In the words of Carl Becker in his 1932 article “Everyman His Own Historian”, “History is the memory of things said and done” (Becker, 223). While Becker believes this to be the breakdown of the definition of the field to its core, the division into “Action” and “Memory” are the two most important aspects of the definition of both History and Public History. When addressed with the question “What is Public History?” prior to this week’s assigned readings, the first phrase that came to mind was, History that has been created for publication and dissemination of historical information amongst the lay community.

However since the beginning of the professionalization of the field in the late 19^th century (Meringolo, XIV) the information shared amongst academics and those with an interest in history alike has changed. This means that the differences between what defines “History” and “Public History” have evolved as well. While traditional academic history is believed by historians to be specialized information shared amongst academic colleagues separate from the public, there has always been a necessity for historians to be involved with and a part of the public realm.

While traditional historians may focus on the events of the past primarily from the belief that they are the last vestiges of recorders who can only record the past in the most objective of ways and correctly interpret history like the division between the traditionalists of the AHA and the historians dedicated to preserving social history across the country in a variety of ways locally or regionally (Meringolo, 99-100), there is a disconnect between the history that attracts academics and people outside the professional realm who engage with history for enjoyment, understanding, and education. Historians are not immune to the belief in certain “popular ideas” and this history that academics cling to is merely an extension of their own biases, memories, and beliefs (Becker, 231). According to Alan Brinkley in his article “Historians and Their Publics” academic historians in traditional scholarship have been “suspicious of or hostile to public… discourse, strongly averse to anything that might seem “popularized” or “middlebrow,” (Brinkley, 1028). While this may be true, especially with the idea of historians shunning history that has been popularized, the importance of history as an approachable field that everyone can engage with is necessary for the continued shared authority over the narrative that historians and lay people have over the interpretation of the past that is everyone’s history.

Memory, the second part of Becker’s definition is the more active half of his division of History. Time is ever-changing and with time comes new ideas, more information i.e. sources, and changes in interpretation. This and the distance from historical events allow for participants in historical consumption, academic or otherwise, to re-evaluate their own history, and change the narrative of how they act within their own “present,” (Becker, 235-236).

No clearer are these two qualities of history more evident than in examining the formalization of historical interpretation at national parks and historical sites in Denise D. Meringolo’s Museums, Monuments, and National Parks. Meringolo examines the changes and growth of history for public consumption using the nationalization of historic sites and landmarks to show how the development of educational programming, preservation, and consistent interpretation democratized history across government-protected sites in the United States.

Bibliography

Becker, Carl. “Everyman His Own Historian.” The American Historical Review 37, no. 2 (1932): 221–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/1838208.

Brinkley, Alan. “Historians and Their Publics.” The Journal of American History 81, no. 3 (1994): 1027–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/2081443.

Meringolo, Denise D. Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.