A point paper from the Public Historians and Sustainability Working Group

20 July 2012 – Leah Glaser

The following point paper was developed by participants in the Public Historians and Sustainability Working Group, which met in Milwaukee in April 2012.  The paper is currently being circulated to the National Council on Public History Board, and the Working Group invites comments on it here as well.  A separate posting with links to public history projects relating to sustainability efforts will follow here next week.

Recommendation to the NCPH Board

As Public Historians, we recognize our ability to assess the role of changing human culture and values in relation to problems more often perceived as solely environmental or dependent on scientific explanations and solutions. As a profession, we should encourage historians to participate in efforts to solve complex problems related to the environment and to sustaining livable communities. These include current, highly politicized issues such as energy and climate change. The members of the Working Group on Public History and Sustainability believe sustainability should be integrated into the ethos of the Public History profession through public and formal education, environmentally sustainable practices in resource and site management, and sustainable community planning.  Thus, the Working Group offers the following:

Whereas, the international Bruntland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs;”
Whereas, Public Historians preserve and interpret history and historical resources for present and future generations;

Whereas, Public Historians have long engaged in conversations with environmental historians and environmental topics to explore the long-term material effects of the decisions, actions, and conceptions of people in the past;

Whereas, many students and the general public continue to conceive environmental issues as separate from or irrelevant to political, social, or cultural factors and “sustainability” often includes all of those factors;

Whereas Public Historians understand that human history and both the natural and built environments are key components for sustainable communities;

Whereas, historical methods can move beyond data and statistics to chart change and analyze current unsustainable practices/uses of natural resources based on values of racial, social and economic inequality, and can also stress continuity through to promote sense of place and identity

Whereas, Public Historians enlist skills of engaging narrative, shared authority and collaborative partnerships to support economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable communities;

We ask that:
NCPH more deliberately embrace values of sustainability as part of its mission by building upon current principles and practices to take a larger leadership role and encourage the profession, in methodology and practice, to address problems related to the environment and framed in language accessible to other disciplines working in the field of sustainability.

Specific activities may include but are not limited to:

I. Public Education

• Promote broader definitions of historic resource identification, specifically in regards to the natural environment and advance the conception of contextually interdependent cultural and natural resources in preservation and management applications. Natural resources are as essential as cultural resources in preserving history for future generations.  As managers and preservers of historic resources, we need to think ecologically as well as culturally about resource identification, how we identify these categories of resources, and also about preservation by protecting resources from environmental decay.
• Communicate to non-historians and the general public the importance of synthesized factual narratives that include analysis based on the principles of sustainability as the basis for all public history work.
• Provide models, training, and facilitation to encourage engagement in interdisciplinary and collaborative partnerships and sustainability efforts with community stakeholders.
• Produce/ provide verbiage/ vocabulary that helps historians and scientists and the public communicate more efficiently and effectively.
  a) Utilize accepted principles of Sustainability

– Growth management strategies

– Shared values, shared authority

– Ecological thinking and decision-making
– Openness and inclusivity
– Encouragement and cultivation of diversity and social equity
– Local solutions and maximization of local resources
– Renewable energy sources and self-sustaining structure
– Minimization of harm
– Protection for peers, neighboring communities, future generations

b) Consider and offer historically proven rhetorical strategies to redefine environmental issues in a historical context, rather than part of a specific political agenda to promote public support.  For example, during WWII, public propaganda linked conservation to patriotism.

II. Formal Education

• NCPH should integrate sustainability principles into the Best Practices of Public History education and training, perhaps including curriculum recommendations.
• Identify and recommend ways History Departments and students can participate in “green campus” efforts.
• Encourage members to design and implement lessons that promote historical awareness of the environment through Social Studies curriculum.
• Provide examples of historians who are part of emerging environmental studies programs and describe benefits.
• Provide a relevant interdisciplinary bibliography, e.g. The Journal of Industrial Archeology.

III. Professional Outreach. NCPH should provide resources for members and facilitate partnerships that advance relevant projects and principles.

• Provide official online environment for members to post ideas and work through questions and issues in a thoughtful, transparent, forum that shares authority with interested stakeholders.
• Identify funding sources for sustainability initiatives and cultivate partnerships and funding streams.
• Assess and survey the membership about sustainability and encourage the sharing of ideas and techniques, especially if inter-disciplinary collaboration; conversely, identify those who does NOT identify themselves as Public Historians but do work in that area.
• Assign organizational liaisons and encourage regular conversations and involvement.  Examples may be the American Society of Environmental History (Sustainability Sub-committee) and the National Trust (Preservation Green Lab), the National Park Service, and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

–       Help identify and/or define environmentally sustainable public history research areas, (and disseminate information about projects ie NCPH should act as a clearinghouse for case studies) such as:

–       adaptive use/ re-use of buildings

–       environmental decay of cultural resources

–       effects of state-sponsored violence on natural and cultural resources

–       climate change

–       identify/ address particular challenges and issues that such projects may present

–       social equity/ environmental justice (i.e. Nevada test site)

–       energy consumption, conservation, and renewable energy

–       historic district/ Main Street/ downtown revitalization

–       sustainable agriculture

In conclusion, we believe that NCPH could accomplish many or all of these tasks through an ad hoc or permanent subcommittee on Sustainability. Inclusivity and outreach should be maximized within NCPH through dissemination of activities, documentary resources, blog posts, journal articles, subcommittee work, the long range planning documents of NCPH and other organizations, etc. that addresses ideas and concerns of the organization’s diverse membership.

NCPH Working Group, Milwaukee, Spring 2012

Co-Chairs:
Leah Glaser, Central Connecticut State University
Priya Chhaya, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Alex Bethke, Naval Facilities Engineering Command

Maren Bzdek, Public Lands History Center, Colorado State University
Deirdre Clemente, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Melinda Jette, Franklin Pierce University
Devin Hunter, Loyola University (Chicago)
William Ippen, Loyola University (Chicago)
Jay Martin, Museum of Cultural and Natural History, Central Michigan University
Martha Norkunas, Middle Tennessee University
Josh Waddle, John Deere Waterloo Tractor and Engine Museum