Tag Archive

National Park Service

Meeting people where they are: Reinterpreting Freeman Tilden

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Editors’ Note: This is one of two posts reflecting on a working group that met at the 2019 National Council on Public History Annual Meeting in Hartford, Connecticut.

In his 1957 book Interpreting Our Heritage, Freeman Tilden attempted to provide one of the first working definitions of what it means to interpret history and nature to public audiences. Read More

Reinterpreting Freeman Tilden’s Interpreting Our Heritage

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For the 2019 National Council on Public History Annual Meeting in Hartford, Connecticut, I had the pleasure of coordinating the Interpreting Our Heritage in the 21st Century working group with public historian Nick Sacco. Our goal was to take a fresh look at Freeman Tilden’s foundational text, Interpreting Our Heritage (1957), and to consider whether it required “repair work,” which was the annual meeting’s theme. Read More

Reflections on Guns and Public History at the 2019 NCPH Annual Meeting

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Editors’ Note: This post is one of two that will highlight reflections on events at the March 2019 National Council on Public History annual meeting.

I felt honored and humbled. Here I sat with a few hundred fellow public historians in a historic church listening to community members share their hopes about how a new national park might collaborate with their neighborhoods and help make a positive difference to life in Hartford, Connecticut. Read More

Reflecting on “Our Only Alma Mater”

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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

Reimagining the history of the (Inter)National Park Service

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On May 13, 1918, less than two years after the National Park Service (NPS) was established, U.S. Interior Secretary Franklin K. Lane wrote to first National Park Service (NPS) director Stephen T. Mather regarding ways in which the new federal agency could interpret and expand its mission. Read More

Interpreting climate change through human stories at coastal national park sites

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Editor’s note: This is the third of a series of blog posts commissioned by The Public Historian on the topic of history and the interpretation of climate change in the national parks, extending the conversation on history in the national parks during this centennial year begun in its November 2016 issue. Read More