Tag Archive

public engagement

Apex and Oakland: Partnership for Black History education, part 1

21 May 2019 – Deborah Strahorn, Marcy Breffle and Adina Langer

African American history, Black museums series, collaboration, community history, education, memory, methods, museums, public engagement, The Public Historian, TPH 40.3

Editors’ Note: This post is part of a [email protected] series that complements The Public Historian volume 40, number 3, which is about the history of the field of Black Museums. The piece, written by educators at Atlanta’s APEX Museum: African American Panoramic Experience and Historic Oakland Cemetery, considers the collaboration between these two institutions around the interpretation of African American history within the context of the emergence of the field of Black Museums described in Jeff Hayward and Christine Larouche’s article “The Emergence of the Field of African American Museums” and African American history more generally. Read More

Reflecting on “Our Only Alma Mater”

18 April 2019 – Josh Howard 1

2019 annual meeting, African American history, collaboration, consultants, education, labor, National Park Service, NCPH 2019 Awards, practice, public engagement, race

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

A look at historical consulting

06 March 2019 – Tom Van Dewark 3

consultants, profession, public engagement, sense of place

In the eyes of the uninitiated, historians spend their days flitting between worn library stacks and museum backrooms. They sermonize about a long-dead past and boast a novel, but not necessarily practical set of skills. By this interpretation, the work of contemporary historians does little to impact the modern world. Read More

“Voting in Shelby County”: a curator’s perspective

04 March 2019 – Sarah A. McDonald 2

community history, gender/sexuality, government, local, museums, politics, public engagement, race

The Shelby County Historical Society and Museum (SCHSM) is a small organization situated in rural western Iowa. For over fifty years, the SCHSM has stood as a point of pride for community members. Founded by local citizens eager to collect and preserve the history of Shelby County, the museum’s collection consists mainly of items, ranging from household objects to antique cars, related to life in rural Iowa. Read More

The making of James Madison’s Montpelier’s “The Mere Distinction of Colour” Q&A: Part 6

01 March 2019 – editors

collaboration, community history, MDOC Q&A, methods, Montpelier, museums, public engagement, race, scholarship, sense of place, slavery, The Public Historian, TPH 40.4

Editor’s Note: Want to know more about what it takes to develop an award-winning exhibition about the lives of enslaved people at a founding father’s historic site? We did, too! In this series, we will learn more about what went into the new permanent exhibition The Mere Distinction of Colour (MDOC) at James Madison’s Montpelier (JMM) in Virginia. Read More

Considering relevance

27 February 2019 – Tim Grove

2019 annual meeting, advocacy, conference, History Relevance Initiative, public engagement

Does your organization think about relevance often? It should. Every history organization or department should constantly be thinking of ways to be more relevant to its various constituencies, from visitors coming through your doors to parents of potential students. But what does relevance mean? Read More