Public History: The Art of Open-mindedness and Listening Skills

     To those of the National Council on Public History, the profession and execution of public history is viewed as a multi-faceted engine with various collaborating parts. While numerous public history practitioners converse with the public, ideas of structured methodology are considered by the practitioners to ultimately create a history that is both “accessible and useful to the public.” Although agreed upon by many, this vision of public history is not shared by all historians. Rather than follow a “public history method,” some historians believe that keeping an open mind and listening to the public is the best way to capture the interest of the public.

     According to historians Katharine Corbett and Howard Miller and their article “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry,” public history practices go beyond a methodology, and are more based on how the public interprets and considers history and how the public’s vision of history ultimately is what is important. According to their article, public history is “situational,” that the best oral histories and ideas for exhibits come from the public often at serendipitous moments. Corbett and Miller even suggest that public historians should be flexible; even a “seasoned practitioner” knows to take situations as they come and to be open-minded with different ideas that are presented to them by their colleagues. (19) To Corbett and Miller, public history is a shared effort between the practitioner and the public, no one side formulating or analyzing history alone. (37) If history practitioners were to follow their own set of guidelines, they would run the risk of not engaging the public in history and allowing them to relate to the past.
     Along with Corbett and Miller’s argument, historians Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen’s case study presented in The Presence of the Past is further proof that listening to the public’s interpretation and opinion of history ultimately results in better history recording and teaching. During their study in the 1990s, the two historians explored how the public utilized and felt about history. The study consisted of 1,453 “respondents” interviewed by hired students. (12) As the mediators, Rosenzweig, Thelen, and other “professional historians” over-looked the project and observed the results. While the students were given a set of questions to ask the respondents, there was no set methodology on how they should converse with the individuals. Instead, the interviewers kept the open-mind ideal that Corbett and Miller stress in their belief of how public history should be executed. As a result, the study became a more vital source of information than Rosenzweig and Thelen could have ever imagined.

     As a good example of how Corbett and Miller’s argument is credible, the study proved to be an informative, yet eye-opening experience for Rosenzweig and Thelen. In their “Afterthoughts” toward the end of the book, both historians shared a similar concern. While optimistic that the public used history in everyday life through the use of photographs, collections, visiting museums, and research, the lack of communication between the public and the professionals still exists. (190) As the study showed, this has resulted in the lack of trust in important history mediums such as books and even school teachers.

     To make history more accessible to the masses, these historians believe that professionals need to open their doors to the public and listen to what they have to tell. As is made obvious by the arguments of these historians, public history is more than just a method or approach; it is a challenge to somehow record and display history to the liking of the public.