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History Scholars versus David McCullough: The American Revolution

January 30, 2022
by Peter Feinman

The post continues the examination of the multi-authored section of the Journal of the Early Republic (JER 41 Summer 2021) dedicated to David McCullough’s The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West. This new feature called Critical Engagements represents an attempt by the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), the publisher of the journal to determine:

1. how his book would fare if it had been written as an academic book subject to peer review
2. what can academic historians learn from authors of such popular “airport” or “(white) Fathers’ Day” books about how to reach a larger audience.

In the previous post, I presented:

1. guidelines for general public speaking by Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward
2. an example of the way to alienate the general public by telling (white) people their ancestors were monster.

Before delving into the analysis conducted by JER of McCullough, I would like to turn to a topic that highlights some of the issues involved – the American Revolution.

YOUR COUNTRY IS ILLEGITIMATE

Lately we have heard a lot about our President being illegitimate. The loser of the election claims that the winner stole the election. This is an ongoing news story and may well be until the bicentennial of the election of 1824.

In the meantime, the legitimacy of the country itself is not at stake in the political machinations. Such considerations are not always true in the academic arena. It is not unusual for people to describe the United States as a country born in sin, perhaps, even two sins. Here one may observe the clash between wanting to alienate the general public versus wanting it to repent (and make amends).

Let me begin by going to the wayback machine for a post about a conference in 2013 called “The American Revolution Reborn.”  The post is from my blog Rebirthing the American Revolution (November 29, 2016) citing another publication about it:

The interview on October 27 was by senior editor Samuel Hughes. It appears in the November/December issue of The Pennsylvania Gazette and follows.

The question from the audience bordered on the subversive. It came during “The American Revolution Reborn,” a 2013 conference organized by Michael Zuckerman C’61, emeritus professor of history, and Patrick Spero G’04 Gr’09, librarian and director of the American Philosophical Society, which hosted the event. (The conference also yielded a book of the same title, co-edited by Spero and Zuckerman and published last month by the University of Pennsylvania Press.)

“Somebody—clearly one of the non-academics—got up and said, ‘Look, all of you are full of nuance, full of contradictions of prevailing wisdom, but what do you really think? Was the Revolution a good thing or a bad thing?’” Zuckerman recalls. “He was sensing that the mood was overwhelmingly disenchanted, anti-heroic, anti-nation-building, and he was getting a distinctly negative, sour take on the Revolution. He wanted to know, ‘After all this, do you think we shouldn’t have done it?’”

Eventually Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich offered a response, but she “refused to give a bottom-line judgment—said it was the wrong kind of question—and left him hugely unhappy.”

The disagreement continued after the conference ended. Peter Feinman … reported on it extensively in his New York History Blog.

“Peter’s a thoughtful, critical guy but ultimately a high-powered patriot,” says Zuckerman. “He was saying [meaning not my actual words], ‘We’ve got to save the Revolution. It’s an inspirational thing—and you guys are not helping the cause.’ He took the side of the person who had asked the question and accused the historians of pussyfooting, and said that’s why they don’t have any clout and why we have nothing to say to people beyond our own cloister. And people weighed in—most of them attacking Peter, because they were scholars, but everybody was quite righteous.”

A smile plays across Zuckerman’s face. “It was a great brawl, with no resolution.”

Zuckerman anticipated some of the very issues and concerns expressed by the JER editors.

Here is what I actually wrote about that incident in a blog shortly after the conference:

The issue of leadership became a crucial one in the conference proceedings at least as far as I am concerned. Non-academic J.F. Gearhart asked one group of commentators if they thought the American Revolution was a good thing. Is the world a better place because the American Revolution occurred? The pained look on their silent faces spoke volumes. The anguished mental gymnastics of the three visibly uncomfortable academics was reminiscent of an American President coming up with “What is ‘is.’” Finally Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Harvard University, managed to say (and I am paraphrasing), “There were some good things which came out of the American Revolution and some bad things.” Gearhart pressed her to provide a “net-net” rendering on the Revolution. She declined to do so and laughingly noted that her students want her to do the same. (American Revolution Reborn: Missing New York July 10, 2013)

The conference, without meaning to, exposed two critical issues. First how did 19th-century Harvard American historian George Bancroft become 21st-century Harvard American historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich? When did elitist Americans change from being proud to be Americans to looking like deer frozen in the headlights when asked if the American Revolution was a good thing?

MICHAEL HATTEM I

As Michael Zuckerman reported, there was a response to my blog. Here is the comment by Michael D. Hattem, Associate Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, a co-founder of “The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History, author of Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution, and currently working on Memory of ’76.

I think you misjudged her reaction, which was less that of a “deer caught in the headlights” than of mild bemusement. I also think that you have totally misinterpreted the audience’s reaction, as well. The vast majority of the audience, who were academics, did not have their breath taken away by Ulrich’s pause or her response. Rather, they were stunned that such a simplistic and impertinent question would even be asked at a conference like that and they were silent because they were waiting to see how Ulrich would address it. To her credit, she addressed it quite diplomatically and respectfully (more so than I suspect some in the room would have done). As she said, it was the kind of question that is asked by undergraduates with little to no experience with academic history as a discipline. The first thing an undergraduate learns in a college-level history class is to avoid such generalizations because they can never convey the actual complexity of history. Think of how simplistic and unfair the perception is that anyone who won’t come right and make such a generalized statement as “The American Revolution was good” as being “apologetic anti-American” or having an apologetically “anti-American” view of American history. Now you didn’t make that claim but you described the public perception and I would hope you could see why historians would react in that way to such an anti-historical and anachronistic perspective. I think many academic historians (especially of early America) acknowledge the need for historians to expand their audience among the general public but not by prostrating ourselves at the altar of American exceptionalism or nationalism.

Hattem did not write in boldface. Notice the putdowns of the questioner and me. Notice also how somehow saying the American Revolution is a net good becomes prostrating oneself at the altar of American exceptionalism or nationalism. Hattem continued:

If you want a sanitized, nationalist view of the Revolution and an endless stream of hagiographies of the founders, you can read McCullough, Ellis, Brookhiser and the dozens of others who have cashed in on the reading public’s desire for this Whiggish view. However, if you want to understand the Revolution more deeply outside of a small handful of elites and high politics and to understand how it affected groups of people differently, and how people on the ground actually experienced the Revolution, then you need the academics that were in that room at the APS, because they don’t choose topics or write books based on potential sales. Your instrumentalist and utilitarian view of history is completely at odds with the modern profession, the notion of which is reinforced by your expectations of the conference, which, like most academic conferences, wasn’t meant to provide a thorough narrative of the topic but specialized analyses of important themes. Historians are more concerned with what the Revolution meant to the people who lived through it and its immediate aftermath than what it means to people today. The former is history, the latter is politics. Either knowing or consciously shaping contemporary meanings of the Revolution is beyond the purview of historical inquiry for early American historians.

