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)