PUBLHIST is an email discussion list run by the American Public History Association, the same group who publish the journal, The Public Historian.
Participants on the list cover the full spectrum of "public historians", from contract professional historians to historians working in museums and similar institutions through to those, like myself, who teach "Public History" in universities and do some contract work on the side.
Curious as to how such people, who are very much at the heart of public history in the United States and Canada, defined and understood "Public History", I posted the following message on the list on 12 August 1996:
Has anyone out there a nice, simple definition of "Public History"? My question is genuine.
Personally, I like Otis Graham's definition that "it is when someone else asks the questions." But, as he noted himself, it isn't always so simple. And, if the someone asking the questions is a bureaucrat or corporate rat, then it is hardly "Public" history". I suspect that much of what passes on this list for "Public History" is what we, here in Oz, might describe as "Professional History". This is not to suggest anything demeaning! I am just curious as to how the term, "Public History", is used in other environments. And, please note, that we too are having difficulties with definitions.
Dr Robin McLachlan
Charles Sturt University
What follows is an edited selection of some of the responses over the space of a few days.
As often happens on lists, the discussion takes its own course, reflecting the interests and concerns of those participating. Remember though, what I have asked, and read through them to see if you can find a consensus of opinion on what constitutes "Public History".
At some point, we lose sight of the original query and other issues are taken up by the discussants. What might this shift in emphasis tell us about understandings of "Public History" amongst the discussants.?
Date sent: 13 Aug 96 12:45:46 EDT
From: Barbara Milkovich, University of California RiversideMy definition of Public History comes from a course I took at UC Riverside. It is simply that the historical research is "client driven." This means that the historian is no less a valid researcher, but that his topic has been determined, and its scope set by an outside agent who is paying for the effort.
I find that I teach no less in pursuit of public history than in the traditional classroom. The audience is just a bit different... And, certainly, I do not compromise the results of my research to please the client.
Date sent: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 09:32:51
From: Gordon L. Olson" City Historian Grand Rapids Public Library MII am a public historian and a bureaucrat, and I regularly work with corporate clients. I am troubled by Rob McLachlan's statement that what I do "is hardly public history." To my way of thinking, those who merely spend their time teaching are the least public of all public historians.
From: Bill Mulligan, Director, Public History Programs, Murray State University, Murray, KY
At 09:32 AM 8/13/96 Gordon L. Olson wrote: "I am a public historian and a bureaucrat, and I regularly work with corporate clients. I am troubled by Rob McLachlan's statement that what I do "is hardly public history." To my way of thinking, those who merely spend their time teaching are the least public of all public historians."
As one who has been on both sides, or maybe better, all sides of this field -- practicing within several different institutional settings, as a consultant, and now as teacher, I think that Olson hints at an important question when he refers to those of us who teach -- how can we best prepare our students for the work they will do as public historians in a variety of settings, when we and they are in the University? How can we as practicing historians maintain ourselves as public historians when the University does not value or reward much of what we do?
I have been in the field since before it was public history, even before it was called applied history and have never worried about what to call what we do. We do history, we answer questions that need answering, we provide information when and as it is needed, and we try to help people understand the world they live and their lives. Whatever we call it to separate ourselves from those who don't share our interests and audiences is not terribly relevant. Is there any "private history?" I can just imagine the reaction of my colleagues if I start presenting myself as the department's PROFESSIONAL historian. That would be interesting. I guess there is a difference between American and Australian :-)
To return to the question I drew out of Olson's remark about teaching historians. Here at Murray State we involve all of our public history students in public history projects with a variety of agencies and try to make all of the course assignments as similar as possible to things they will actually do when they graduate. I know we are not alone in doing that. Should we do more - what do those who hire our students feel they need that they are not getting?
Date sent: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 10:34:08
From: John Hurley, Harvard UniversityOn Tue, 13 Aug 1996, GRM Gordon L. Olson wrote: "I am a public historian and a bureaucrat, and I regularly work with corporate clients. I am troubled by Rob McLachlan's statement that what I do "is hardly public history." To my way of thinking, those who> merely spend their time teaching are the least public of all public historians."
I suspect that McLachlan was being provocative in order to stir up a good discussion; early indications are that this strategy was successful. Anyway, I want to take exception to the way McLachlan makes a distinction between "public" and "professional" history. To my mind, the key program of the public history "movement" is that historians using professional methodology deserve equal status in the historical profession wherever they work. Let me cop to the fact that, as a graduate student looking for work in the current job market, I personally have a strong stake in this idea. We could make an analytical distinction between historians working for public institutions and those working for private clients, but I'm not sure there is a real difference in professional praxis. I can think of at least one member of this list who criticized Peter Novick's attack on "private" history in TPH - perhaps she or one of the many subscribers working for corporate clients would like to address the question of scholarly ethics in private sector history. I suspect that the criticism of history sponsored by "bureaucrats" will draw out commentary without further incitement by me, so I'll let that part go.