How does Hattem know that my expectations for the conference were for it to provide a thorough narrative of the topic? There is nothing in the conference schedule that even remotely suggests such an outcome.  Since his current work is on the memory of the American Revolution over time and timed for the 250th anniversary of it, the idea that early American historians are not hoping to shape contemporary meanings of the American Revolution is suspect at best. I suggest his answer provides a casebook example of why academic historians may be regarded as elitists and of the challenge to be overcome to stop alienating the general public.

MICHAEL HATTEM II

In this regard, it is interesting to note the change in the tone by Hattem a mere eight years later. On January 27, 2021, He was the speaker in a virtual discussion at the American Philosophical Society (APS) on the topic of his book “Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution. During the Q&A portion, I posed a question and he responded as posted on the APS website.

Q: I just received my copy of the current American Historical Review roundtable of Jill Lepore’s These Truths. This follows on the release of the 1776 Commission report by one president and cancellation by the incoming president. How do we go about creating a new national narrative today? (Peter Feinman)

A: I have thought about this question a lot in thinking about the contemporary relevance of my work and thinking about national memory [apparently no longer beyond the purview of early American historians]. My current project looks at the history of the memory of the Revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries and what I’ve found is that American history became politicized in a distinctly partisan way after 1800 and has been that way ever since. There has never been a time outside the window of the 1790s and early 1800s when there were not competing national narratives and memories. In other words, I do not think it is possible to create a new national narrative that could be widely accepted. Of course, one of the challenges there is that doing so would have to contend with the very powerful resilience of the Cold War-era memory that many American adults grew up with. All that said, I think we are currently in an important moment in the history of the memory of the American Revolution. Conflict over American history seems to ebb and flow along with the degree of political division in the country. Not unlike in the 1760s and 1770s, many Americans today are reconsidering the meaning and legacy of the Revolution. What is somewhat new is that many are calling for it to have no place in our collective civic and political cultures. I do not know if there is a way to create a national narrative with broad appeal in the present but I think that if it were possible it would require avoiding the two extremes we see so often currently of either seeing the Revolution as all good or all bad. What makes American history so interesting to me as a historian is its complexity and both of those extremes tend to flatten American history into two dimensions.

So he is thinking about it a lot … and providing a thoughtful answer. He recognizes the new phenomenon that there are Americans (Woke?) who think the American Revolution should have no place in our collective civic and political cultures. He rejects the view that the American Revolution should be seen as all good or all bad.

According to my notes, Hattem also was asked about what to do today given The New York Times Project 1619 and the (previous) White House 1776 Commission. He replied that he is not as indignant as he used to be [see his answer above from 2013]. He characterized both the 1619 and 1776 reports not as history but as memory construction. For Hattem, the American Revolution is part of the common inheritance for all Americans. We need to find a balance for this shared history which includes both horrible aspects and things which should be celebrated.

His answer reminds me a new development, not quite a trend, in these virtual presentations. I call it the 42 Minute Syndrome. After 42 minutes of being critical of the American Revolution, the speaker notes that there actually were some good things worth celebrating.  For example, consider the virtual discussion held December 20, 2021, at the Wilson Center on Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence by Robert G. Parkinson. At the end of his opening remarks, Parkinson showed a slide saying:

REVOLUTIONARIES MADE MAJOR CHANGES TO COLONIAL POLITICS/LIFE

NO ARISTOCRACY, NO ESTABLISHED CHURCH, RELIANCE ON WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS, TRANSFORMED MEANING OF REPRESENTATION AND CONSENT
THEY ALSO THREW AWAY THE CONCEPT OF MONARCHICAL SUBJECTHOOD & EMBRACED REPUBLICAN CITIZENSHIP

Parkinson noted what hadn’t happen before was any effort to make a new nation and new republican regime on a very different theory of citizenship. It sounds like he was saying these were good things even though his talk was not about them.

As Liz Covart summed up in her Ben Franklin’s World podcast discussion with Hattem on July 20, 2021, the new nation and political entity needed a new history to which all the different ethnicities could belong. Our familiar historical narrative originated in the effort to unite the populace into one people by creating a shared sense of the past.  Exactly right.

Let me close with my closing words about the American Revolution Reborn conference

There is a difference between challenging America to be great and simply constantly condemning it for its shortcomings. Academics haven’t learned to speak the language of patriotism when criticizing America. They should champion the journey the Founding Fathers began, rather than only criticizing them for failing to meet their 21st century moral standards.

Yes, the American Revolution was a good thing, but we can’t rest on our laurels.

Yes the American Revolution was a good thing, but there is more that needs to be done.

Yes, the American Revolution was a good thing, and with your help the journey the Founding Fathers began can be renewed for the 21st century.

Historians vs. David McCullough – The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

January 27, 2022
by Peter Feinman

David McCullough and academic historians generally do not mix. Historians derisively refer to books by McCullough and his ilk as “airport books.” These are the kinds of books one buys in an airport and not at a history conference or from an academic press. Another derogatory term is (white) Father’s Day Gift.

Therefore it was a surprise to see a multi-authored section of the Journal of the Early Republic (JER 41 Summer 2021) dedicated to this author and this book. The editors announced it as a new feature called Critical Engagements. The section will appear from time to time in the journal. It will allow the history community represented by JER “to participate in conversations of great interests to scholars of the early American republic and the general public.”

For the first foray into this venture, the editors chose The New York Times #1 bestselling history book in 2019 herein called The Pioneers. The time period covered in the book directly coincides with the purview of the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), the publishers of the journal. Its conferences have been the subject of previous posts here.

SHEAR CHAOS: A Culture Wars Train Wreck for a History Organization
August 19, 2020

Universities and the Legacy of Slavery (SHEAR Session)
September 22, 2016

Teaching Slavery: A SHEAR Perspective
September 12, 2016

“The Year without Summer” (1816): When Republicans Recognized Climate Change Existed (SHEAR CONFERENCE)
August 24, 2016

The General Public and the Early Republic Historians (SHEAR Conference)
August 23, 2016

In the session in this last blog, “THE PUBLIC AND THE EARLY REPUBLIC: A ROUNDTABLE ON IN AND BEYOND THE ACADEMY,” I wrote about the presentation by Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward:

[He] gives about 75 public lectures per year. His experience has shown him that there is a tremendous public interest in Connecticut for history. He strongly advocates for historians to leave the ivory tower and venture out into the public arena. Walt generously provided some guidelines to be followed if you are so inclined [in my words].

