Tag Archive

museums

What employers seek in public history graduates (Part 2): Professional development ideas for public historians: An online discussion in preparation for NCPH 2013

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binocularsThis is the second post in a series to discuss the genesis of the idea for the “What Employers Seek in Public History Graduates” session at the 2013 National Council on Public History meeting in Ottawa. Session panelists will continue share their thoughts on the topic in entries in the coming weeks. Read More

Project Showcase: Vermont Marble Museum and the Preservation Trust of Vermont

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Located in Proctor, Vermont, The Vermont Marble Museum tells the story of the Vermont Marble Company — once the largest marble company in the world.  Prominent buildings and monuments all over the United States and the world were made by the Vermont Marble Company including the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, the US Supreme Court Building and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Read More

What employers seek in public history graduates (Part 1): An online discussion in preparation for NCPH 2013

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binocularsThis is an initial post in a series to discuss the genesis of the idea for the “What Employers Seek in Public History Graduates” session at the 2013 National Council on Public History meeting in Ottawa. Session panelists will share their thoughts on the topic in entries in the coming weeks. Read More

The happy historian (Part 2): Degrees of history

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Continued from Part I.

I recently watched a documentary on, of all things, happiness. The film, “Happy,” focused on the study of happiness (positive psychology) and what makes people happy and when, along with the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that contribute or detract from happiness. Read More

Unfamiliar terrain: Reevaluating a landmark’s past (Part 2)

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large group of peopleTo address the issue of how to make historic designation and documentation a part of Cliveden’s ongoing dialogue with its various publics, the site sponsored a forum themed around the question “Do National Historic Landmarks Represent Our Historic Values?”  This event was an opportunity to bring together community members, museum professionals, and preservationists from the Germantown area to discuss the NHL process, our research for the nomination, and moreover the changing meaning of Cliveden’s history today, all while enlivening what can otherwise seem on the surface to be a closed and static process of filling out a bureaucratic form. Read More

Unfamiliar terrain: Reevaluating a landmark’s past (Part 1)

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Through the support of the Arts of Citizenship Program at the University of Michigan, I recently found myself, along with my team of colleagues, navigating unfamiliar territory in the form of partnership with Cliveden of the National Trust to update the site’s National Historic Landmark  (NHL) nomination.  Read More

Would you like a side of history with that? Toward a more holistic public history practice

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Around the time that I took on my current position with The Trustees of Reservations, the organization made an internal change: our historic resources department became the cultural landscapes department, our historic resources staff the cultural resources staff. Why was this significant? Read More

Mind in the marketplace (Part 1): Taking the leap into historical consulting

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1997 was the hardest year of my adult life.  During that year my marriage of 15 years ended in divorce; during that same year, my employer, a nationally prominent museum of American cultural history, began to transform itself into a children’s museum, and eliminated the position of “senior historian” that I had held for the previous seven years. Read More