27 June 2017 – Melissa Bingmann
Attending Humanities Advocacy Day this spring was a new experience for me. I have been a practicing public historian for almost 24 years working at museums and in the academy, but I had not been particularly active politically until recently. Read More
22 June 2017 – Jennifer Stevens
I think it’s safe to say that most historians do not have backgrounds in marketing and branding, and it’s unlikely that many of us took business classes during graduate school. Those of us who take the consultant’s path, however, soon discover the value of marketing expertise. Read More
21 June 2017 – editors
From around the field this week: Travel support for exhibit design workshop in Beijing, Smithsonian research in Washington DC; industrial heritage conference in Baku; online courses on rights and reproductions, care and ID of photographs; reviews of books on historical memory in Kashmir and Brazil Read More
20 June 2017 – Nick Sacco 12
On July 9, 1776, General George Washington, his troops, and citizens in New York City heard the Declaration of Independence for the first time. Inspired by the words of this revolutionary document, opponents of King George III ran towards a statue of his likeness in Manhattan and proceeded to tear it down, later melting it to make bullets for use in their fight for independence. Read More
15 June 2017 – Beatrice Gurwitz
Two days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, we awoke to reports that the transition team was contemplating a proposal to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). On March 16, after almost two months of near silence on the subject, the administration released a budget blueprint even more threatening to humanities programs than had been initially reported. Read More
13 June 2017 – editors
At the beginning of May, NCPH opened up our Call for Proposals for the 2018 annual meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the theme “Power Lines.” The theme is apt for a conference in Vegas, and especially timely in the current political climate as we evaluate how power shapes our professional and personal lives—and what power we might have as public historians to shape the future. Read More
07 June 2017 – editors
From around the field this week: Showcase of collaborative history projects in UK this weekend; program now online for conference on digital “placeless memories”; summer field programs in the Hudson Valley of New York; review of book on US World War I memorials. Read More
06 June 2017 – Priya Chhaya
When we agreed to chair the program committee for the 2018 NCPH annual meeting, we were determined to develop a conference that reflected the richness of the field but also addressed, with a sense of urgency, pressing questions about the profession’s relationship to the public. Read More
01 June 2017 – Will Walker
As I made my way through the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s five floors of exhibitions, it was the museum’s effective use of objects to convey both individual and collective narratives and big ideas about history that most impressed me. Read More
30 May 2017 – Will Walker 4
The first time I tried to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture, my friends and I got only as far as the grassy area on the Constitution Ave. side of the building. Less than a month after the museum’s grand opening in September 2016, the feeling around the David Adjaye-designed masterpiece that Sunday was electric. Read More