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MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY
THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC HISTORY:
NEW THOUGHTS, NEW IDEAS & NEW PRACTICES
PAPER PRESENTED TO
DR. REBECCA CONARD
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
HISTORY 6510/7510: SEMINAR IN PUBLIC HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
BY
ALBERT C. WHITTENBERG
MURFREESBORO, TN
OCTOBER 3, 2006
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Famed frontier historian, Fredrick Jackson Turner, once wrote
that wherever
there remains a chipped flint, a spearhead, a piece of pottery,
a pyramid, a picture, a
poem, a coliseum, or a coin, there is history.1
Taken from the 1890s, this statement
showed a fundamental change in the way history was being viewed.
Before men like
Turner, history was the written word found in letters,
manuscripts, parchments or even
carved in stone. History was the subject of academics and not
the common man. The
concept of public history would have its foundation established
in the 1800s and early
1900s by historians with these new viewpoints such as Turner,
James Harvey Robinson,
Carl L. Becker and Lucy M. Salmon. Building upon the ideas of
these four and others, a
number of institutions and groups grew and contributed to the
building of this new
movement. Finally, the very relationship between academic
historians and the new
public historians altered and changed therefore creating a new
field and new historians
that were a reflection of the events happening around them.
The study of history and the meaning of just the word history
have changed
significantly over the past hundred years. James Harvey Robinson
argued in 1912 that
historians had been focused too much on matters of the state and
conflict. He argued that
we are taught to view mankind as in a periodic state of
turmoil.2 His New History
theory was to break free from this old mold and focus on such
things as the scientific
breakthroughs happening around us. Robinson believed that these
were changing
mankinds history far more than wars. Carl Beckerbuilt on this by
stating that history is
1Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of History in Ray
Allen Billington, Frontier andSection: Selected Essays of Frederick
Jackson Turner(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
Inc.,
1961), 19.
2 James Harvey Robinson, The New History: Essays Illustrating
Modern Historical Outlook(New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1912), 12.
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really the memory of things said and done and every person must
have some
knowledge of history.3
Revolutionary educator, Lucy Maynard Salmon, seemed to
mirror Beckers thoughts (although she did it a number of years
before he wrote his
article) by using her own backyard as a teaching tool for
history. She looked outside and
remarked who made the first fence, and who gave him the right to
make the fence?4
She also encouraged people to look at their towns street to find
history. These four
found history in the little things that affect all of us and
could be relevant to the most
unlearned person.
Corresponding with these new thoughts on history or perhaps
because of them,
there was a rise in a number of individuals, groups and
institutions working towards
bringing history to the average public. Several of these
individuals were more
entrepreneur and collectors than traditional academic
historians. Book publisher and
printer, Hubert Howe Bancroft, turned to history almost as a
hobby after his fortunes had
been made in his late thirties. He started collecting items from
California and eventually
spread to the entire western part of North America. He hired
assistants and eventually
comprised thirty-nine volumes of research. Bancroft marketed his
works through
subscriptions (and self-publishing), which netted him a profit
of a half a million dollars
and guaranteed the set would not go out of print.5
Another such promoter was Lyman
Copeland Draper who had a mission, as written by Larry Gara, to
rescue from oblivion
the forgotten heroes of the border wars and early settlements by
traveling an estimated
3Carl L. Becker, Everyman His Own Historian, American Historical
Review 37(1932), 223.
4 Lucy Maynard Salmon, History and the Texture of Modern Life:
Selected Essays (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 79.
5 John Walton Caughey, Hubert Howe Bancroft, Historian of
Western America, The American
Historical Review 50 (April 1945), 464-465.
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46,000 miles collecting documents.6
He eventually moved to Wisconsin and helped
establish the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and became a
champion for the state
capital of Madison. When Draper died, his collection went
entirely to the historical
society which would arrange and sort his papers to eventually
total 478 bound volumes
making the society one of the nations outstanding research
centers for western
history.7
The collections of these men were dedicated to finding anything
and
everything regarding their subject of interest which, again, is
building upon that concept
of history in the little things for everyone.
Like Draper in Wisconsin, the 1800s and early 1900s was a period
of creating
historical societies. From her book, American Historical
Societies 1790-1860, Leslie W.
