Reading Commentary #1

[Warning: This post might be more informative than entertaining. I promise to do better next time.] 

This week’s reading assignments for my "Managing History" course are:

> Historians in Public: the practice of American history, 1890-1970 by Ian Tyrrell

> An excerpt from The Lowell Experiment by Cathy Stanton

> An American Historical Association Presidential Address by Carl Becker entitled, “Everyman His Own Historian”

All three sources presented a slightly different perspective on the role of how scholarly history functions in the public. Tyrrell’s account demonstrates the ways in which historians have attempted to bring their work to the public over several decades. He refers to the process of “doing history” (a phrase new to me until this class) as the conscious attempt of historians to present history in an accessible fashion. To this end, historians have worked to present their craft through a myriad of mediums including radio, film, text, and schools. Unfortunately, as Tyrrell notes, these attempts have yielded few results. These roadblocks have not, however, prevented historians from progressively broadening the field of history to include previously ignored peoples or events. While historians have a difficult time finding a market for their scholarly work, over time, their efforts quietly end up embedded in popular culture, politics, and daily life.

Cathy Stanton's approach toward history is accessible to the public because it derives through the public. Her approach of analyzing the information provided in the tours of Lowell National History park and offering her own research in conjunction to the park's provides a unique interpretation of the city. Stanton attempts to, "underscore the performative, contingent nature of all historical interpretation" (xiv). Like Tyrrell, she sees the role of the historian in as an inherently public position with a responsibility to a particular audience.

Carl Becker takes this approach one step further, outlining the importance of "Mr. Everyman" and his experience in living history. He weaves a story of a man whose experience of life is, essentially, different from the history of his life. In this way, Becker draws the conclusion that there are two types of history: the actual and the reported. He tries to find a point where the two converge and, though it appears futile, he urges historians to not disregard the importance of actual history. He views this as the obligation of historians to be as accurate to the experiences of the past as possible given what he feels are extremely limited resources.

And because you, dear reader, have made it to the end of this somewhat dull post, I would like to leave you with a hint of an amusing image direct from my own living history:

Faculty vs. Student softball match.