Editors’ Note: Four years ago, outgoing NCPH president Bob Weyeneth called on public historians to “pull back the curtain” on their process. Turning topics of contemporary relevance into public history involves numerous collegial conversations which usually remain behind the scenes. The History@Work editors thought our readers might be interested in the following conversation prompted by Adina Langer’s development of a new exhibition at the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University. Read More
Still Fighting For Our Lives, an exhibition sponsored and hosted by the William Way LGBT Community Center, commemorates the thirtieth anniversary of the Philadelphia AIDS Library. Read More
In the past three months, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has made statements about both statues to settler-colonialism and national monuments that protect important indigenous sites. First, in October, he was asked about the possibility of taking down Confederate monuments on federal land. Read More
In June, my brother and I traveled from Santa Barbara, California to Orlando, Florida to help document the one-year remembrance events and exhibitions honoring the victims, survivors, and all those affected by the Pulse Nightclub shooting. On June 12, 2016, forty-nine people were killed and sixty-eight people were injured by a gunman during a Latinx Night at Pulse, a gay (LGBTQ+) nightclub.Read More
In walking through the expo hall at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) conference in May, a friend of mine and I came upon one of the vendor displays that showed the figure of an enslaved black man shackled to a pole and a grey (white) auctioneer figure standing as if to accept bids. Read More
On July 9, 1776, General George Washington, his troops, and citizens in New York City heard the Declaration of Independence for the first time. Inspired by the words of this revolutionary document, opponents of King George III ran towards a statue of his likeness in Manhattan and proceeded to tear it down, later melting it to make bullets for use in their fight for independence. Read More
In the 1990s, Silver Spring, Maryland, was desperate for economic investment and an image makeover. Next door to Washington, D.C., the Montgomery County suburb had suffered from two decades of disinvestment and white flight. Once a thriving community with a booming commercial district and sprawling inner-ring suburban neighborhoods, Silver Spring had become blighted by vacant storefronts and empty parking lots. Read More
Oral history, like public history, is now old enough to have its own history, its own founding narrative. As one might expect from a field so deeply devoted to challenging incomplete and exclusive narratives, oral historians are now asking what is left out of their own history and filling in some of the gaps they have found. Read More
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