Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts as an example. The establishment of the park led to extensive redevelopment of the nearby residential area in which the Wrights lived until 1914, and it also led to the stabilization of many buildings in the West Third Street National Register district. Many commercial buildings, though structurally stabilized, remain empty, and the anticipated economic benefits have not been realized. Regardless, these benefits are connected with the existence of the park, not the particular way in which it practices history or the interpretive programs it offers. History practice seems disconnected from economics here, and with stagnant funding and the closed, opaque federal hiring system, there is almost no way for the park to directly benefit community stakeholders by employing them with any sort of consistency or frequency. How a federal institution with a limited budget that is mostly dedicated to personnel and other fixed costs can create a model of public history that leads to economic justice is, for me, an unanswered question. Neither our economic model or our interpretive periods and themes are likely to change significantly even if we raise our profile within the greater Dayton community, though we might engage the services of more volunteers.
Collaboration is somewhat forced upon Dayton Aviation by legislation when it comes to site management and interpretation. Collaborating with other potential partners is more happenstance, based on particular projects taking place at particular times. With limited space for public activities and exhibits that are static and rarely changed, making the site more socially relevant depends on engaging visitors with new programming and ensuring that park constituencies have the opportunity to participate in the development of new management plans. Ensuring that connections exist between the park’s history program and history programs at local colleges and universities is also important, in order to ensure that different scholarly perspectives are represented and to allow students the opportunity to become aware of the (limited) career possibilities the NPS offers. And the park, as an institution, serves as an anchor for potential economic development. But the ability of Dayton Aviation or similar sites to connect economic development with the daily practice of history remains unclear to me.
I’m looking for Edward Roach