Attending Humanities Advocacy Day this spring was a new experience for me. I have been a practicing public historian for almost 24 years working at museums and in the academy, but I had not been particularly active politically until recently. Read More
For the past seventeen years, I have worn two hats every day that I’ve gone to work. The first one is my historian hat, as I’m the staff historian for the Canadian department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs where I research the history of the institution, prepare materials for public consumption and answer questions relating to the 260-year history of Canada’s policies towards Indigenous peoples. Read More
A year ago, on a hot, sweltering Indiana day, the search committee for the next executive director for the National Council on Public History met in person for the first time. The task we faced, led by chair Bill Bryans, seemed monumental: to not only find a new executive director who respects and understands the complex history of NCPH, but one who also recognizes that the organization is undergoing tremendous change and growth, and who will become a collaborative colleague within the history department at the Indiana University (IU) School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), NCPH’s host university. Read More
As employees of municipal, local, state, provincial, and federal governments, government historians have been a core group of the National Council on Public History since its founding. Yet, for a variety of reasons, these practitioners have at times felt “out on the edge” within the organization. Read More
In early 2014, a small historical society outside of Portland, Oregon, circulated a request for proposals (RFP). Having received a grant from their local government, they sought to hire a curator for a one-year contract. The duties of the curator included: inventorying and assessing collections, developing and implementing a policy and procedural structures for managing collections, creating an interpretative plan, developing a public services strategy, and staffing the museum every weekend. Read More
(Editor’s note: This post is the first of a two-part series looking at the Amsterdam Museum. The second post can be found here.)
As a certified History Nerd and lover of cities, one of the first things I do when I arrive in a new city is check out the local history museum. Read More
The year 2016 is a momentous one for public historians in the United States, particularly those who work for and with federal agencies. The National Park Service will mark the 100th anniversary of its founding, and the National Historic Preservation Act will have been in effect for 50 years. Read More
Our suspicions about the too-great-to-be-true Moms at the “Mich” album cover led us back to the Wikipedia entry that had started our quest for details about this little-known moment in LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) history. Read More
There are layers of history contained in the album cover for Moms at the “Mich.” Jackie “Moms” Mabley’s career ran from the queer Harlem comedy clubs of the 1920s to early race films, from the mid-century “chitlin’ circuit” to the family-friendly late-career movie Amazing Grace (1974). Read More
On October 23rd, the University of Amsterdam will be hosting the first conference of the International Federation for Public History (IFPH), “Public History in a Digital World: The Revolution Reconsidered”. Several years in the making and spearheaded by the tireless efforts of Manon Parry and Paul Knevel of the University of Amsterdam and Serge Noiret, Chair of the IFPH, public history practitioners from Europe, the Americas, and Asia will come together for three days to discuss and debate what digital media brings to public history and where public history is headed in a digital world. Read More
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