Don’t speak academic or undergraduate-lecture style jargon to the general public.
Don’t assume prior knowledge (or that they read the assignment before the lecture).
Complexity is not clarity.
Nuance can be mind-numbing.
Park your biases at the door – leave out the progressive politics. You are there to share your presumed expertise in the past, not to indulge in being a know-it-all on a TV talk show.
Don’t be arrogant – you aren’t the god’s or goddess’s gift to humanity where the little people should bask in the aura of your greatness and be thankful that you have chosen to enlighten them.

The public audience loves history and wants to hear from people who knew it well and can communicate to them in an effective manner.

From the Q&A, I wrote: Walt is critical of the elimination (or reduction) of history in a STEM world. The history community is doing a poor job of communicating to the general public of history’s importance. There is a need to intervene in creating the k-12 curriculum.

In his session wrap-up, Commentator Peter Onuf, University of Virginia observed (in my words):

If students don’t care about history, then the professors need the skills of the public historian who has the job of reaching out to a general audience and then to apply those skills in the classroom to reach the students.

At least orally, Woodward seemed to be practicing some of the same techniques McCullough probably is in reaching out to the general public. Possibly public historians (I would include historians at state and national parks) do as well. How about academic historians?

The JER editors noted both the public attention and “stinging scholarly criticism” McCullough’s book received when it was first released. The objective of the editors in reviewing this book was clearly stated:

Given the reach of popular histories such as McCullough’s and the book and musical Hamilton, can we use such histories that reach and fascinate large audiences to show those hungry for exposure to the past how to think about history further and in new and more necessarily challenging ways? Can we as scholars engage with popular and less scholarly historical works beyond just pointing out their limitations? No matter how warranted or cathartic that reaction is, it often has the effect of alienating the public that enjoyed the book—not just from our critical reviews, but from our scholarship and even our methods and questions altogether. How can we reach that audience and build from the interest that propelled them to read McCullough’s book? How can our interventions offer a richer, more complicated picture?

Or, can we do what Woodward advised us to do at the SHEAR conference?

In this paragraph, the JER editors have expressed laudable goals as well as an awareness of the problem and perhaps the stakes. They are aware of the current controversies involving The New York Time Project 1619, another publication outside the academic arena. They are aware of the greater reach to the general public of these two non-academic and opposing publications. They also are aware of their own inability to reach out to the general public in a way that does not alienate or patronize them but instead serve as a necessary corrective. To some extent, this new feature represents a stab in addressing that need … subject to the fact that the audience for the section is the academic historians and not the general public who will never read this journal and probably not even aware of its existence.

Before delving into the reviews by five scholars on particular aspects of The Pioneers and the two scholars who reflected on the entire initiative, let me offer some thoughts about the approaches to the public taken by academic historians. Due to the length, this will require two blogs.

YOUR ANCESTOR IS A MONSTER

Genealogical research is a popular pastime in America. If you work in a library, archives, or museum (pre-COVID), then you are very familiar with people who are searching for information about their ancestors. They scroll through rolls of microfilm; the turn page after page of newspapers and other print sources; they search through databases. They are quite dedicated in the time they devote to the quest. They also are quite willing to share with others the results of their work. The work can be quite collaborative with multiple Facebook and other social media sharings.

And when they find something, truly it is a joyous moment. They may not quite run through the library in righteous exaltation with tears of happiness streaming down their face, but they are doing that mentally. Finding a never-before-known relative or a never-before-known action done by a known relative counts as blessing. Look what I found!

There are even “Hallmark-like” commercials dedicated to this phenomenon. A three-generation family may be seen wandering through giant displays of their ancestors’ lives. There are blowups of photographs and documents. Maybe a birth certificate. Maybe a census record. Maybe a naturalization notice. Whatever the image, there are the grandparents and parents proudly pointing to the next generation of the record documenting the life of an earlier generation, perhaps someone the child never knew personally but only heard about at family gatherings.

Rarely do you see someone jumping for joy to have learned that their ancestor was a monster. Given all the people searching for ancestors and all the ancestors there are in three, four, five, ten generations or more, someone at some point will come across someone they rather would not have as an ancestor. For example, there are people today who have learned that their ancestors owned other people. There also have been touching reunions based on that knowledge such as with the 1619 people.

Still people do not want to be told again and again that their ancestors were monsters. How many statues of Robert E. Lee does it take to cause a person to be stressed? How many times do you tell someone their ancestors were monsters before you have alienated them?

By these comments, I am not suggesting that academics in the public presentations (mainly virtual now) constantly berate and harangue their audience. After all it is not the ancestors of the members of the audience who have chosen to hear the academic speaker who are the monsters! But there are people based on race, location, and politics who well may be the descendants of monsters or be monsters themselves. And they do not need to be college graduates to understand that you are telling them their ancestors were monsters and they are too unless they repent their ancestors’ actions.

These considerations go the challenge of creating a national narrative for the 21st century. McCullough does it piecemeal through his books including about the American Revolution. For academic historians that effort is more problematic as will be discussed in the next blog on this initiative by JER: the message historians deliver on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a country born in sin.

SHEAR CHAOS: A Culture Wars Train Wreck for a History Organization

August 19, 2020
by Peter Feinman
SHEAR Conference 2020 (New Mexico Central Railroad train wreck, ca. 1912 reddit.com)

When a history organization makes the front page of the Arts Section of The New York Times, that is big news (“Clash of the Historians Over Andrew Jackson,” July 27, 2020, print). It wasn’t because of some exciting new archival discovery. It wasn’t because of some exciting new archaeological discovery. It wasn’t because of some exciting new book or article that provided new insight into an historical puzzle. Instead it was because of a good old-fashioned knock-down culture wars encounter. As the NYT put it:

[I]t set off a firestorm that led within 72 hours, to set off the ouster of the group’s president, as well as the publication of open letters denouncing the talk and counterletters protesting the ouster. It also caused debate over whether the distinguished academics society was experiencing an overdue reckoning with racism or abandoning its commitment to robust scholarly debate in the face of a Twitter mob.

When the history of the culture wars is written, this incident is likely to be an episode in it.

SHEAR

SHEAR is the Society for Historians of the Early Republic. It was formed in 1977 to provide a focused venue or scholars concentrating on the Early Republic. As the name suggests, the starting point for the time period was the aftermath of the American Revolution. The period that comes to mind is the First Party System, the time of Federalists and Republicans, of presidents from Virginia and Massachusetts. Gradually it became a society of the Second Party System as well, the time of the Whigs and the Democrats. There was no real fixed endpoint. SHEAR drifted into the Jacksonian years and the ante bellum period but not the Civil War. It really ended wherever the roughly 600 members decided their interests took them and that no other history organization claimed.

I am not a member of SHEAR. I have attended some of the annual conferences and written about them.

