Tag Archive

public engagement

Finding their voices: the Williamsburg Bray School scholars’ legacy

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This article is the author’s personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views of Colonial Williamsburg.

In February 2023, I began working at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF). At the same time, an original structure then known as the Williamsburg Bray School was being moved from the College of William & Mary onto the museum property at the corner of Nassau and Francis Streets. Read More

Project Showcase: Kin/Folk/Lore

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Kin/Folk/Lore (KFL) is a community-led history project that uses grassroots storytelling to incite meaningful dialogues across cultures, generations, and localities in Philadelphia. Participant-audiences forge unlikely connections while considering changing landscapes, core values, and hopes that define their lives—past and present. KFL’s collection exists as a free, publicly accessible digital oral history database, exhibit, and album series. Read More

Shared Work: William & Mary’s Highland and The Lemon Project

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William & Mary (W&M) is home to several institutes, programs, projects, and places of public history and community engagement that support the university’s mission of inclusivity and partnership.  Many of these sites partnered in W&M’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded grant, Sharing Authority to Remember and Re-Interpret the Past. Read More

Raising New Questions: Reframing the Semiquincentennial with Resources for Educators

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Planning for the 250th anniversary (or Semiquincentennial) of the American Revolution, coming up in 2026, has already started for many historians and history institutions. The U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission announced that efforts to make this the most “comprehensive and inclusive celebration in our country’s history” began in 2020. Read More

Editor’s Corner: Community and Commemoration

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Editors’ Note: We publish the editor’s introduction to the August 2021 issue of The Public Historian here. The entire issue is available online to National Council on Public History members and to others with subscription access.

In this issue, we bring you three articles that deeply engage with one of the key subjects grappled with by public historians—the consideration of the role of the public not only as audience but also as interpreters of history. Read More

Our Side of the Tracks: Community Curation of Black History in Acworth, Georgia (Part 2)

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The second of two installments in a series exploring the development of the “Our Side of the Tracks” exhibit at Doyal Hill Park in Acworth, Georgia. Part One described the origins of the project, starting with the partnership between Kennesaw State University’s Department of Museums, Archives and Rare Books and the city of Acworth, Georgia, as well as providing background on developmental changes over the past 40 years in Acworth’s historically Black neighborhoods. Read More

Creative nonfiction as public history: a Q&A with author Miles Harvey

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Editor’s Note: Miles Harvey is author of The King of Confidence, A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch, which tells the story of James Jesse Strang, a 19th-century con man, who—as a self-proclaimed prophet and king of the universe—led a sect of the Mormon faith called the Strangites. Read More

Bringing History Indoors during a Pandemic

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Editor’s note:  How have local communities interacted with historians during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic? This post introduces the History Indoors project by two graduate students at the University of Essex. History Indoors helps bring a wide array of historical topics to a general audience around the UK and the world. Read More