Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen's book, entitled The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life was born from a need to build a bridge between professional historians and the general public. In order to do this, historians needed to figure out how exactly it was that Americans understood their past and furthermore, what this “past” contained. Before this survey, it was thought that Americans were suffering from a historical amnesia in which the public was unaware and largely ignorant of history both popular and academic.
Instead, what Rosenzweig and Thelen found was that Americans are intimately engaged in and comfortable with history, albeit on a more personal level. Activities I had not even previously thought of as involved in history, such as photography, are practiced by nearly all the respondents interviewed. The interviewers found that the history of the respondent's families are much more likely to be researched than the history of a national event or era. In The Presence of the Past, it is seen many times over that the respondents often feel no connection with national events unless it is related on a personal level. Families with soldiers in WWII, grandmothers who survived the holocaust, or fathers who fought in the civil rights movement, are much more likely to investigate these portions of history because of their personal connection rather than pure academic interest.
While reading the NCPH's “What is Public History?,” I was struck by Greg Smoak's personal definition of public history and how it fit into society. He states that “history is not just for students in a classroom or written for other historians, but for the people!” To me, this strengthened Rosenzweig and Thelen's findings that there is a big divide between the historical classroom and the general audience. This, for me, all returns back to the lack of a personal connection. I agree with Thelen's suggestions of how to build a participatory historical culture although I believe that it will take much time and effort on the part of historians in order to build such a culture. As Thelen says, historians must learn to listen to who or what Americans remember and talk about and find ways in which to integrate it into the larger picture of history. Suggestions such as reading autobiographies in the classroom would allow students to really enter the minds of history-makers. History would no longer be about learning what year great people were born or died, but rather their thoughts and justifications (or lack thereof) that were behind actions and events that occurred. Overall, I believe that Rosenzweig and Thelen show convincing proof that Americans need to feel as if they can place themselves in the moment or the situation in order to truly understand the collective and personal past. This they achieved by merely letting Americans speak for themselves and tell what they wanted and expected from history.
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5 comments:
I agree with your conclusions about drawing the personal stories of the past into a classroom setting. Not only do the results of Rosenzweig and Thelen's interviews illustrate the personal connection the public attributes to national historic events, but the same conclusions were drawn from the Corbet and Miller article as well. With this dual consensus it would seem obvious then, that if historians want to generate a greater public interest in academic history, then they merely need to employ the correct means to gain their interest, i.e. make the past more personal, as you suggested with autobiographies. Also, in some cases bringing in "eyewitnesses" to the events could help show the "personal" side of history, like in the case of Holocaust survivors, war veterans, men and women who actively participated in the past events that were being studied. I fully agree that it is possible to make the past "come alive" by instilling it with personal accounts that make it more relatable to the audience.
I think you make some great points in your analysis. I too never thought of taking photographs or looking at old photographs as engaging with history. But in a way, this fits perfectly with Rosenzweig and Thelen's belief that Americans are actively engaged with history, and that they engage it through a relation of their own personal stories and experiences to that of a larger, national scale.
Corbett and Miller also emphasize the importance of bridging the space between the public sphere and the historians. And they also discuss the difficulty in doing so.
I also loved your suggestion of reading autobiographies in class as a way to get students to connect more with history. One of my favorite memories as a middle school student is from my American history class. We had a re-enactment of the Scopes trial. It was terrible acting on our part, but I can guarantee I will never forget about William Jennings Bryan or Clarence Darrow. And I believe this goes along with your point, by allowing students to engage with the minds of history-makers you create a strong personal connection between the student and history, and a greater interest.
I agree with your comment about how Rosenzweig and Thelen described certain activities of history that I too had not previously thought of as being historical activities. Photos and other means of searching the past that at times seem like everyday activities, can in fact be a way of researching a personal history.
Rosenzweig and Thelen make an excellent point against the argument that Americans are not engaged in history or knowledgeable by broadening the scope of activities that is included in the process of history, such as taking and reviewing family photographs.
I also agree with your suggestions on acting in class rooms and engaging students in a different way. The reason I fell in love, persay, with history was because in 5th grade my teacher made us act out scenes from the colonial period during class. It made it real and personal, which is what Rosenzweig and Thelen describe as important to people and the participation within history.
I too was impressed by the amount of Americans that were involved in historically related activities, especially non-traditional activities like photography and coin-collecting. Even as someone that strives to be a public historian, a certain amount of academic divide, as you said, is evident in many of us due to our (my?) frequent assumptions that history has to follow a certain methodology and set of rules. But people are doing and enjoying history in meaningful ways that do not follow these academic standards (photos, collecting, etc) I would have to greatly agree that reading primary sources , especially biographies, in lower grade levels of history courses would increase the amount of connection between a historical figure and the reader, thereby increasing the relevance and interest for that person.
You are right this is a great book. This book is well written and the author has done a wonderful job explaining all work and thought that went into the creation of the Holocaust Museum. I agree Kristen that the information presented in the book was overwhelmingly detailed at times, but I believe this was done to show the amount of effort it to create this museum.
The author does provide a great deal of information pertaining to the people directly involved with the museum. This information was heavily detailed and also difficult to remember what each of people was involved with at times. Most everyone in the class agrees that this is a great book and I must say that having never been to the Holocaust Museum this book has intrigued me enough to want to make a visit to the museum very soon.
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