The General Public and the Early Republic Historians (SHEAR Conference) August 23, 2016

“The Year without Summer” (1816): When Republicans Recognized Climate Change Existed (SHEAR CONFERENCE) August 24, 2016

Teaching Slavery: A SHEAR Perspective September 12, 2016

Universities and the Legacy of Slavery (SHEAR Session) September 22, 2016

The American Revolution: An Academic Perspective October 31, 2019.

I very well might have attended this year’s conference in geographically accessible Philadelphia if it had been held. Obviously, it too was a victim of the coronavirus.

SHEAR ONLINE CONFERENCE

With the cancellation of the in-person conference, SHEAR then had some decisions to make.

1. One Online Session

The first decision was to have one and only one online session. This decision can be questioned. Other conferences have been cancelled and/or rescheduled as virtual events without such a drastic reduction. Conferences can be held over multiple days and involve multiple sessions. SHEAR originally preferred to have multiple sessions. The now-former president of SHEAR expressed this hope:

When the 2020 program was postponed until July 2021, we wished to sponsor a few events to demonstrate that we remain a vital and important organization, even in this troubled time.

How did “a few events,” became one? The new president who normally takes office when the in-person conference concludes added some information.

At the time, we brainstormed about offering a few virtual events over the conference weekend, including the much-loved Second-Book Writers’ Workshop, and a graduate student meet-and-greet (both of which were, thanks to their organizers, great successes). We also asked the chairs of the 2020 Program Committee to recommend panels accepted for the conference that might not feel fresh a year from now. President Egerton approached the organizers of several such panels, but among them, only Professor Daniel Feller agreed to present his panel virtually.

So it was not the original intention to have one and only session. In effect, it was the SHEAR membership (panel organizers) that drove the decision. Given only one positive response, another option would have been to have no online sessions at all.

2. Which One?

At this point if SHEAR wanted to have an online session, it had only one possibility. That one topic seemed most appropriate. The now-former president of SHEAR explained:

The accepted panel on Donald Trump’s efforts to identify with Andrew Jackson struck some members of the program committee as a most timely panel, and one which may not be as relevant after the November elections. This was a stand-alone panel, and not the opening plenary, which remains scheduled for July 2021.

The new president added some information.

Although I was not privy to the specifics of this or any other proposed panel, I endorsed the plan to present it to the membership because I thought it was a timely topic and something that you, the membership, would appreciate. This was a mistake.

Exactly why is was a mistake in the mind of the new president is not clarified. Was it a mistake to have only one session? Was it a mistake to have this session? Was it a mistake to have this session with this presenter? Was it a mistake to have this session in this format? Should this person resign s one person suggested? It would help to know what the new president thinks the mistake in deciding to have this session was.

THE SESSION: JACKSON IN THE AGE OF TRUMP

The abstract for the session was:

Daniel Feller, Professor of History, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, and Editor/Director of The Papers of Andrew Jackson at the University of Tennessee will present his [pre-circulated] paper, “Jackson in the Age of Trump,” which focuses on Donald Trump’s embrace of Andrew Jackson as his presidential model and how this has made Jackson a centerpiece for debate. Jackson has become, on both sides of the current political divide, in effect a stand-in for the American historical legacy. One side celebrates him as the progenitor of full-throated nationalism and insurgent populism, while the other condemns him as the archetype of American xenophobia, bigotry, and racism.

Neither of these portraits has much connection to the real presidential Jackson. Both reduce him to caricature not only by stripping off subtlety and nuance, but often by propagation of naked error. While Trump celebrates Jackson for purportedly raising tariffs and rattling sabers, critics decry him for originating Indian genocide, conducting public policy as personal vendetta in the Bank and nullification controversies, and propounding a uniquely vicious and virulent racism.

In short, we are now waging a public debate about Jackson—and, through him, about American history and character at large—premised upon a set of facts that are drastically oversimplified and even demonstrably untrue. Politicians and pundits have taken the lead in this distortion of the record, but historians have been acquiescent and sometimes directly complicit. Yet if we believe that the manipulation of history for presentist ends—even ones we agree with—is misguided and potentially dangerous, we should make it our business to speak out in defense of the integrity of our discipline, regardless of our present political sympathies.

This description does not match the words of the former president noted above: “The accepted panel on Donald Trump’s efforts to identify with Andrew Jackson.” Quite the contrary, the abstract posits a double dosage of Jackson misinterpretations by both sides of the culture wars.

The scope of the abstract is fairly ambitious…especially for one paper! Given the range of topics within the overall abstract, it would have made more sense to divide it into manageable parts. Each individual would have addressed one aspect of how Jackson has been used and abused by both sides of the culture war and what SHEAR should do about it. That is not what happened.

The initial portion of Feller’s presentation was on a book on Jackson by Walter Mead. Through Steve Bannon, this two-dimensional book portrait of Jackson was conveyed to Trump. At this point I thought about writing a blog on Jackson and Hamilton, Mead and Chernow, Bannon and Manuel-Miranda, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Hamilton, Trump and Obama. That probably would have made for a better session than the food fight that followed.

But the presentation didn’t stop there. My favorite response to the presentation is by the person who three times insistently asked online about Jackson and slavery. What are the odds that the president who thinks Canada burned the White House during the War of 1812, the flu pandemic in 1917 ended World War II, and who only recently learned that Lincoln was a Republican, was familiar with Jackson’s position on slavery? This question is an example of how the session spun out of control. Instead of being descriptive about what happened in last decade it became a fight over Jackson himself. I really didn’t tune in to hear people go on and on about his use of the word “pet.”

As reported by the NYT, a firestorm erupted after the session. A president stepped down. The new one apologized. The plenary speaker retired. His replacement intends to start a diverse advisory committee for people of multiple races, ethnicities, genders, and sexual preferences who share an antipathy towards Jackson perhaps with a token admirer. [I admit I could be wrong on this.] The organization that provides the free internet communication for SHEAR now is requesting a name change from H-SHEAR to something else. The notice of the change stressed the importance of moderated messages with identification of the message sender. This advisory may have contributed to the decision for the name change:

The Society for Historians of the Early American Republic’s virtual plenary was the most exciting thing to happen on Academic Zoom since COVID. Read about the controversy.

As for SHEAR, it intends to have “a second, follow-up virtual panel in the coming weeks” to salvage the situation though “salvage” is not the word used. Here are some thoughts for sessions.

1. Andrews Jackson and the Culture Wars (2000-2020)

This topic apparently was the basis for the session in the first place.

1. How have people used Jackson positively in support of their current political agendas?
2. How have people used Jackson negatively in support of their current political agendas?
3. How can SHEAR contribute to a full understanding of Jackson beyond caricature and cliché?

