“Now let him enforce it”: The long history of the imperial presidency

27 March 2017 – Laura Ellyn Smith 7

Historically, imperial presidents have often expanded their power through a crisis that legitimizes their actions. As we look at current events, it is imperative to recognize how President Donald J. Trump is utilizing this tactic. Portrayed as a measure to curb terrorism, President Trump’s efforts to halt entry of migrants from selected predominantly Muslim countries, as well as refugees into the United States, have been identified by political commentators, such as Fareed Zakaria, as fear mongering and religious discrimination. Read More

S.103 threatens digital history initiatives around race

27 February 2017 – Kirsten Delegard and Kevin Ehrman-Solberg 3

Not so long ago, few historians knew anything about GIS, or geographic information systems. Many of us saw little need to learn complicated software built on scripting languages and databases. We retreated to the familiar environment of the archives, leaving the technical challenges of GIS to geographers and computer scientists. Read More

Broadening our understanding of the roots of public history education

15 February 2017 – Rachel Donaldson 6

How closely is public history tied to academic history? Judging by the historiography of public history, it would seem that the answer to that is “very”; after all, the generally accepted view is that the field came into its own in the 1970s directed by formally trained academic historians. Read More

The American Civilization Institute: A case study in radical public history education

25 January 2017 – Denise Meringolo

Typically, the origins of public history education have been traced either to early twentieth-century applied history programs or to the first named public history program established in the 1970s at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Neither group of founders understood public history as a distinct field. Read More

A response to the election

11 November 2016 – editors 6

How should public historians respond to the new reality of the incoming political leadership in the United States? Representative democracy in the United States has survived the bitter partisanship of the Early Republic, the Civil War, corruption and scandals, the rise of international fascism, and the paroxysms of protest against the Vietnam War, so it is likely to endure. Read More

The public history of the Flint water crisis (Part 2)

25 March 2016 – editors 1

A personal perspective on the Flint water crisis

My thoughts on the Flint water crisis stem from a personal perspective, as well as my academic interests in deindustrialization, African American history, and heritage tourism. When I was two years old, my dad was offered a job as a reference librarian at the University of Michigan-Flint. Read More

The public history of the Flint water crisis (Part 1)

04 March 2016 – editors

Environmental Racism and Lead Poisoning in Flint

I study environmental justice movements, both contemporary and historical. Lead (along with asthma) has been a central urban environmental health issue in the US that hits racial minorities and working-class people particularly hard. Lead is often thought of, for that reason, as an example of environmental racism. Read More

Leo Frank commemoration: Museum partnerships and controversial topics

17 November 2015 – Anna Tucker 7

As museums increasingly become spaces for engaging challenging topics, three metro Atlanta institutions joined together to address a century-old rift in the community. Using expanded audiences, a shared strategic mission, and a network of public historians, the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History forged a partnership with the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and the Museum of History and Holocaust Education to present the exhibit, “Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited.” Read More

"APUSH" re-revised

01 October 2015 – Adina Langer

In a surprising turn of events, the College Board re-revised the Advanced Placement United States History curriculum framework, releasing its newest version at the end of July. While the move by the Board, which had instituted a public comment period seeking feedback on the framework back in February, is not overly surprising, the reaction among many historians and among the opponents of the original revised framework is. Read More

Project Showcase: The Great Society Congress

25 June 2015 – editors

On October 15, 1966, President Lyndon Baines Johnson remarked: “When the historians of tomorrow write of today, they will say of the 89^th Congress … ‘This was the great Congress.’” The president was elated that between January 1965 and December 1966, the 89th US Congress had enacted the most extensive legislative program since the New Deal. Read More