Tag Archive
17 May 2023 – Mary Culler
“After you graduate and get the letters M.A. after your name, finding a job should be no problem.”
These encouraging words were offered up to me at a recent museum conference, and although I appreciate the sentiment, the statement is not exactly true. Read More
10 April 2023 – Andy Urban and Alena Pirok
From Amazon and Starbucks unionization drives to the waves of strikes that have roiled higher education in recent months, American workers are thinking critically about labor and moving towards action. Museum and historical site professionals are no different. Projects like Art/Museums Salary Transparency 2019, and Instagram accounts like Museumworkersspeak, and Changethemuseum, have stimulated the conversation among art museum workers, but public historians have been comparatively silent. Read More
24 June 2021 – Sarah Marsom
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series of reflections from winners of NCPH awards in 2021. Sarah Marsom won honorable mention in Excellence in Consulting for her projects Crafting Herstory and #DismantlePreservation. This is part one of a two-part Q&A about #DismantlePreservation. Read More
11 March 2021 – Rachel Boyle
Job precarity has become a defining feature of the public history field in recent years as workers grind through extractive cycles of unstable, part-time, and temporary work. A 2017 survey on Public History Education and Employment compiled by NCPH, AASLH, AHA, and OAH reported that “respondents noted that contract work has become more common, permanent positions less numerous, and part-time and term employment ubiquitous.” Read More
04 February 2021 – Andy Urban 1
Editors’ Note: For more on labor relations at the Tenement Museum, check out the forthcoming May 2021 issue of The Public Historian.
In recent years, the number of unionized workers within the nonprofit sector of the U.S. economy has grown steadily. Read More
11 August 2020 – Tracy Neumann 1
Grassroots protest and union activism have flourished in the decade since the Great Recession. Labor and working-class history has flourished, too, and is experiencing a resurgent interest among scholars and public historians alike. At our particular historical moment, shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests against state violence and white supremacy, labor history provides context for urgent contemporary concerns about public health, workplace health and safety, economic inequality, structural racism, and social welfare. Read More
06 August 2020 – Jan Levinson-Hebbard
theater, African American history, projects, 2020 annual meeting, methods, NCPH 2020 awards, collaboration, race, labor, incarceration
Editor’s note: This essay is part of a series of reflective posts written by winners of awards intended to be given out at the NCPH 2020 annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Jan Levinson-Hebbard of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia received an honorable mention for the Outstanding Public History Project Award. Read More
18 April 2019 – Josh Howard 2
African American history, education, NCPH 2019 Awards, consultants, race, labor, National Park Service, practice, public engagement, 2019 annual meeting, collaboration
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of reflective posts written by winners of awards given out at the NCPH 2019 annual meeting in Hartford, Connecticut. Josh Howard of Passel Historical Consulting received the individual “Excellence in Consulting” award. Read More
27 May 2013 – Denise Meringolo 3
Editor’s note: This post continues the series of conference city reviews published by The Public Historian in the Public History Commons
Ottawa Labor History Walking Tour, April 17, 2013. NCPH Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Creators: Workers History Museum in partnership with Graduate Students from Carleton University. Read More