“The Pride Guide”: Where the personal meets the professional in public history practice

11 July 2019 – Katherine Crawford-Lackey

Editors’ Note: This post is the second of two History@Work pieces inspired by the current special issue of The Public Historian: “Queering Public History,” Vol. 41, No. 2. You can read additional LGBTQ reports from the field in this NCPH ePublication, which complements The Public Historian issue and these blog posts. Read More

Community-driven mitigation: Murals, canal stones, and a walking tour

04 July 2019 – David Rotenstein 1

Jack Schmitt has mixed feelings about the way that the Pennsylvania Route 28 project turned out. On one hand, the longtime Pittsburgh historic preservation advocate beams when he talks about how he successfully convinced the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to replicate historic Pennsylvania Canal lock stones in a retaining wall in the urban highway corridor. Read More

On NCPH 2020, H.B. 481, and not passing the mic

20 May 2019 – Ashley Bouknight, Meghan Hillman, Brian Joyner and Marla Miller

On May 7, Georgia governor Brian Kemp signed H.B. 481, the “Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act,” into law in the state (to take effect January 1, 2020). The law, one of several state “heartbeat bills” passed recently, would effectively prohibit women in Georgia from accessing their right to a safe and lawful abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, at about six weeks of pregnancy. Read More

What does it mean to advocate for public history?

26 March 2019 – Suzanne Fischer 1

NCPH’s Advocacy Committee is charged with a dual mission: to respond to calls to take a stand on pressing issues of the day, and also to recommend proactive positions and actions to advance NCPH’s goals of advocating for public history and its practitioners. Read More

Competing histories or hidden transcripts? The sources we use

13 March 2019 – David Rotenstein 1

In January, History@Work published Heather Carpini’s important essay on competing histories. Carpini’s appeal for historians to dig “deeper, past the obvious sources, into the lives of the people who shaped, and were shaped by, a certain place” is an essential call to action. Read More

Considering relevance

27 February 2019 – Tim Grove

Does your organization think about relevance often? It should. Every history organization or department should constantly be thinking of ways to be more relevant to its various constituencies, from visitors coming through your doors to parents of potential students. But what does relevance mean? Read More

Inquiring minds want to know: Speaking to the public about museum collections management

10 January 2019 – Karen Whitehair 1

We all know that people are curious about the stories behind objects and the events and people those objects represent. And as public historians, we are in the business of bringing those stories to light. Yet, after doing collections management for over twenty-five years, I have learned that people are equally curious about the creative process behind our educational programs including how we document and care for the objects that serve as the foundation for that programming. Read More

Editors’ conversation on Pittsburgh

02 November 2018 – editors

Editors’ Note: The History@Work editors thought our readers might be interested in the following conversation prompted by the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018.

Will Walker: Adina, do you think you could write something about Pittsburgh that connects to the history of U.S. Read More

History is getting off with light duty

04 September 2018 – Bruce Dearstyne 2

“History@Work” is an apt title for this blog and a metaphor for a lot of the work that public historians do. But, history seems to be getting off with light duty in the arena of public discussion these days. Read More

(Re)Active Public History: NCPH Twitter Mini-Con

23 August 2018 – Krista McCracken

As you may have noticed in Public History News, NCPH is excited to announce that our first ever NCPH Twitter Mini-Con will be taking place October 18-19, 2018. The theme for the conference is (Re)Active Public History, and is rooted in a desire to critically discuss the active ways that public historians engage with the public, the past, and historical scholarship. Read More