2. Trail of Tears: What Should Jackson Have Done?

This topic generates a great deal of passionate reaction. One of the comments in the plenary was:

As a historian of Indian removal, I can assure Feller that we know it wasn’t all Jackson’s fault; historians have for over a century traced the roots of removal policy to Jefferson’s administration, or even further, to the nation’s founding documents. More recent historiography on removal has amply demonstrated how a host of other actors – from territorial governors to missionaries to land speculators – helped build the policy that Feller seems to want us to reconstruct from Jackson’s papers alone.

Here we have the possibility of an excellent session that would be of value to the American public during these culture wars by going beyond the simple-minded vituperation he receives today.

1. What was the historical context in which the Trail of Tears occurred?
2. What could have been done instead? [No kumbaya suggestions, please, real world only.]
3. What does the recent Supreme Court decision mean for understanding the Trail of Tears?

3. The Scotch-Irish and the English Weren’t Both Just Whites Then

Our racist classification system obscures the reality of life two centuries ago. Today the Scotch-Irish and the English are just white people. That combination would have made no sense in Great Britain. These two folkways brought their tensions with them to America. Jackson’s victory at New Orleans wasn’t only as an American versus Great Britain but as a Scotch-Irishman versus the English. This topic wasn’t addressed in the session. One comment alluded to it.

Is there a danger among historians — most of us liberals when it comes to racial and gender issues — of underestimating AJ’s appeal to the “working man”: just as Americans today underestimate Trump’s appeal to a similar demographic? Thereby driving that demographic into the arms of the radical right?

English elites then loved to put down the Scotch-Irish as backwards and inferior much as elites-bicoastal elites-politically-correct-people love to mock them and their kin today. As it turns out people don’t like to be relentlessly denigrated. A session on how America’s first flyover people gained the White House would be beneficial.

4. The Torch Has Been Passed to a New Generation: The Need for Heroes

During the session, Feller mentioned Jackson as a military hero for America, the first one since Washington. People needed heroes. People need larger-than-life people who fulfill that role. It’s not enough to have Hollywood super-duper heroes on the screen. They are needed in real life as we have been reminded during Covid-19 and the nightly banging of pots. Jackson filled that role for many people. Two founding father heroes died simultaneously in 1826 on the fiftieth anniversary of the experiment they had created, the journey they had started. Who would replace them? Would the next generation measure up? Would the journey continue? I don’t recall hearing much of a discussion at the SHEAR session about this topic and Jackson’s role in it.

5. The Jacksonian Age of Art, Geology, Literature, Religion

There should be more to a SHEAR conference than politics, gender, and race. The Jacksonian Age witnessed a new and unique confluence of art, geology, literature, and religion before they became divided into separate “ologies” each with their own organizations, journals, and conferences. At the 2016 conference, I asked Daniel Walker Howe about the absence of the Hudson River School in his book What Hath God Wrought covering 1815 to 1848. There should be a place for culture at SHEAR.

SHEAR has the opportunity to rise to the occasion. True, it is a volunteer organization of people scattered mostly at various colleges throughout the land. It has no particular skill or experience that I am aware of in taking a leadership position in the national conversation during a culture war. That’s not what it was commissioned to do when it was founded in 1977 after the Bicentennial. That is what America needs it to do as we approach our 250th.

If You Are a Native New Yorker, Are You a Native American?: The Weaponization of “Native” and the Culture Wars

August 4, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Bronx and Queens Natives (https://medium.com)

The Cherokee Nation is in the news. No, not for the Trail of Tears, but to fulfill a centuries old treaty pledge. The Treaties of Hopewell (1785) and New Echota (1835) contained the right of the Cherokee Nation to send a delegate to the House of Representatives. Now the Cherokees are poised to act upon the pledge and name a delegate.

This action reminded me that I needed to complete the discussion about Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It began when three states self-righteously “dumped” and “ditched” the former in favor of the latter (Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples’ Day: A Lose-Lose War). That blog was followed by an examination of the role of Columbus and Columbia in American history (Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Part II – Columbus and America). The next blog in the thread focused on the weaponized use of the term “indigenous” and the calamitous effect the now bogus term would have if it were applied in the global arena outside the elitist college environment where it originated. Its effects would be truly devastating especially to Moslems and Arabs if the nations of the world adopted this American invention as their own policy (Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Part III- The Meaning of “Indigenous”).

In this blog, I wish to address the weaponization of the term “native.” Consider the following examples. They are not the result of an internet search. They are not a scientific sample. Instead they simply are the examples I happen to come across while reading the printed version newspapers and magazines I receive.

March 15 New York Times op-ed on billionaires and prostitutes: “A professional escort (or even just a native, English-speaking one)…” In other words, instead of patronizing Chinese natives at Orchids of Asia Spa in Florida, why not use a native? Presumably this English-speaking native might be black or white or even an American Indian but one might infer from the op-ed that the author intended the use of “native” to refer to white people.

May 10 New York Times wedding article: “[The groom] met [the bride}, a native New Yorker.” Based on the bride’s photograph and last name, the native New Yorker probably was of Chinese descent or East Asian. The music of Barry Manilow was played during the reception.

Note – It is important here to remember the distorted use of the term Asian-American. It does not actually mean people from anywhere in Asia. In a description of the movie “Always Be My Maybe,” (New York Times, June 2, 2019), the author notes the involvement of “a pair of Asian-American stars” and “an Iranian-American female director.” So whereas Iran (Persia) was part of Asia for more than two millennia, now it no longer is. Geography teachers should be notified of this change.

May 12 New York Times book review by Nancy Foner, a prominent person in immigration issues: “An astounding 77 percent of adult Indian immigrants in 2015 had a bachelor’s degree or higher compared with 29 percent of all immigrants and 31 percent of native-born adults.”

May 15 Journal News: Iona College Names Bronx Native as New President (headline).

August 5 Time on Iceland’s Prime Minister: “Many cultures have native words for unique experiences.” The native cultures presented to illustrate the point are Iceland, Germany, and Spain. I think it is fair to say that these native cultures consist of white people.

All of these examples of the use of the word “native” are normal traditional uses without any awareness or belief that such usage might be improper. One suspects these natives of the Bronx, New York, Florida, and the entire country all consider themselves American natives.

Of course, it is no secret that Native Americans are not actually native to America. The idea that people from the Greek-based word Asia crossed over into the Italian-based word America is not new. Scholars debate exactly when the people crossed over, exactly how, and in exactly how many waves. There is unanimity among them that people did leave the eastern hemisphere for the western hemisphere millennia ago.

Lately due to advances in deciphering of DNA evidence, scientists have been able to develop a more detailed understanding of these people were who undertook the journey. Here is the title of one such article from Science Magazine (online, June 5) on the subject:

Closest-known ancestor of today’s Native Americans found in Siberia.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t the title mean the people are Native Siberians who emigrated to America? The first sentence adds to the linguistic confusion.

