As we grapple with the short-term (and potentially long-term) impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis on museums and cultural institutions, public historians across the field are dealing with layoffs, staff reductions, and decreased funding. And when non-history job prospects arise, offering higher salaries, healthcare benefits, and the ability to work from home, many face a difficult choice: to hold out for a position in public history or pursue opportunities in a different field. Read More
On December 21, 2020, as part of the omnibus spending bill, Congress approved a National Museum of the American Latino (along with a Smithsonian Women’s History Museum).[1] This approval came after a previous effort was blocked by Senator Mike Lee of Utah who argued that such efforts to create new museums were divisive and that the existing Smithsonian buildings—not separate new ones—were the appropriate places to explore histories of Latinx people and women. Read More
Over the past several years, many of us have participated in conversations about the prevalence of gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the public history field. This behavior has occurred at conferences, in workplaces, and in educational settings, among consultants, audiences, frontline workers, students, and others. Read More
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 is as good a time as ever for every museum and historic site to devise strategies to make public history more accessible. For public historians—as with many other industries related to travel and tourism—this year has been filled with chaos, uncertainty, prolonged furloughs, and unemployment. Read More
Editors’ Note: As of September 9, 2020, all positions listed on the NCPH jobs page must include a salary, salary range, hourly rate, salary code, or some other measure of compensation. In this essay, NCPH graduate assistant Hannah Jane Smith and board member Suzanne Fischer cover some of the reasons why the Board made this change.Read More
After decades of being overlooked, Marie Anderson was inducted into the Florida Journalism Hall of Fame at the end of July. For more than two decades, Anderson was one of the most powerful women in Miami. During the 1950s and 1960s, as a significant club woman and the women’s page editor of the Miami Herald, she was well known in the city—and across the state. Read More
Editors’ Note: This is the fourth of five posts summarizing the findings of the Joint Task Force on Public History Education and Employment, an initiative launched in 2014 to study trends in public history education and employment.
The National Council on Public History (NCPH) and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) have launched an online survey about sexual harassment and gender discrimination in public history. This effort is the culmination of more than a year of work by members of NCPH’s Board-Led Subcommittee on Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment, co-chaired by Kristen Baldwin Deathridge and Mary Rizzo. Read More
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reflective posts written by winners of awards intended to be given out at the NCPH 2020 annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. GVGK Tang was awarded the Historical Research Associates (HRA) New Professional Travel Award.Read More
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