Dunlap wrote that the initial need was apparent as the
establishment of the first sixty-
five historical societies in the United States was the
realization that action was necessary
to preserve historical records.8
Some of the societies were created by charters from
states but most originated in a group of people with a common
interest would meet and
decided to form a society. After organizing, they would then
petition the state legislature
for some sort of formal recognition. While some societies were
located in state capitals,
others would be areas of large populations or towns with
universities. In one
extraordinary example, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Shambaugh, a
full-time professor of the
University of Iowa and a member of the Board of Curators for the
State Historical
6Larry Gara, Lyman Copeland Draper in Clifford L. Lord, ed.,
Keepers of the Past(Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), 42.
7 Ibid., 51.
8 Leslie W. Dunlap, American Historical Societies: 1790-1860
(Philadelphia: Porcupine Press,1974), 10.
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Society of Iowa, moved the location of the society from an old
room above a hardware
store to the university. Shambaugh could literally step out of
his faculty office and go
across the hall to the SHSI office.9 Like Drapers goals for
Wisconsin, Shambaugh stated
I dream of the day when Iowa history not only will be translated
into folklore but
transmitted into the hearts of our people.10
These societies were moving history away
from the traditional focus on conflict as Robinson has stated.
What started out as merely
official documents in most of these societies, Dunlap explained
had grown into
traditions, legends, anecdotes of persons and places, letters,
pictures, maps, songs and
ballads.
11
The growth of historical societies also showed a growth in
non-professional and
non-academic amateurs taking an active role in what we would
likely label today
public history. A number of these amateur groups were comprised
of predominantly
women. For example, the Mount Vernon Ladies Association was
formed in 1853 to
preserve George Washingtons plantation. This was the first of
its type in the United
States and historian James M. Lindgren credits the organization
with beginning the
modern preservation movement.12
While he believed that these groups were doing this
for more romantic reasons than professional, several structures
like Mount Vernon would
probably not have survived to today without their help. It is
also important to note that
9 Rebecca Conard, Benjamin Shambaugh and the Intellectual
Foundations of Public History (IowaCity: University of Iowa Press,
2002), 48.
10 Ibid., 47.
11 Dunlap, 20.
12James M. Lindgren, A New Departure in Historic, Patriotic
Work: Personalism,
Professionalism, and Conflicting Concepts of Material Culture in
the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Centuries, The Public Historian 18 (Spring 1996), 43.
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several of these amateurs were African American women, who were
striving to promote
not only their sex but race. They also formed societies along
with libraries and reading
rooms. African American men were invited as well with several
volumes being written
by both men and women to highlight the African American
soldiers, patriots and heroes
of the various wars from the American Revolution to the
twentieth century.13
Professor
of Black Studies at Wellesley College, Tony Martin, called some
of the people in these
groups bibliophiles that collected and cataloged works by
African Americans to counter
the pseudo-scientific racism that was so prevalent during this
time when so-called
scholars and writers were claiming that black people were by
nature inferior.
14
Without
their work, the secondary goal of providing a body of
information for posterity would
surely have never happened.15
Also, amateurs (both white and black) focused on the
womens movements and the plight of women in general. This was in
contrast to the
normal fascination with politics as Bonnie G. Smith wrote that
professional historians
during the turn of the century did not study poor or ordinary
people since they did not
study women.16 If public history is for everyone, these amateurs
were creating books
and other resources that all could enjoy and learn from.
Along with historical societies, another trend in the field of
public history was
emerging at a rapid pace. Increasingly, states were seeing the
need for archives.
13Julie Des Jardins, African American Womens Historical
Consciousness in Women and theHistorical Enterprise in America
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003),
120-121.
14Tony Martin, Bibliophiles, Activists, and Race Men in
Sinnette, Coates, and Battle, eds.,
Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History
(Washington, D. C.: Howard University
Press, 1990), 29.
15 Ibid., 30.
16Bonnie G. Smith, High Amateurism and the Panoramic Past in The
Gender of History
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 174.
