22 February 2022 – Stasia Tanzer
The National Council on Public History (NCPH) is excited to announce the creation of a new award: the NCPH Grassroots Public History Award. This award reflects NCPH’s commitment to acknowledging the many different kinds of work public historians do and the wide array of places we do it, particularly outside of large and predominately white institutions. Read More
15 February 2022 – Melody Hunter-Pillion
African American history, climate emergency series, preservation, Caribbean history, archives, environment, oral history, climate change
Editor’s note: Today we continue the “Our Climate Emergency” series with a post by Melody Hunter-Pillion that centers oral history methods as a way to battle climate change.
Read More“It’s different and it’s more severe . . . I’m not the scientists, but I can definitely tell you, it’s happening.”
10 February 2022 – Michael J. Kramer
The Berkeley Folk Music Festival Project, discovered in the silent archives of Northwestern University Libraries Special Collections repository (Part one) and digitally developed through collective effort (Part two), now features a fully-searchable, open-source online archive and a digital exhibit that introduces themes and materials to aficionados and newcomers alike. Read More
09 February 2022 – NCPH Office
From Around the Field this week: The Association for the Study of African American Life and History calls for proposals; the International
Coalition of Sites of Conscience offers multiple webinars; Southern Cultures calls for papers. Read More
08 February 2022 – Sarah H. Case
Editors’ Note: We publish the editor’s introduction to the February 2022 issue of The Public Historian here. The entire issue is available online to National Council on Public History members and to others with subscription access.
Our four featured articles in this issue, all Reports from the Field, examine public historians working with performing artists, corporate donors, undergraduate students, and suspicious artifacts. Read More
07 February 2022 – Megan Smeznik
Editor’s Note: This the second post in a two-part series inspired by the challenges and opportunities associated with creating a virtual version of NCPH’s Digital Public History Lab (DPHL). You can read the first part by clicking here.
My first co-organization of DPHL was meant to happen in March 2020. Read More
04 February 2022 – Megan Smeznik
In 2019, I was lucky enough to attend my first National Council on Public History (NCPH) annual conference and act as a facilitator for the Digital Public History Lab (DPHL). It was an important experience that helped to cement what I have been searching to do in my career. Read More
03 February 2022 – Michael J. Kramer
The Berkeley Folk Music Festival Project began with silence. The question became how to activate its noisy past for a broader public when its history only remained in the quiet corners of the archive. The path forward would require not one solitary scholar in the stacks, as with a traditional historical research project, but many participants bringing out the voices, music, and sensory experiences from the repository. Read More
01 February 2022 – Michelle Duster 3
suffrage, art, women's history, community history, public art, memory, sense of place, race, monuments
A few years ago, Curious City ran an article highlighting the dearth of representation of women in public statuary in Chicago and asked for suggestions on who should be honored. Several dozen were named, with several of them being women of color. Read More
27 January 2022 – Alison Russell 4
Planning for the 250th anniversary (or Semiquincentennial) of the American Revolution, coming up in 2026, has already started for many historians and history institutions. The U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission announced that efforts to make this the most “comprehensive and inclusive celebration in our country’s history” began in 2020. Read More