| Public historians move beyond the books BY SALLY ACHARYA
Photos by Jeff Watts
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Kathy Franz opened her morning paper and learned that a treasure was slipping away. If $250,000 couldn’t be raised within two weeks, the bank would foreclose on what could be the most intact Victorian house in the country. Franz knew the house well. It was a virtual time capsule. Built in 1894 by a German immigrant who made a fortune as a brewer, the “Brewmaster’s Castle,” as it was dubbed, had changed little since its heyday, in part because brewer Christian Heurich, who lived to 102, would never permit anyone to change the furnishings selected at the turn of the century by his wife. The plush carpets, luxurious chairs, carved mantels, and even the gilded bathtubs had remained as they were in the Gilded Era. The Heurich house was listed on the National Historic Register, so its exterior couldn’t be touched. But that wouldn’t save it from ending up as a tony restaurant or posh condominium, with its furniture on the auction block and its interior gutted. Franz, though, is the head of AU’s graduate program in public history, and she had a feeling her students wouldn’t stand idly by as the Dupont Circle landmark was lost to the public. After all, they’d joined the program because of their passion for a particular approach to history. “Some people think of public history as a vocational track—the work of historians in museums, historical sites, documentary films, things like that,” says history chair Robert Griffith. “I think that captures some of it. The majority of our students do go on to work in museums, historical sites, archival projects and so on. “But there’s also an intellectual definition of public history which has to do with audience. Academic history basically addresses itself to the concerns of other academics and students. Public history addresses history to a much larger audience, and in doing so, kind of recasts and reconceptualizes what history is.” Walking through history Public history is built on a foundation of scholarship. But to a public historian, the end product doesn’t have to be a doctoral thesis, or a book that contributes to the ongoing dialogue of specialists.
Priya Chhaya ’06 helped raise funds for a D.C. landmark. |
Priya Chhaya ’06 was drawn to history for many of the same scholarly reasons as other graduate students. She came to AU with a particular interest in the Napoleonic era and is keen to talk about the impressment of soldiers and the way it reflected global interconnectedness. But she didn’t see herself going into academic research. “For me, a lot of the meaning of history, and its importance, comes from the way the public uses it,” she says. “I’ve always been fascinated with material culture and landmarks and monuments.” So instead of pursuing a master’s that would lead to a doctorate and university teaching, she entered the program in public history. “A big part of public history is having these places for people to go and learn history,” she says. “Not everyone learns from textbooks, and there are some things you can’t learn from textbooks. Actually walking into places where people lived is so important.” Places like the Heurich House. Not long before she heard of the impending loss, Chhaya had visited the house as part of a graduate class on the visual and material culture of the Victorian age. Chhaya had been struck by the way the Heurich entryway reflected the contention in one of her textbooks that hallways were a Victorian form of impression management that mediated between the public sphere of the street and the private world of the interior. She was struck, too, by the way the imagery in the dining room masculinized what would otherwise by a feminine sphere. It was precisely what she had read about. She knew the house’s value to historians and the public alike. Working with communities When she heard it was about to be lost, Chhaya and Linda Neylon ’06, of historic Gettysburg, were among the students to volunteer. There was less than two weeks to help plan a fund raiser, and the AU students agreed to lead guided tours and share the knowledge they had gained in their classes with the concerned public. Says Griffith, who went to one of the fundraisers, “It was really neat to see our students there, giving tours and interpreting the building. That’s one of the things public historians do, in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of settings.” It was the kind of thing that many of them would be doing professionally in the future. The largest employer of historians, outside of colleges and universities, is the U.S. Park Service. Many AU graduates go on to work at historical sites, such as battlefields and historic homes, at museums both large and small, and in the burgeoning field of Web site design to support historic sites and organizations. They do more than spread knowledge. Beginning as graduate students, they work with local communities to preserve and recapture the histories of neighborhoods, ethnic groups, and little-known enclaves that make up the fabric of cities The public history program, as Franz sees it, has a role to play in the Washington community. “[We] really help community researchers interpret and present their own history. It’s not top-down. We facilitate their production of their own history,” she says. More than a classroom For AU’s public history students, the city is more than a classroom. It’s a place where they uncover hundreds of stories and then give those stories back to the community. Over the past year, students have helped research the graphic and photographic history of Eastern Market and build a panel exhibit for the market’s 200th anniversary. They’ve worked with the Anacostia Museum on public programming for an exhibit on high school bands in Washington, D.C., and music education in the African American community. They’ve worked on a Web site, “Teaching with Historic Places,” supported by the Park Service, and helped with the Adams Morgan Heritage Trail. At the Heurich House, they were not only part of a community effort. They played a role in its success. The deadline to pay off the mortgage interest has now been extended and, with the help of the money raised at fund raisers and a $500,000 line item in the city budget, the immediate threat has been warded off. The house will be open to teach the public about life in the Gilded Age. For AU’s public history students, that’s the most important thing.
History department often in public eye
The orientation of AU’s history department towards the public sphere may be most pronounced in its public history program. But the department’s scholars have long been noted for their commitment to engaging the public and sharing academic knowledge with a broad audience. AU’s history faculty often consult on documentaries and television shows, are active with museums and traveling exhibitions, and are familiar faces on television talk shows.
Over the last year, for instance, Alan Kraut consulted on a number of television and documentary projects, including the Public Broadcasting System series History Detectives, and continued to chair the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island History Advisory Committee.
Richard Breitman served as director of historical research for the Nazi War Criminal Records and Imperial Japanese Records Interagency Working Group, which worked with the National Archives to declassify historical records.
Alan Lichtmann and Peter Kuznick were interviewed frequently on television and in newspapers on subjects that ranged from redistricting in Texas to comparisons between the Iraq War and Vietnam.
Pam Nadell consulted on documentaries and public exhibitions and was invited to synagogues across the country to give a series of lectures as a scholar in residence.
That’s just a brief sampling of the ways that the department’s faculty have brought history in front of the public eye. And it’s a commitment shared by many faculty at AU.
“I think it’s woven into the fabric of our campus and its culture over many years,” Griffith says. “The kind of people attracted here tend to be people who move easily from the private to the public sphere. It’s the campus culture.” |
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