Welcome to History@Work
14 March 2012 – John Dichtl
Welcome to History@Work, a blog to represent the wide range of voices within the public history field. Consultants and contractors, graduate students, curators, archivists, and federal, state, and local historians, professors, and new professionals in all sorts of institutions and settings are invited here to catch up on news, weigh in on developments in the field, and share expertise.
My hope is that this blog offers some of the same intellectual and professional energy that an NCPH Annual Meeting or any good face-to-face conference does, but on a year-round basis. Conferences and blogs work because people meet and learn new things they planned to and, even better, things they never expected.
The name, History@Work, fits. Not only are public historians an active group, always spinning out new projects and ideas and connections, but this blog’s name evokes the NCPH’s tagline, “Putting history to work in the world.” That line is a reference to Carl Becker’s 1931 speech, “Everyman His Own Historian,” in which he noted, “The history that lies inert in unread books does no work in the world.” The public history profession, this organization, and this blog, we hope, will never be accused of being inert.
John Dichtl, Executive Director