At the core of public history is a desire to understand and to be understood; we want to understand how things happened in the past and how those things have impacted our present and we want the public to understand as well. We collect, preserve, conserve, etc. objects, documents, photographs, etc. to help us understand the past. We have learned that in order to collect these primary sources which we need to analyze and interpret, we must build connections, trust, and a certain kind of respect with as many communities as possible. In order to build a sense of shared authority as well as rich collections for researchers, we have learned that transparency and empathy are keys to our success.
For eight years I worked as the Archivist at a state historical society and in that time I learned that the work required of me could be extremely demanding. In my career I have worked with local librarians to collect and preserve material related to a mass shooting, I’ve processed photographs of the worst things people can do to one another as a part of war and I’ve read a heartbreaking letter a 10 year old child wrote to his mother while she was receiving treatment in a mental health hospital. I have worked closely with people as they discover uncomfortable truths about their family and I have had public conversations about controversial topics like confederate monuments and the Lost Cause. All of the experiences I had were a part of the work and I hope to continue this work for a few decades more. But I would be lying if I said the work did not affect me on a personal level.
While going through a range of emotions because of the work I did, I realized that I needed an understanding, supportive and trustworthy leader. Unfortunately, the senior of the institution I was at was not able or willing to provide the kind of leadership that was needed. Instead I and my coworkers had to find the necessary support from middle management and one another. The level of support and understanding amongst the collections team allowed us to create an inclusive language guide for collection record metadata. While the conversations were sometimes tense and included disagreements, they were founded on respect and trust and thus we were able to accomplish our goal while maintaining a positive work environment.
The level of support amongst much of the staff meant that as the external environment around us became more hostile, we were able to persevere. However our continued work came at a cost; between 2018 to 2023 my institution of less than fifty staff members experienced 40% turnover multiple times. The amount of staff turnover at our institution was almost always due to staff burnout due to issues with leadership’s lack of support and communication. Thus turnover resulted in the institution losing a lot of institutional knowledge, community relationships and experience all at once and at multiple staffing levels thus hampering the work of the institution.