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According to archivist and author Patricia Galloway, most early
archives were
motivated by a filiopietistic desire to preserve evidence, but
all faced the possibilities
of being influenced by various political interests.17
For example, the Mississippi
Department of Archives and History (established in 1902) and its
first director, Dunbar
Rowland, could be argued to have primarily been a promoter of
the Lost Cause of the
failed Confederacy instead of covering every possibility of
Mississippi history. Galloway
would also write that neither Rowland nor the institution had
much choice with a Board
of Trustees where two were Confederate veterans, three the sons
of veterans, one a
legislative participant in the overthrow of Reconstruction and
two present at the 1890
Constitutional Convention.18
Another example is the state of Illinois had let the
secretary of the state office keep legal records till a need was
perceived for an archives
division (where it would be part of the Illinois State Library
till 1957). Margaret Cross
Norton would become the first archivist of Illinois in 1922 and
serve there for over thirty-
five years. In a field dominated by men, Norton would become a
charter member of the
Society of American Archivists (serving as its first
vice-president and fourth president),
secretary-treasurer of the National Association of State
Libraries and also be the editor
for the American Archivistin 1946.19
Unlike Rowland, the Illinois archives were
perceived as a place by political agencies to store all
important documents (no matter the
subject) along with documents perceived as being too recent to
be viewed by the public.
17Patricia Galloway, Archives, Power and History: Dunbar Rowland
and the Beginning of the
State Archives of Mississippi (1902-1936), American Archivist 69
(2006), 82.
18 Ibid., 94.
19 Thorton W. Mitchell, Norton on Archives: The Writings of
Margaret Cross Norton on Archival& Records
Management(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1975),
xvi.
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One wonders then if Norton had the same problem as the Library
of Congress in 1993
when they released Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshalls
papers to the public
shortly after his death prompting many to examine the other
judges decisions on current
issues like abortion.20
In these earlier times, archivists had perhaps more power in
the
releasing of documents and furthering their own causes.
Along with historical societies, amateur groups and archives,
another aspect that
was slower to change its perspective from the scholarly to the
common public was
museums. Historian and author Marjorie Schwarzer wrote that
museums of the late
1800s were places for the elite and privileged and managed by a
socially prominent
patrician class.21
She described museums as mainly cabinet of curiosities where
collectors would show everything they owned.22
It would take revolutionary thinkers like
John Dewey and his wife as they took school children to museums
as part of their
educational curriculum. Even though the Deweys were doing this
in 1896, it would be
many more years before most museums would change their attitudes
about the common
man attending. Most structures were just too imposing in
appearance as well as the
smallest admission fee usually out of reach for most Americans.
Most were also off
limits to African Americans or only available to then one day a
week.23
Lagging behind
the other public history institutions, it would take the
twentieth century for museums to
grow from a mere 1,400 in 1928 to over 10,000 in 1998 with an
estimated 865 annual
20Randall C. Jimerson, Ethical Concerns for Archivists, The
Public Historian 28 (2006), 87.
21 Marjorie Schwarzer, Riches, Rivals and Radicals: 100 Years of
Museums in America (American
Association of Museums, 2006), 3.
22 Ibid., 7.
23 Ibid., 10.
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attendance.24
This was done by creating structures, displays and shows not
only less
imposing to the general public but marketed especially for
them.
With the rise of these new public history ventures, the
relationship of the
traditional academic historian would begin to evolve. For
example, academics struggled
with the ideas of an entrepreneur like New England historian J.
Franklin Jameson for
suggesting joining scholarly work with business patrons in a
speech in 1987 to the
American Historical Association.25
This is certainly not as true in our modern era where
a former university historian, Shelley Bookspan, started her own
video company based on
creating an oral history for individuals, companies or other
groups.
26
Another example is
the Old Independence Regional Museum that worked closely with
private donors, the
local community and even a specific family to develop a
traveling exhibit of mainly
community photographs that would have surely been looked down
upon by academics of
the past.27
Where traditionally academics have rejected advances in
technology, public
historians have been more open. In the case of radio, author Ian
Tyrell wrote that the
State Historical Society of Iowa gave a series of radio talks in
connection with Iowa
History Week in 1928. In Minnesota, more than twenty talks were
given in 1927-28,
with the result that family papers and diaries were turned over
to the Minnesota State
24 Ibid., 6.
25Morey D. Rothberg, The Brahmin as Bureaucrat: J. Franklin
Jameson at the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, 1905-1928, The Public Historian 8
(1986), 50.
26Shelley Bookspan, Something Ventured, Many Things Gained:
Reflections on Being a
Historian Entrepreneur, The Public Historian 28 (2006), 70.
27Jo Blatti, Harry Millers Vision of Arkansas, 1900-1910: A Case
Study in Sponsored Projects,
The Public Historian 28 (2006), 82.
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Historical Society.28
This conflict continues in recent years such as the case of
Dr.
Russell Lewis who created quite a controversy for suggesting DNA
analysis of Mary
Todd Lincoln's cloak to see if it was truly stained with blood
from the President's
assassination.29
Change is slow, but academia becomes more and more open each
year to
the possibilities.
