@HistoryinPics brings history to the public. So what's the problem? (Part 2)

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Two HistoryinPics tweets from Feb. 14, 2014 put whimsy and horror side by side.  Screen shot by History@Work editors.

Two HistoryinPics tweets from Feb. 14, 2014, put whimsy and horror side-by-side. Screen shot by History@Work editors.

Continued from Part 1.

Unlike corporations that use historical images as a marketing strategy, museums, archives, libraries, and national historic sites are caretakers of history whose goal is not to distract from serious investigation but rather to promote it.  We want people to understand context, to ask questions, and to dig deeper into sources.  We appreciate the beauty of old objects and know that history can be fun.  But ultimately we recognize that history has the power to motivate people to act in ways that have legitimate consequences in the world and on how human beings treat one another. So when a million people accept a feed such as @HistoryinPics at face-value, are we, perhaps, disappointed that an active and engaged citizenry has not stood up to challenge the whimsical imagery placed in front of them and asked “Can that really be so?” The practical consequence of people believing that John Lennon once played guitar with Che Guevara is probably little (this was one of the doctored images in the @HistoryinPics feed). The more urgent point is remembering that images can be doctored, human emotions can be manipulated, and we should always question what we see no matter how slick its presentation.

This strikes at the heart of the question about the public good and at the use of the word “History.” Had this account been called @ThePastinPictures, the outcry may have been more muted. The usage of the word “History” makes a difference. History must be researched. Sources must be worked with. Interpretations and re-interpretations must be thought through.  History is, in essence, the process of formulating a story about what has happened in the past. A critical difference between “history” and “the past” is that history is the process of looking for what actually happened in the past based on evidence and then figuring out what that might mean. We do get things wrong in the process, but we always attempt to get it right. Most importantly, we do not accept historical sources at face value but rather ask questions of them in the search for meaning. In fact, the Greek word that became history originally meant to inquire.

The founders of @HistoryinPics make no attempt at inquiry, accuracy, or meaning. They attempt simply to be popular and then capitalize on that popularity. By invoking history, we must respond and protect the word as well as the ethics and standards of the profession that have developed over time and will continue to evolve. What if I logged into Twitter today and created the handle @MDinTweets  and began to dispense medical advice in 140 characters based on what I found on the Internet? Eventually some doctors might want to know that I had some medical training and had properly examined my sources before offering them as truth.  Why should it be different for history?

Still, @HistoryinPics forces us to recognize that the landscape is shifting.  In 2014, two teenagers can post a bunch of random old photographs online and generate more traffic than the Library of Congress.  For a historian, that’s unsettling. But no brave new world was ever conquered by standing still. @HistoryinPics proves that the public can be and is fascinated by history, and that history can reach every corner of the world in this new digital age. @HistoryinPics offers insight into our own zeitgeist, which historians can seek to understand and incorporate into our practices. There are lessons here and with them an opportunity to educate, inform, and innovate.

Can we offer meaning and interpretation in 140 characters? Can digital marketing natives be brought into the profession and their skills put to use? Can we marry the “I want to share this” twitch with substantive related material for users to explore further, as my colleague Trevor Owens asked during an email exchange on this topic? Can we stay true to our values at the same time we evolve in-step with the advancement of the Internet? Can the immediate gratification that people seek from social media be reconciled with the thoughtful analysis we wish to see as historians? Can research and the readiness to question mythic versions of the past be reconciled with the instantaneous and whimsical nature of the Web?

I believe the answers to all these questions are yes, but it will surely not be easy. History will always be popular because history is interesting, provides enjoyment, causes us to think differently about the world, and provides us with an identity.  Our great collections in our collected institutional holdings are the evidence we can use to make those arguments. Perhaps @HistoryinPics can give us all new ideas on how we present that argument to the world.

Jason Steinhauer is a Program Specialist at The John W. Kluge Center at the U.S. Library of Congress. Recently named one of D.C.’s “50 on Fire” by In the Capital, his writings have been included on The White House blog, the Library of Congress blog, and the blog of the National Council on Public History.  On Twitter: @JasonSteinhauer. On the web: http://www.jasonsteinhauer.com.

5 comments
  1. “Can we marry the “I want to share this” twitch with substantive related material for users to explore further”

    This is a question I grapple with a bit in regard to my own online participation–I post a lot of beautiful images on Twitter from my library’s collections that for space limitations I can’t usually link directly back to our catalog records. I guess the two main differences between what I’m doing and the Pics accounts do is that there’s an actively participating human behind the account–I can and do respond to anyone who wants more information about an image. Also, I’m normally posting these images as I’m creating future posts for our Tumblr blog, where I have the space to include bibliographic information and links to our catalog and finding aids.

    One other important difference, of course, is that nothing I post has been Photoshopped, unless you count the occasional GIF. 🙂

  2. Will Walker says:

    I’m wondering where sharing authority fits in this discussion. I sense a reluctance on the part of many critics of @HistoryInPics to share authority with its creators. Perhaps, however, this reluctance is well founded. If the creators are, in fact, simply entrepreneurs with no interest in history, are they beyond the pale of shared authority? The creators’ blatant disregard for the standards of the historical profession and apparent lack of identification with a particular community make it hard for public historians to place them in our interpretative system. But, what about the consumers/sharers/retweeters? Where do they fit into this equation? Perhaps what we should be doing is exploring how the consumers of @HistoryInPics’ content interact with it. Are their subjective responses to the account’s content what we in fact should be examining? Take this recent example of a discussion prompted by the posting of an image from Pakistan (misidentified as being from India): https://twitter.com/HistoryInPics/status/432746753834901504/photo/1. While the existence of @HistoryInPics may be disheartening for public historians, some of the responses here are encouraging (not the ones from the trolls, of course). The best responses show a real engagement with accuracy and context in historical discussions.

  3. Recaptcha says:

    A few thoughts – I won’t tell you my age, but take a minute and count how many times you use the word “teenagers.” To paraphrase Tina, “What’s Age Got to Do With It?” Isn’t impartiality the ideal for a historian, or we all just living in a Doris Kearns Goodwin world? #2 – If @HistoryinPics was titled @CelebritiesinPics would you even be having this discussion? #3 – the role of history and historians is ever in flux; even our browsers compile our “history,” as does Google, Facebook, or the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org). I view @HistoryinPics and others of its ilk as a history market correction. Too long historians, archivists and librarians have kept “our” history under lock and key, preening for and screening “scholars” to be let into the Kingdom of Grey Archival Boxes. I’ve had too many Jedediah Leland encounters in the Citizen Kane Vaults of History than I care to shake a stick at. So I am not shaking my head at the “teenagers” of @HistoryinPics, and I am not raising a finger to “sssh!” them either. Whether it’s a land grab, gold rush or storm the Bastille 15 seconds of glory moment on Twitter they’re experiencing, I don’t really care. The Keepers of History are only just now beginning to experience what many other paternalistic top-down industries have been toppled by; e.g. we don’t need CBS’s Uncle Walt to filter our messy, Twitter-spattered news (unless we choose to). There’s a time and place for white cotton gloves and clip-on access badges, and a time for the gloves to come off and for @HistoryinPics and its audience to say, “Badges, to god-damn hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges …”

  4. Bart says:

    Besides Twitter, there’s a thing called Tumblr, have you all seen it? How about Youtube? We are right now in the middle of the most scrutinized and reported moment in history. Everyone basically right now is a camera, see what’s happening in Caracas now. My advice: Instead of freaking out at two “teenagers” who in 10 years won’t be “teenagers” anymore, let’s find ways to communicate, not to misinform. Let’s create dialog. It’s not that hard.

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