Indigenous Americans… descend from humans who crossed over an ancient land bridge connecting Siberia in Russia to Alaska tens of thousands years ago.

Under normal circumstances, one would expect the editor to correct the writer to say that indigenous Siberians crossed over to Alaska, but these are not normal times and the meanings of words are distorted.

The article describes multiple movements by multiple peoples not all of whom remain extant today.  As a result of this DNA analysis,

It’s the closest we have ever gotten to a Native American ancestor outside the Americas.

Can you imagine someone saying the following about DNA analysis fro a people who migrated west into Europe?

It’s the closest we have ever gotten to a Native Italian ancestor outside Italy.

In the New York Times (June 11, 2019), the teaser on the front page of Science section states “A lost people in Asia may be ancestors of Native Irish.”  I am sorry, I mean a lost people in Siberia may be ancestors of Native Americans. The article provides more details than did the Science Magazine one. It refers to an article just published in the journal Nature about new clues “to the migrations that first brought people to the America.” Presumably if you migrate from England, France, Spain, or Holland on ships instead of by land to America, once you arrive here you become a Native America just as if you come from Siberia. Right?

According to the article, these geneticists have learned that people who live in a place today often have little genetic connection to those who lived there thousands of years ago. Is that even legal?

Wait. It gets worse. As the geneticists traced the various combinations of peoples over extended periods of time who mixed and mingled, they discovered an unexpected participant.

The story gets more complicated. Shortly after that split [24,000 years ago of the ancestors of the Native Americans and Ancient Paleo-Siberians], the ancestors of Native Americans encountered another population with genetic ties to Europe.

 FAKE NEWS!!!!!!! HOW DARE THEY PRINT THAT!!!!

 All living Native Americans carry a mixture of genes from these two groups.
                The new study can’t pinpoint exactly where Native Americans emerged from the meeting of these two peoples.

So not only are Native American not native to America, they have genetic ties to a people from Europe!

MORE FAKE NEWS!!!!!!!

So what then should these people be called?

In 2018, a professor posted a query on H-Early-America, one of numerous H-Net discussion groups which have been created in the academic setting. The question raised was “Help with ‘Native American’ terminology.”

I recently submitted a proposal for a new course that I will teach in our first year seminar program in the fall.  It entails two Reacting to the Past games:  Forest Diplomacy, 1756-1757 and Greenwich Village 1913: Suffrage, Labor, and the New Woman.  My question is about the former.  In the “official” description of the course, the author uses the word “Indian.”   This is the comment I got from the committee that approved my course:  “The committee would like to note that Native Americans are called “Indians” in the description. We are curious about this word choice (when a more accurate/ politically agreed upon way to describe this population these days is Native American). Perhaps this is how historians talk about the past. But it is worth raising as a question and as feedback.” I chose not to engage immediately since I was simply happy that they approved the course.  But now I’m curious–and would like to respond to the committee since they chose to raise it as an issue.  Is it indeed a settled issue among historians that we don’t use the term Indian and instead used Native American?  I’ve always understood that it is NOT settled and that “Indian” is an acceptable term, but I could certainly be educated by the experts in the field. 

Here we have a classic example of the thought police at an elitist college gently showing the history professor sinner the error of her ways without appearing to be too zealous. The answers to the query help shed light on the present situation.

I wanted to respond since I’ve had almost the exact same conversation regarding my “Imagining American Indians in Film” course. First of all, stick to your guns, as the committee is, in perhaps overly-simplistic terms, incorrect. It is a terminology in flux.

With that in mind, here are some concrete ways to respond.

I start by framing the conversation around the right of groups to choose their own terminology. This is written into the inclusive language policy at my institution, so I make sure to point to that.

In that sense, I always use national/tribal names when possible, deferring to the term preferred by the nation itself. For example, Dine rather than Navajo or Haudenosaunee rather than Iroquois. In moments when I need to refer to people more broadly, I use American Indian. On this I turn to a number of sources to defend that position. The first are American Indians themselves. While the opinion is not unanimous, high-profile individuals have made the case for keeping American Indian. Sherman Alexie is a particularly popular one. There are also larger connections to the history of American Indian activism that many Indian people want to preserve. Finally, there is a legal case for continuing to identify as American Indian, as this is the term enshrined in case law.

Note the use of the term “nation.”

A lengthy comment reiterated these points while offering an interesting take on how once again American Indians are victims of white cultural imperialism.

It is my experience since becoming a historian in my second career that American Indians prefer to be called “American Indians” (after their tribal identification, of course). This comes from asking members, especially when I was a historian with the National Park Service and worked on many projects with tribal historians and other tribal members, as well as in my own research and writing, and the overwhelming response I received was “American Indian” was preferred almost to a man and woman. I am no longer with the NPS, but I understand the agency conducted a survey before compiling its style guide a few years ago, and the respondents overwhelmingly preferred “American Indian.” While some answered “either” was “acceptable,” many more expressed the view that they felt “Native American” was offensive, paternalistic and racist.

When I asked a Cherokee colleague in @ 2003 or 2004, who had been the tribal historic preservation officer before coming to NPS, he said, “if you were born here, you’re a native American.” Then he said “those who prefer ‘Native American’ generally fall into one of three categories: (1) those who work for the government; (2) those who work on university campuses; and (3) white people who claim to be 1/32 Cherokee.” When I was working on the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration, 2004-2006, I attended a national conference on the topic, and the presenters were divided in their usage. All the Indian historians called native peoples INDIANS; while the only ones who used “Native Americans” were white academics. I understand the Associated Press style guide has recently dropped its insistence that “Native American” is the preferred term in light of other recent surveys.

Something similar may be observed in the comments about the proposed Cherokee delegate to the House of Representatives consistent with these comments. Chuck Hosin Jr., chief of the Cherokee Nation, said:

Because this is such a historic and unprecedented action by an Indian nation, I think the delegate will have a broader responsibility to help to be a voice for all Indian Country. I’ve seen the power of the tribes collaborating and standing in solidarity on issues. It is my expectation that Ms. Teehee [the proposed delegate] will be mindful of broader issues in all of Indian Country.

Charles Gourd, the director of the Cherokee National Historical Society, commenting of the benefit of the change, said:

Right now what you have to have to do is hope there’s a friendly congressperson that has a staffer that knows anything about Indian issues at all.

Dan Lewerenz, Iowa Tribe, said:

The treaty doesn’t say anything about the Cherokee being a stand-in for other tribes.

How come these people are not using politically correct terminology?  Where is the Thought Police when you need them?

