My dark secret, or How I learned to stop hating American history and start loving it

03 March 2014 – Brian Joyner

Brian Joyner. Photo credit: Michael Spain Smith

Several years back, I was a new public history practitioner working for the National Park Service (NPS).  A series of fortuitous events led me to the NPS: a stint at a historical society, a freelance job for the Smithsonian, an informational interview with the NPS Office of Diversity and Special Projects, and a quick gig with a partner organization. I started enthusiastically editing and writing about historic preservation and diverse communities, but I was carrying a dark secret: I knew little about preservation or public history. Yes, I was a history major from the University of Maryland (Go Terps!), but my senior paper was on the Conversion of Constantine the Great to Christianity and most of my studies were in topics that predated the North American colonies by at least 1000 years.

The truth was that United States history bored me and made me angry. From my earliest memory, the messages skewed toward war, politics, and American exceptionalism. I’m descended from enslaved West Africans, Blackfoot and Creek Indians, as well as Irish and Scots.  The XYZ Affair, Washington Crossing the Delaware, and the Bombing of Pearl Harbor were historical anecdotes that created a perception of America that bore little resemblance to the world I knew. My America was hearing about first generations going to college less than 50 years after the Civil War, blended families growing up in Indian Territory, tobacco farming, riding the wave of the modern civil rights movement into white collar jobs and the broader American middle class. So I gravitated toward other topics that were interesting, if not exotic for a kid from suburban Washington, DC.

As much as I loved history, I wasn’t sure how to make a living outside of academia. What I didn’t know was that I was already engaging in public history. Conducting oral history interviews for the American Folklife Festival, tracing the history of buildings from Sanborn maps for walking tours, and doing work for the NPS were all public history experiences. Fortunately, I had a great mentor, Dr. Toni Lee, who directed me to publications and resources to get up to speed. Whereas I could read up on the National Historic Preservation Act and take classes on the regulatory aspects of the practice, getting up to speed on public history was a slightly more daunting task. She suggested that I read The Public Historian, saying that the mix of articles and book and exhibit reviews would provide me with a way to get the necessary historical background, mixed with intellectual rigor and forward-thinking research about specific topics.  I lapped it up.

I loved the work I was doing for the NPS. How do you talk about rice plantations and the agricultural expertise found in the people brought from Mali and Senegambia to make the industry possible? What is the significance of a beer garden in Astoria, NY, and traditional cultural properties? What is a shotgun house, and why was it so prevalent in French American colonies? The journal gave me new ways to ask questions about history and a context for how to use it as tool for engagement. Attending conferences provided me with examples. As I was reading up on Latino culture, I could go to The Public Historian to highlight the connections between indigenous culture, Spanish Colonial history, and the rise of latinidad.  Later, I could talk with practitioners at the annual conference on how to put that scholarship to work. I have written three books and multiple articles, all of which benefited from my access to the scholarship in the journal.  Finding the field of public history also helped me connect the dots, move beyond “US History from 1865 to the present” to a clearer sense of myself as a practitioner of history within a broad and exciting field.  And I was able to bury my dark secret.  Until now.

It feels good finally to come clean about my secret. NCPH—the journal, the conferences, and the professional connections I’ve made—helped me understand that my earlier inabilities to connect with American history were part of an ongoing and active public process.  The process of shaping what it means to be a part of this country is one I’ve continued in my work for the NPS and through my affiliation with NCPH.

~ Brian Joyner is a Program Management Analyst at the National Park Service and a current member of the National Council on Public History Board of Directors.