Of the three readings we had for this week, I think Nancy Raquel Mirabal's community history article, "Geographies of Displacement" resonated most with me. I was taken back to a blog posting I wrote this past summer. Though my post did not go into the same depth as Mirabal's article, we both touched upon the meaning of space and community within transitional neighborhoods. Mirabal does not go into depth about the ethnography she and her students produced about the changing demographics of the Mission District but she showed us a non-conventional way to do public history. For many of us, we see public history as being attached to some sort of institution. We have talked, and read, at length about museums, archives and historical societies. Mirabal wrote about taking history to the people. Her work epitomized "history from the bottom up." During a time of intense displacement of the Latino community, she and her students were able to put their stories at the forefront. The power of gentrification/revitalization is real and it has the ability to whitewash the history of neighborhood. Mirabal worked to preserve a history which would easily be forgotten.
As public historians, I see this type of work becoming more common. Cities across the country are working to bring people back to their city centers from the suburbs. Mirabal alluded to the notion of their being a metric to determining which neighborhoods will be revitalized. More communities will find themselves displaced from the neighborhoods where they laid roots. Revitalization inherently says to the community, you no longer belong in this space. In many cases, the forces of development will not be dissuaded by the criticism of a displaced community. But, as historians, we can use some of our training to express the importance of the marginalized group.
Cary Carson's article about History Museums' Plan B did not have the same resonance for me as Mirabal but I had a great takeaway. The future of history museums lay in the interactivity with the visitor. Carson devoted a section of his article to the instant gratification phenomena within our society. Technology has caused educators to re-envision how they deliver their message. Carson wrote, "Educators everywhere are challenged to repackage their instruction as a form of performance art in which the instructees can participate using these new personal technologies." (Carson, p. 21) What Carson attempted to show was how history needs to be dynamic in its presentation. The public needs to believe they can interact with history in new and exciting ways. They cannot just be passive observers as history is presented to them. Similar to Mirabal, Carson believed history needed to empower the public.
Finally, there was Eric O'Keefe's article from the New York Times. O'Keefe's article focused on the liquidation of a $7.8 million collection of "Old West" collectibles. The items had been purchased by Stephen Reed, Mayor of Harrisburg. Reed used public money to establish the collection and his ultimate goal was to establish a museum to honor the contribution Harrisburg made in the western migration during the 1800s. Eventually the idea was scrapped because the cities budget was in the red. Again we are pulled back to the public significance of history. Reed believed this was necessary for his community and this new museum would serve the role of highlighting Harrisburg's contribution.
All three articles addressed the idea of community impact and history. As I mentioned earlier in the post, public history isn't only historians making history accessible for the public but it can be taking it to the public. History can have a variety of meaning to the community and it is a topic which needs to be explored.
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