The modern era has seen public history truly become a field of
its own. Using the
notions set forth by past innovators like Turner and Becker,
public historians like
Katharine T. Corbett and Howard S. Miller would write every
person used history every
day to make sense of the world and the burden of engagement lay
with the
professionals.30
With the rise of historical societies, archives, museums and a
host of
dedicated people (both amateur and professional), the
possibilities of engaging all of
society continues to grow. Public history is taught as a
completely separate major in
several institutions. In an article forThe Public Historian,
Noel J. Stowe explained that
public history programs introduce students to different models
of practice through
courses and projects and prepare students in the high-order
practice of the discipline.31
According to Stowe, it is a reflective practice. However, it can
also be controversial and
conflict with government as Canada Science and Technology Museum
historian Sharon
Babian lamented overa Parks Canada historian researching the
Northwest Rebellion or
28 Ian Tyrrell, Historians in Public: The Practice of American
History, 1890-1970 (Chicago: TheUniversity of Chicago Press, 2005),
91.
29Russell Lewis, Judgments of Value, Judgments of Fact: The
Ethical Dimension of
Biohistorical Research, The Public Historian 28 (2006), 96.
30Katharine T. Corbett and Howard S. Miller, A Shared Inquiry
into Shared Inquiry, The PublicHistorian 28 (2006), 18.
31Noel J. Stowe, Public History Curriculum: Illustrating
Reflective Practice, The Public
Historian 28 (2006), 40.
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the Acadian Expulsions.32
It can be used in private consulting like the Historical
Research Associates firm that studied over twenty highways and
roads that crossed
national forests in Wyoming and Idaho.33
Public history can even be used for litigation in
cases like the thirty lawsuits historian Craig E. Colten was
asked to participate in
involving, in his own words, a historical perspective on
industrial waste-management
practices and capabilities.34
These examples and countless others show not only the
evolution of public history but how much it is now involved with
modern society. Public
history is for the public and about the public. It is for
all.
32Sharon Babaian, So Far, So Good: Ethics and the Government
Historian, The PublicHistorian 28 (2006), 103.
33 Alan S. Newwell, Personal and Professional Issues in Private
Consulting, The Public
Historian 28 (2006), 108.
34Craig E. Colten, The Historians Responsibility in Litigation
Support, The Public Historian28 (2006), 111.
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Bibliography
Becker, Carl L. Everyman His Own Historian. American Historical
Review 37(1932),
221-236.
Caughey, John Walton. Hubert Howe Bancroft, Historian of Western
America. TheAmerican Historical Review 50 (April 1945),
461-470.
Conard, Rebecca. Benjamin Shambaugh and the Intellectual
Foundations of PublicHistory. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,
2002.
Des Jardins, Julie. African American Womens Historical
Consciousness in Womenand the Historical Enterprise in America.
Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2003, 118-142.
Dunlap, Leslie W. American Historical Societies: 1790-1860.
Philadelphia: Porcupine
Press, 1974.
Galloway, Patricia. Archives, Power and History: Dunbar Rowland
and the Beginning
of the State Archives of Mississippi (1902-1936). American
Archivist 69 (2006),
79-116.
Gara, Larry. Lyman Copeland Draper in Clifford L. Lord, ed.
Keepers of the Past.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965,
40-52.
Lindgren, James M. A New Departure in Historic, Patriotic Work:
Personalism,
Professionalism, and Conflicting Concepts of Material Culture in
the Late
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. The Public Historian
18 (Spring1996), 41-60.
Martin, Tony. Bibliophiles, Activists, and Race Men in Sinnette,
Coates, and Battle,eds., Black Bibliophiles and Collectors:
Preservers of Black History.
Washington, D. C.: Howard University Press, 1990, 23-34.
Mitchell, Thorton W. Norton on Archives: The Writings of
Margaret Cross Norton on
Archival & Records Management. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press,
1975.
Robinson, James Harvey. The New History in The New History:
Essays Illustrating the
Modern Historical Outlook. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1912.
Rothberg, Morey D. The Brahmin as Bureaucrat: J. Franklin
Jameson at the CarnegieInstitution of Washington, 1905-1928. The
Public Historian 8 (1986), 47-60.
Salmon, Lucy Maynard. History and the Texture of Modern Life:
Selected Essays.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2001.
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