Public History

The term “public history” is not often a term most people have in their vocabulary. Many everyday citizens would tell you that they don’t even understand the true definition of what public history is. Webster’s dictionary defines “public” as, ‘of or relating to most of the people of a country or state,’ and it defines “history” as, ‘the study of past events.’ So by the dictionary definition, it is the study of past events relating to most of the people of a country or state. One would agree with this definition, however, with a little spin along with it. The complete definition of public history would also add the idea that public history is the sole interpreter for most people to connect themselves to the past without having to interact with

Museums, Corporate History, Libraries and Oral History accounts are all different examples of public history. Museums play a key role in the public history department. They attract endless amounts of families, schools and even foreigners to see what is inside. During the semester, I had the opportunity to take some visits to a variety of different styles and sizes of museums. It really opened my eyes to the problem that is good history and bad history. For example, the transportation museum in Sioux City had a handful of very nice exhibits, however, there were some things that just seemed to be thrown into the room and added in the to museum for no apparent reason. These types of exhibits would be what I would consider a portion of bad history. It wasn’t that they were incorrect, they just didn’t belong. If you are going to have an exhibit on women in transportation, make an effort to show that there is one and it isn’t just a few statues of women shoved in the corner out of the way. It is almost like things were thrown in just to say that they were there. Before heading to the museums, we were made aware of some items to keep in mind while we were there. Margaret Lindauer does a great job of explaining some of the criteria involved in a great museum critique. Using points from her article, we were able to create a concrete critique of the museum we visited. Lindauer says to keep in mind your thoughts before you

For most people, their understanding of history only runs about as deep as what they hear from a movie, commercial or even a museum that they visited. So for a museum’s sake, making sure that their relationship with the public, and the history that they are presenting is good, sound history, is a major key. According to Thomas Woods, the way history is being produced needs to change. We need to put more emphasis museums and exhibits that we are doing because that is where the typical American person is going to understand history. Woods talks about this type of history being much more appealing to the normal person than academic history. But at the same time, we also need to make sure the history we are producing is credible and good history. It can’t just be bad history used to draw in the public. Wallace points out in two chapters of his book that there also could be a problem with some of the museums and the perspectives that they promote. He uses an example of an immigration museum that just displays the completely incorrect view. One of the viewers he writes about in his book says that you basically have two ways to prove yourself to make this museum; you either become rich or die in a war, if not, you weren’t an important immigrant. Wallace also suggested that some museums promote interpretations that support their privileged “class” that constructed them. Basically, the