My experiences in public history and its ethical concerns stem from being a doctoral student studying a region I have traveled through and lived in my whole life. This relationship means that I have a personal, visceral connection to the region that I study as an academic, but not necessarily a connection with community members. In particular, I have grown up going on road trips throughout the western United States, visiting historic sites, and spending many days and weekends hiking and camping in the Rockies, where my dad’s family lived and worked in the late-nineteenth century. Currently, I study three active mining towns (Butte, Montana; Globe, Arizona; and Leadville, Colorado) and how larger trends in U.S. historic preservation and environmentalism have influenced their residents’ relationships to the built and natural environments. I trace the historic preservation and environmental efforts in order to see what resources have been available to preservationists and environmentalists, how they have handled those resources, and what their efforts mean for how residents and visitors understand each town’s history.
Thus, my experience raises several issues. One is that I toe the line between community member and outsider. I have not lived in any of the communities I study, nor do I have close relationships with community members. This makes me an outsider. But if the opportunity presents itself, I can connect briefly with community members when I tell them about my personal connection to mining town history. This does not make me an insider, but community members seem more receptive and open. Community members appreciate knowing that non-community members care about their past. Another issue my experience raises is that I am a member of the groups I study: I am a historic preservationist, and I have interests in the environmental consequences of mining. While this gives me a degree of credibility to talk about the groups I study, it also means that I may be too close to my subject. Finally, my experience reveals the difficulty of bridging the gap between academics and non-academics. My desire to preserve local history defines my role as an academic, but because I am an academic, it is difficult to become part of the communities and thus see their point of view about the role of public history.
My experience is not new. In fact, my doctoral research seeks to understand some of the past efforts public historians have pursued in making their efforts relevant and economically sustainable. For the towns I study, mining is their past as well as their present, thus creating a thread of identity for community members, but a challenge of how to hang onto the past without sacrificing their ability to adapt and sustain themselves in ever-changing political and economic climates. This identity crisis has been present at least since the early-twentieth century, when the demand for metals declined prior to and in between the world wars. At those moments, some residents in each of these towns tried to “modernize”—pave the streets, demolish unsafe structures, extend city utilities, beautify the streetscapes and yards, and bring new technology and safety measures to the mines. Simultaneously, historic preservationists stepped in to save some of the historic fabric. Some residents believed that the best economic route was to boost tourism. In order to do so, they latched onto myths of the Old West and sought to preserve portions of the built and natural environments in their towns that allowed visitors to experience the Old West while also offering modern conveniences. The result was that the resources that contributed to the mythological image of western mining towns were the ones that received historic preservation attention. If a resource could be preserved as a safe and clean space for visitors to enjoy, it often was preserved. But mining towns had been notoriously dirty and dangerous. So even though public history was socially relevant and economically viable by preserving some historic fabric and increasing tourism, it was limited to the safe and clean spaces. These preservation efforts might be models for first steps in linking social relevance and economic sustainability, but they are certainly not the final steps.
Another issue my experience raises is that of a graduate student in training as a historian rather than a public historian. As a historian, I have taken classes involving aspects of public history, but this has often been self-directed. The conversations about ethics and history still comes up, however, which suggests to me that perhaps there need to be bridges built among the related disciplines—history, public history, museum studies, education, sociology, etc. Since students come from varieties of backgrounds and interests, a unifying organization could offer an avenue through which students could have their own conversations about the ethics of public history, thus fostering their awareness of their responsibilities as conveyors of the past. One aspect of such a unifying organization could be “outreach.” Fostering connections between students and communities could be a regular commitment of the organization’s members, thus instilling in students a greater sense of their role as authorities, but also a sense of respect for locals’ authority over their own history.
In a similar vein, as community partners, public historians might do a better job of pursuing projects that enfold locals into the preservation process. One of the most inspiring avenues I have seen is through oral history projects. Many community members love to talk about their experiences. Others do not realize that their stories are valuable. Still others might not care about their community’s history, which would be an interesting perspective to hear as well. Moreover, such projects share the authority of history by both allowing the locals to give their perspective and allowing public historians to gather and synthesize information from a variety of perspectives in order to document and dispense a more nuanced historical narrative.
On a final note, one of the questions posed to this group is, “Should we reconcile history and heritage?” This is a central issue for many disciplines, not just public history. In history, it complicates historians’ role when working in fields closely related to social justice concerns, such as the environment and race. In these instances, historians might also be activists. And perhaps this is where we find ourselves as practitioners, partners, and educators toeing the line between (as a generalization) “distant, analytical, (often) college-educated individuals” and “connected, feeling, variously-educated individuals.” Is this what also leads to a line between history and heritage?
Perhaps. It seems, however, that the question might be less about public historians trying to reconcile the two and more about public historians making the general public more aware of the difference between the two, weighing in, but ultimately allowing the general public to judge for themselves.