At the recent conference of the Society for Historians of the Early Republic (SHEAR), the opening plenary session included a presentation on the Cherokee. The historian consistently referred to these people by their proper name. Similarly other Indian peoples mentioned in the talk, the Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws, also were referred to by proper noun name. Collectively they were Indian Nations. Again, note that term “nation.” It is easy to overlook the importance placed by American Indians on being recognized as a nation. They recognized that England and the United States were nations and saw themselves as comparable political entities. “Nativizing” them strips them of this identity. The academics who work with the American Indians know that these people are entitled to the same respect one would show European peoples: use their name and recognize their “nationess.”

American Indians recognize that the term “Native Americans” was created by white people based on the needs of white people. These white people have a lot of power and can be relentless in imposing their will. Eventually the American Indians may have no choice but to submit to the power of the politically correct. One should recognize therefore that weaponization of “native” and “indigenous” did not arise from a grassroots need. American Indians had no objection to being called American Indians until white people told them they should. The use of these terms should be understood as part of the culture war within white people where American Indians are a pawn to be used to fit a white agenda.

Why would white people do this?

What should be done about it?

[This blog was revised September 2, 2019, due to the Cherokee Nation request to seat a delegate]

“The Year without Summer” (1816): When Republicans Recognized Climate Change Existed (SHEAR CONFERENCE)

August 24, 2016
by Peter Feinman

The Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) held its annual conference in New Haven from July 21-24. I was only able to attend the weekend sessions on the last two days. Below is my summary and comments on the second session I attended on Saturday, July 23.

“The Year without Summer” (1816) and Climate Change: Perspectives on the New Climate History from the Early Republic

Tambora

Mount Tambora Caldera, Sumbawa, Indonesia

(Jialiang Gao/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sherry Johnson, Florida International University

Johnson spoke as a Latin American historian. Her initial investigation sought to uncover connections between the United States and the Caribbean involving the summer of 1816. She called that effort Plan A and found no documentation to support her first hypothesis. When hurricanes had increased in the 1770s, there were food shortages in the Caribbean. As a result, the Spanish authorities turned to Philadelphia to trade for food. The environment forced Spain to make this effort and she wondered about the political impact at that time. However, she found no evidence of crisis in food production in 1816 contra to the Plan B hypothesis. Turning to Plan C, she hypothesized that some areas reaped benefits from crises elsewhere. The Year without Summer ended up being a null event for the Caribbean as it was still able to obtain the food needed from the United States.

Sam White, Ohio State University

White spoke as an environmental historian. He began with the observation that climate history has not generated much traction yet. In the United States, geography departments carry less prestige than they do elsewhere in the world. The focus here tends to be on what people have done to the environment, more reflective of American values. The emphasis here is on human agency rather than on the environment in its own right. The wilderness legacy in American culture looms large in academic studies.

In addition to these more general comments, White did speak on a more technical basis on the environmental issues related to the Year without Summer but it would be inappropriate of me to comment on that aspect of his presentation. It was his general observations that he may have hoped would have a more volcanic impact on the scholarship paradigm. Whether his conference eruption will generate such a seismic shock remains to be seen.

Sean Munger, University of Oregon

Munger examined the more traditional elements one associates with historical scholarship – what effect did the wild weather have on the economy, psychology, and religion of America. He averred that people applied the science of astronomy as they it knew to bring order to the chaos that they experienced. The summer had a universal [meaning global] dimension to it in addition to the local impact that one could detect with one’s own senses.  He posited a dual-layered environmental view in response. At the local level, people dealt with the immediate issues of home, farm, and harvest. At the cosmic level, people looked skyward for answers to explain what was happening on earth. Astrology, theology, and science all were brought to bear.

As a result of the volcanic dust suspended in the air following the volcanic eruption, people gained a different view of the sun than in normal times. Sun spots became more visible. It wasn’t that the sunspots were a new phenomenon or that they had increased in number, but that people could see more of them now. One consequence was the newspaper coverage incorrectly attributing the weather change to the increased sunspots. Naturally, sooner or later, such cosmic changes led to the prediction that the world was coming to an end. Sure enough on July 8, 1816, an “astronomer” prophesized precisely such an event. I wondered if William Miller had been aware of such prophecies and if they contributed to his own more scientific calculation of when the world would come to an end.

John Brooke, Ohio State University (Presiding)

Brooke mentioned the comparatively recent explorations by Van Humboldt in South America and their impact on the grappling with the events of 1816. Through what theological framework could people make sense of what was happening? He reminded us that the War of 1812 had recently concluded and also had impacted American life.

Alan Taylor, University of Virginia (Commentator)

Taylor reiterated the points made about historians needing to place closer attention to climate in their studies, but he concluded that the Year without Summer was not a pivotal event in American history. There was a drive to systemize thinking at that time even if it is not convincing to us. People then [as now] seek to discern patterns to explain the world they are experiencing. Today, we are not as quick to attribute climate as an independent entity willfully impacting human life. Taylor recognized the internal discussion within the discipline on landscape acting on human history versus human agency. The latter preference is consistent with the American narrative of the power of people over nature.

I have a note that political events of the War of 1812 and post-Waterloo trumped the concern over climate change but I am not sure how much of that derived from Alan’s comments, my own thoughts, or both.

In the Q&A, the topic was raised of the challenge to integrate the information presented in the session to the traditional American narrative of human agency.

In looking back on this session and reading my notes, it occurs to me that the session, or at least the notes I took, may have veered off its original intention. I don’t know what was submitted to SHEAR [shouldn’t abstracts and session descriptions be posted on the SHEAR website?]. The initial paper by Johnson illustrated an historian at work at her craft, proposing an hypothesis, testing it, and then going back to the drawing board to try again.  But the tenor of the presentations, particularly what was of interest to me, addressed larger issues which go beyond the specific event of 1816. In hindsight it seems that some of the issues raised warrant their own sessions or discussions. Left unmentioned in the presentations was the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812. How could any attempt to impose a pattern on the events in nature omit such a recent disturbance or combine both of them? These same years marked Methodism’s arrival as the leading religion in America. How did they interpret these events? In any event, the session stimulated additional thinking on my part so in that sense it was a successful one.

The General Public and the Early Republic Historians (SHEAR Conference)

August 23, 2016
by Peter Feinman

 The Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) held its annual conference in New Haven from July 21-24. I was only able to attend the weekend sessions on the last two days. Below is my summary and comments on the first session I attended on Saturday, July 23.

THE PUBLIC AND THE EARLY REPUBLIC: A ROUNDTABLE ON IN AND BEYOND THE ACADEMY

Mount Vernon Library
Douglas Bradburn, Washington Library, Mount Vernon

He reported that Mount Vernon receives approximately 1.1 million visitors annually.  I spoke with him after the session about this number. Approximately 350,000 are students in the 8th grade. The visits to Mount Vernon by the students often are combined with visitations to other historic sites in area.  I recall a few years ago attending a history conference at Columbia University where the executive director of Williamsburg discussed attendance there. When he started his new job, everyone was excited about the site having finally cracked the 1 million barrier. Now the challenge for the organization was to reach 2 million. Attendance subsequently declined to 600,000+. I don’t know what it is now.

