Author Archive
09 March 2018 – Denise Meringolo
As the number of public history programs continues to grow, public history educators compete for students, grants, and partners. We flood cultural organizations with interns and redundant projects. Budgetary uncertainty forces educators working in state systems to make competing claims of primacy and excellence, pitting our programs against one another. Read More
31 March 2017 – Denise Meringolo 2
James Oliver Horton, emeritus professor of history and American Studies at the George Washington University, died on February 20, 2017 after a long illness.
Jim Horton was, at heart, a teacher. A former student, Dr. Laurel Clark Shire, recalled his tremendous faith that “all history, no matter how sophisticated or basic, could be presented to any audience.” Read More
25 January 2017 – Denise Meringolo
Typically, the origins of public history education have been traced either to early twentieth-century applied history programs or to the first named public history program established in the 1970s at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Neither group of founders understood public history as a distinct field. Read More
24 November 2014 – Denise Meringolo 13
The year 2016 is a momentous one for public historians in the United States, particularly those who work for and with federal agencies. The National Park Service will mark the 100th anniversary of its founding, and the National Historic Preservation Act will have been in effect for 50 years. Read More
11 March 2014 – Denise Meringolo
My public history courses are complicated.
Over the eight years since I took over as Director of Public History at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), I have found myself juggling and re-juggling course content, trying to achieve just the right mix of reading, discussion, research, and practice. Read More
29 January 2014 – Denise Meringolo 1
Recently, I went with a group of friends to see Yoga: The Art of Transformation at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC. The exhibition includes representations of yoga practice in sculpture, painting, icons, and illuminated manuscripts across 2,000 years. Read More
27 May 2013 – Denise Meringolo 3
Editor’s note: This post continues the series of conference city reviews published by The Public Historian in the Public History Commons
Ottawa Labor History Walking Tour, April 17, 2013. NCPH Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Creators: Workers History Museum in partnership with Graduate Students from Carleton University. Read More
06 March 2013 – Denise Meringolo
Read MoreEditors’ Note: This series showcases the winners of the National Council on Public History’s annual awards for the best new work in the field. Today’s post is by Denise Meringolo, whose book Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History is the winner of the 2013 NCPH Book Award.
23 March 2012 – Denise Meringolo
Recently, I attended a local “unconference” designed to bring together preservationists, public historians, community activists and others. During the day, this sentence popped into my head: “People do not forget; they never knew.”
I first came across that pithy explanation of social amnesia in an essay by Barbara J. Read More