Homes, buildings, and many other forms of architecture are preserved to help reflect the history of certain places and people. In Urban Landscapes as Public History the author Dolores Hayden discusses the debate created between Herbert J. Gans and Ada Louise Huxtable over “the public meaning of the built past” (Hayden 4). What set these two apart in their understanding of the built past was their definition of what history they wished to use and who should be given funding for preservation. Gans felt that social history was very important, and that federal funding needed to be socially acceptable. However Huxtable wished to focus on cultural history and the preservation of great building was of more importance (Hayden 4). Despite their differences in what should be preserved and what history should be presented, they both understood that the local and neighborhood histories of many communities is being lost through the constant changes being done to American urban landscapes (Hayden 5). While this is true that the constant and radical changing of urban landscape can and has created blank narratives within local histories of cities, we know now that there are efforts that can be made to not only preserve these histories but also invoke memory in the public of these places. One such way to do that is by understanding and working with the many ways in which a person can remember or be provoked to remember the past.
    In Dolores Hayden’s chapter on Urban Landscapes as Public History, she says that “If Americans were to find their own social history preserved in the public landscape of their own neighborhoods and cities, then connection to the past may be very different,” (Hayden 46). This is a great observation to how public history is changing, but also how to make local histories and in the context of this article, urban histories more public and community oriented. One major aspect of tackling this, as Dolores Hayden points out, is through the use of memory, and in particular place memory to both preserve local landmark and historical memory (Hayden 46-47). Throughout this chapter there are shown a myriad of ways in which multiple disciplines can come together to help to create of public history work that can both inspire a community and remind that community of their wealth of history.
    In relation to our own project, Hayden’s work helps to present many new aspects to how we can present public history with the help of not only the community we will be working with, but also with potentials those of other disciplines. We can better understand the memory that can be invoked not only through oral histories, but how place can be greatly effective is memory and history.

Citations

Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place (First MIT Press 1997)

    In Michael Frisch’s introduction to A Shared Authority, the author argues that historians need to understand the authorship of oral histories, and if these oral histories are in fact real history (Frisch xx). The idea that we need to really understand whether the histories that we record are in fact true, is an interesting thought for our class as we continue with our oral history project for the semester. Oral history can be thought of in a very general and broad sense as recording another person’s memory of a particular historical event, or person, but it also needs the historian who is collecting these histories to perform some form of research to support the recordings. While this seems pretty straight forward, the collecting of history and essential collecting background information to support it, there are some issues that can be met when a project like this is completed.
     In Leon Fink’s article When Community Comes Home to Roost : The Southern Milltown as Lost Cause reflects on some of the issues faced when history is completely controlled by a group intent on interpreting the local history for their own gains. Fink’s article focuses on his experiences with the Cooleemee Historical Association (CHA), and their community history and heritage projects (Fink 125). One of the main issues that I saw, was the ability of the group was its ability to silence certain aspects of their town’s history that could be deemed as unpleasant or unflattering. For instance Fink states that what was most disturbing about the historical interpretations of the CHA “was the bending and shaping of discreet memories to fit a tidy, group portrait,” (Fink 125). Thus showing that the true history of the town, and the memories of those who lived in it were being shaped to create a new history that did not involve anything outside of the happy, hard working history of mill workers. I understand that with town history projects there is a strive to show the best parts of a town’s history, but to completely change and distort the historical truth can create more bad than good. By ignoring certain aspects of a town’s history in hopes of creating a story that can sell to visitors, the majority within the community can allow for the quieting or ignoring of certain minority groups or important historical events. There is also a chance that those leading these community revitalization projects are pushing their own agenda’s that can adversely affect those within the community. Fink saw this with the involvement of Lynn and Jim Rumley, who not became top members of the CHA, but also became very active members within local government through this organization (120).
    What both Fisch and Fink have given us is a better understanding of what issues historians can face when becoming part of public history projects that reflect upon a close knit community’s history. As we continue with out project we have to be mindful of not only the political issues that surround the community and its members, as well as who’s history it is that we are recording.

Citations

Fink, Leon. "When Community Comes Home to Roost: The Southern Milltown as a Lost Cause" Journal of Social History (Autumn 2009)

Frisch, Michael, A Shared Authority, (1990 State University of New York Press, Albany) 

 As a budding public historian one of my main concerns is how can I create a learning experience that will engage wider audiences. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life by Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, helps to bring information on this “wider audience” that historians wish to connect with.. As Thelen and Rosenzweig note in their introduction that they along with their colleges felt that, “professional historians were painfully unaware of how people outside of their own circles understood and used the past,” 1. Their study came from the issues historians face in connecting with a wider audience. Out of this realization the authors were able to spear head a study of if and how the “wider audience” viewed, interpreted, and connected with history. The authors interviewed a wide range of Americans from various areas of the country, and from many different backgrounds. A large majority of those interviewed by Rosenweig and Thelen seemed to gravitate towards historical learning due to personal reasons. Many individuals interviewed had personal or familial connections to certain events or points in American history, and some wanted to better understand their ancestral past in hope to better understand their own identity. This was extremely interesting because it helps to understand that many people with in America seek history that is relatable to themselves, or that can provide them with a sense of themselves or their families2. I believe that the authors were able to accomplish their goal of helping to bridge the gap between professional historians and their audiences, but I feel that this is a study that could be expanded on to include younger audiences. This study focused primarily on adult Americans, and while they are a large part of the audiences that frequent public history settings, they are but a part of that audience.
Pennsylvania in Public Memory by Carolyn Kitch, focuses on Pennsylvania’s industrial history, and public heritage programs. However, much like in The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life, there is the theme of audiences and creators of public history settings having extreme emotional connections to the past that they wish to become involved with.  What I found quite interesting in Kitch’s investigation of the various public history sites throughout Pennsylvania was that the majority of the history being interpreted was based upon emotional connections made between those of the present to the past. Many of the employees and volunteers of the various heritage sites in Pennsylvania explained why they worked within this historical sites and settings. Many of people interviewed explained to Kitch that their reasoning came from family, and personal memory.3 Again we see that emotional connection plays a role in the way history is research and interpreted by those outside of the world of the "professional historian". By understanding these emotional connections that the audiences and employees of heritage sites have with history can we attempt to bridge to gap between these two groups.




1. Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, Popular Uses of History in American Life (Columbia University Press,1998) 1.
2.Rosenweig and Thelen
3. Kitch, Carolyn, Pennsylvania in Public Memory (Penn State University Press) 18