Bradburn stated that people at historical societies and museums need academic help to learn the history relevant to their site.  Towards that end, he proudly discussed several initiatives at Mount Vernon. These included a new education center, a “presidential” library [Mount Vernon is a private site not part of NARA], a digital encyclopedia, streaming monthly book lectures, holding a public symposia, conducting a teacher institute and other programs.

I was particularly interested in the online lecture library. During the break, I had the opportunity to catch-up with Liz Covart. I had not seen her for a few years but I do hear her on her Ben Franklin’s World podcast. I wanted to pick her brain about creating a New York History podcast and she gave me useful information about what is involved. She also noted the great response by the New York history community to her podcast based on the statistics of who is accessing the website.

Several possibilities occurred to me as a result of the presentation and hallway discussion.

  1. Podcasts are the wave of the present – the future is here.
  2. Podcasts and taped lectures provide an excellent way to have facilitated discussions at schools, libraries, history museums, and historical societies. The facilitator could be a social studies teacher, local professor, curator, or enthusiastic person with conversational skills. Such programs even could be offered for professional development credit for teachers. The key would be [for SHEAR] to create a good database of what is available online that interested organizations and people could use in an organized manner and disseminating that information to appropriate organizations like the New York Council for the Social Studies (NYCSS), the Museum Association of New York (MANY), the New York Library Association (NYLA) and the New York Council for the Humanities (NYCH). There is a lot of potential in podcasts and online lectures and I am sure there is a lot going on that I don’t know about.

 

NCPH
Marla Miller, University of Massachusetts

In her non-profit capacity as Vice President of the National Council on Public History (NCPH), Marla spoke about trends in public history and what history sites are doing today. She expressed the comparatively recent discovery that visitors like it when Toto pulls back the curtain and get to see the real deal rather than the tidy spic-and-span look. People don’t want to see what ancient people looked like in their Sunday-School clothes; they want to see them messy. [These aren’t her exact words and she can berate me when she comes to Westchester this September to learn about the Sing Sing Museum project.]

Marla discussed exploring partnerships that previously had been ignored. She specifically mentioned the history museum and healthcare.  Museums can provide therapeutic benefits and reach out to senior citizens to discuss concerns in the past relevant to their lives today. Another possibility was to bring objects from the museum or historical society to the senior homes. She gave a shout out to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Hancock Shaker Village [I am not sure or didn’t write down which one she meant], and Martin Van Buren (Patricia West) for those sites innovative work along with Eastern State Penitentiary [she’s into prisons now in CT]. She called for listening to others and promoting one’s interest in public history. Marla definitely needs to return to New York and we should create sessions at conferences to highlight in more detail what these various organizations are doing.

ctstate
Walt Woodward, University of Connecticut and Connecticut State Historian (title not listed on program)

I keep hoping that Connecticut will take back the Town of Rye (where I live) but I have been unsuccessful in getting Walt to endorse the project.

Walt spoke in the capacity of the state historian reaching out the general public and not as a scholar in the academic world. He has a podcast (but I didn’t have a chance to follow-up with him on it) and gives about 75 public lectures per year. His experience has shown him that there is a tremendous public interest in Connecticut for history. He strongly advocates for historians to leave the ivory tower and venture out into the public arena. Walt generously provided some guidelines to be followed if you are so inclined.

  1. Don’t speak academic or undergraduate-lecture style jargon to the general public.
  2. Don’t assume prior knowledge (or that they read the assignment before the lecture).
  3. Complexity is not clarity.
  4. Nuance can be mind-numbing.
  5. Park your biases at the door – leave out the progressive politics. You are there to share your presumed expertise in the past, not to indulge in being a know-it-all on a TV talk show.
  6. Don’t be arrogant – you aren’t the god’s or goddess’s gift to humanity where the little people should bask in the aura of your greatness and be thankful that you have chosen to enlighten them.

The public audience loves history and wants to hear from people who knew it well and can communicate to them in an effective manner. Naturally no one in the audience was guilty of violating any of the prohibitions the way I am doing by writing this post!

Note – Walt didn’t exactly use these words; he has his own sense of humor but I think this captures the gist of his presentation.

Peter Onuf, University of Virginia (Commentator)

In his wrap-up, Onuf raised three issues.

  1. The standard model of history doesn’t have a future – what, then, is the future?
  2. If students don’t care about history, then the professors need the skills of the public historian who has the job of reaching out to a general audience and then to apply those skills in the classroom to reach the students.
  3. Fellowships are replacing tenured jobs as the wave of the future for Ph.D. graduates, a future that already has arrived.

 

Questions and Answers

  1. Craig Friend (Director of Public History at NC State University) to Walt on citizenship. Walt replied that the public historian needs to connect content to the lives of the audience by drawing on the ideas of the people who lived in the historic sites. Brad noted that citizenship is a critical interest at Mount Vernon. The new citizen ceremonies have included people representing 140 countries.

Recommendation – Perhaps a good way to start connecting newcomers to local historic sites would be to have immigration ceremonies at the location. It could include everyone who became a citizen in the last year especially in smaller communities.

  1. A question was asked about relevance and presentism. The questioner expressed a concern that audiences and students push analogies to far [“The Triumph of Mel Gibson” will be the subject on a post on presentism].

Marla answered that a speaker can use that as a point of entry. History provides the opportunity to build bridges between the living and dead citing the example of NPS Patricia West at Martin Van Buren’s home.

  1. Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Monticello, asked a question which I didn’t write down so I can only provide the answers.

Walt is critical of the elimination (or reduction) of history in a STEM world. The history community is doing a poor job of communicating to the general public of history’s importance. There is a need to intervene in creating the k-12 curriculum.

On a personal note, I remember years ago at a Connecticut Council for the Social Studies annual conference receiving a handout, which I probably still have, showing that local and state history would be included in social studies every year even in ancient civilizations and global studies classes. Of course, the implicit assumption was that social studies would be taught every year along with math and English.

Marla suggested academics expand the view of the job market to include public history. Linda Carter, Williamsburg, from the audience, added that convincing academics of the importance of public history is a challenge. Brad echoed this comment.

Brad also mentioned using Google to determine what the public is interested in based on the searches.

If I may conclude with some general observations. In New York, there are separate statewide conferences for public historians, history museums, social studies teachers, and academics. Getting people to work together on an ongoing and sustained basis with actual deliverables is a challenge indeed. A session for public historians in an academic conference definitely is good, but what is next? What, if anything, are the NCPH and SHEAR going to do moving forward? Obviously I am not privy to such discussions or familiar with the national arena, so maybe this observation is of little merit.