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
race, monuments, suffrage, art, women's history, community history, public art, memory, sense of place
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
27 January 2022 – Michael J. Kramer
This three-part series proposes that digital public history can deepen our study of the American folk music revival and cultural history in the United States. Conversely, it also contends that the folk music revival—with its hootenanny sing-alongs and sense of collective action—offers intriguing democratic models for digital public history. Read More
26 January 2022 – NCPH Office
From Around the Field this week: The National Fund for Sacred Places accepts letters of intent; the Columbia Oral History MA Program
offers virtual workshops; Polity Press publishes book series. Read More
18 January 2022 – Meghan Hillman
For the third year running, the National Council on Public History (NCPH) is canceling its in-person conference offerings and going all-virtual. All of us have become accustomed to assessing personal and community risk during the pandemic, and an organization like NCPH must do this on a larger scale. Read More
12 January 2022 – NCPH Office
From Around the Field this week: The Society of American Archivists Foundation accepts nominations for several awards; the International Federation for Public History calls for proposals; the Museum Learning Hub offers multiple virtual programs.
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11 January 2022 – Donna Graves
Editor’s note: Today we share our next installment for the “Our Climate Emergency” series. Donna Graves, one of the editors of this series, investigates her role as a public historian and explores the visual nature of the climate crisis. Read More
06 January 2022 – Emma Johansen
This is the second of two posts about the Sanders-Bullitt Digital Collection at the Filson Historical Society. Part 1 was published on December 30, 2021.
The Bullitt family enslaved over two hundred people at the Oxmoor plantation in Jefferson County, Kentucky, and the Cottonwood plantation in Henderson County, Kentucky. Read More