Date sent: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 09:44:25
From: Patricia Bellis Bixel, Rice UniversityI am a PhD candidate in History; I work as an assistant editor for a scholarly journal; I have been a museum director and exhibition designer; I teach both the American history survey and public history courses. I consider all of those things forms of public history. I understand the "public" in public history to primarily identify an audience. When I teach my public history course, I present it in many ways as a form of consumer education. When undergraduates leave a university, even if they are history majors, they will probably never encounter historical topics treated in an academic fashion. They will most likely encounter historical topics in museums, on television, in films, and wider kinds of readings for the general public. My course, I hope, helps them navigate and critically evaluate the historical information they'll encounter "out there". If they become interested in any of these forms of historical presentation as careers, I'll help them pursue that end of it as well. Academic history is no less "interested" than any other form of history research or presentation. The ties that bind may be a trifle more obscure, but they exist nevertheless.
Date sent: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 17:17:35
From: John P. McCarthy, Principal, Sr. Archaeologist/Historian IMA Consulting, Inc.MinneapolisPublic history has been defined simply as the professional practice of history outside an academic setting. Assumed and unstated is that such practice is in the public interest and for the benefit of the public writ large.
While I generally agree with Gordon Olson, I would argue that it is what one does, as a professional practitioner, that makes one a public historian, not who pays one's salary. Motive speaks to the point here I think.
Date sent: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 14:36:00
From: Frits Pannekoek, Government of AlbertaRecently on H-Canada a Canadian university posted a special conference for recent graduate historians and "private" scholars. There was no definition of private scholars. Obviously what was meant was that recent graduates and those who couldn't get "real employment" i.e at a University needed special intellectual coddling. The suggestion was that these individuals could not be heard at the national "academic" gatherings. The posting as do some of the discussions on the public history forum, indicate that in the minds of some there is a hierarchy of "historians." There is the academic historian, generally employed at a university, then the "private contract" historian, and then finally the historian employed by a publicly funded agency.
There is an unstated, but nevertheless assumed hierarchy at least in Canada somewhat in the order listed. I have argued that in the research and writing of history there is no difference amongst the three types of historians. Historians in Parks Canada working on the Riel Rebellion, historians employed by the Metis federation on land claims, or university employed historians working on mixed blood identities should all meet in the same forum and exchange ideas and develop the historiography together. The validity of any work should depend on the quality of the scholarship and the interpretation not on the paymaster.
Where Canadian historians, at least in Western Canada, have missed the boat is that they do not realize that the peculiar issues associated that appear to be unique to academic, corporate and not for profit history are similar. The majority of these issues involve public or community or peer participation, and communication. Historians engaged by widely accessible public institutions appear to be special because they have an audience broader than their peers. But the ability to engage a wider public in new cutting edge and sometimes unpopular ideas is often a problem that university employed historians must also concern themselves with. Peers can be as vicious and difficult as the public. Furthermore in the age of "trickle down" these ideas often also make into museums. In universities, particularly during the 50's, free thinking sometimes caused academics to lose their jobs as well. Possibly on reflection we should realized that we face common problems (perhaps in different packages). We should stop fragmenting our selves into competing segments. To do so does everyone a disservice. But I suppose with three chickens in the henhouse you are going to have a pecking order.
Date sent: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:10:32
From: Chris Moore, TorontoSomeone commented on this list recently that there is no "private history." Hey, I call myself a private historian all the time.
In Canada the term "public historian" was appropriated pretty quickly by the historians who work for public agencies: national parks system, provincial heritage agencies, local historic museums, etc. And in some odd way, it seems also to be used by academics and their students who study public agencies.
But I'm a freelance writer. From my perspective, the institutional mindsets of academic historians and government-employed historians often seem pretty similar, and "private historian," though it began as a joke, works pretty well for setting out the difference I often need to emphasize. "Private historians" ought to work for self-employed historical consultants too, I think . If academic historians dabble in that, they could say they have a private practice on the side.
Date sent: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 09:45:41
From: Chris Moore, TorontoBravo Frits. Institutional affiliations (or non-affiliations) do matter in all kinds of ways. But in the end there's only good history and bad history-- and the struggle to tell the difference.
Date sent: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 10:08:46
From: VMAH@AOL.COMWell, now that we're on the subject of "private" history, I'll add my two cents' worth: I've been calling my business "Valerie Metzler Archivist/Historian" (as in So & So Attorney at Law) for the past ten years that I've been self-employed. When asked what I do for a living I reply, "I'm an archivist and historian in private practice," borrowing from my husband and his colleagues: conservators in private practice. I don't call myself a consultant since I don't just tell people what to do.
Definition of Public History developed by 1996 HST 209:
Actually, this is not so much a definition as a way of evaluating examples of "Public History". It goes like this -
Public history is history of the people, by the people and for the people. The more "of", "by" and "for" evident, the closer it comes to being public history.
