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    PUBLIC HISTORY: ITS ORIGINSNATURE AND PROSPECTS

    Robert KelleyIn its simplest meaning Public History refers to the employment of

    historians and the historical method outside of academia: in governmentprivate corporations the media historical societies and museums even inprivate practice. Public Historians are at work whenever in their professional capacity they are part of the public process. An issue needs to beresolved a policy must be formed the use of a resource or the directionof an activity must be more effectively planned-and an historian is calledupon to bring in the dimension of time: this is Public History.

    THE HISTORIAN S PERSPECTIVEThe historian has a special way of looking at human affairs and a specialway of explaining them. He or she instinctively asks the question how did

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    114 PUBLIC HISTORY READINGS PUBLIC HISTORY: ITS ORIGINS, NATURE, AND PROSPECTS 115at issue, just as public administrators, economists, engineers, attorneys,and other professionals have brought their expertise into policy makingand are now established fixtures in that process.This would, of course, have the result of greatly expanding professionalemployment for historians, an objective well worth striving toward. Thereare great numbers of young people who enjoy history and would be gladfor the opportunity to practice it professionally. Keeping graduate studyalive means insuring that departments of history willcontinue to be placesof intel lectual vitality. This, in its turn, will enhance teaching, as well asthe broader enterprise of historical scholarship. There is, however, a largerpurpose to be served by this enterprise. At present, people in positionsof responsibi lity do not think historically, though they like to think thatthey do. They think, rather, in terms of immediate context. The turnoverin executive posi tions is always rapid, legislators come and go, and fewhave more than a thin understanding of how things have come to be theway they are, what led to particular policies, what has been tried and foundwanting, and when the wheel is being reinvented. If by sending youngpeople out to take up careers in public history we slowly change thissituation, so that the historical method of analysis becomes an integralelement in all decisionmaking, we shall have made a signal contributionto American life. Historically-grounded policies, in small and large settings,cannot help but be sounder in conception, and they are likely to be moreeffective, consistent, and, one hopes, more aligned with human reality. Inthe long run, they should be less costly to administer. This isa large ideal,and who can say that we shall ever fully realize it? It isno larger, however,than the fundamental belief that undergirds our teaching, which we areconvinced leads, by some process that we cannot concretely describe, tomore humane and informed citizens and therefore a more civilized society.Every professional undertaking must have an encompassing social purpose,even though its fulfillment may elude us and be filled with human errorand incapacity. Changing and improving the public process throughoutAmerican society, by bringing the historical consciousness into a workingrole in the dai ly conduct of affairs, is a purpose honorable in characterand elegant in its dimensions.

    ROL MO LSFortunately, the professional model is already out in the public arena,proven and seasoned, though academic historians have paid it little attent ion. To the Graduate Program in Public Historical Studies at DC/SantaBarbara we have been bringing a stream of visiting lecturers who are nowpracticing public historians in many separate locations: in state and citygovernments, in private corporations, in historic preservation programs,in historical societies, and in private practice. Among these, those whorepresent Public History in perhaps its fullest development are at work inthe Federal history offices. Two of them come particularly to mind: Richard

    to us, in microcosm, the stages in development that public history will, ineach setting, pass through. Hewlett and Rasmussen began their laborsmore than twenty years ago, when their presence in their organizationswas essentially ignored. They devoted themselves for long years to solid,basic research into the work and history of their agencies, leading to thewri ting of narrat ive histories. At the same time, they were gaining a command over their agencies archives and documentary resources unrivaledby anyone else in their organizations.Eventually, their presence as an increasingly valuable resource in policymaking was recognized. Requests from senior administrators began toarrive on their desks. How had this policy come to be adopted, and whatwas the origin of that operation or administrative unit? Had the agencyencountered particular issues in the past, and how were they resolved? Intime, the incoming traffic of such requests mounted, taking up an everlarger share of the historical offices time. By the 1970 s, the operationsheaded by Hewlett and Rasmussen had completed the evolutionary progression from simply being obscure offices buried in the cata-comboswhose function no one seemed to understand, to essential elements inmaking policy. In the latter days of the Atomic Energy Commission (succeeded bythe Energy Research and Development Administration and nowby the Department of Energy), Hewlet t was brought in regularly as consul tant to the Commissioner, and to sit with the Commission as it carriedforward its deliberations. The Department of Agriculture has recently beenengaged in a searching re-examination of its inner structure, and Rasmussen has been closely involved in preparing historical explanations ofthe existing system and its predecessors.This is the evolution of role and function which should, ideally, occurwhenever an organization establishes an historical office. The problem,however, is to locate that niche from which an historian with the publichistory concept in mind can begin his or her work. The ultimate objectivehas to be the establishment of an historical office in every organization ofsignificant size. It will take a long time, however, to reach that objective.In 1975, when we were gestating our program, we believed that the untapped frontier for historian s lay within the thousands of local governments, at the city and county level, which are almost entirely withouthistorical offices. There were exceptions, as in the City of Rochester, NewYork, where for decades Blake McKelvey held forth, now succeeded byJoseph Barnes. Historic preservation undertakings are rapidly burgeoning,fueled by federal legislation and urban redevelopment projects, and itappeared that historians were ever more in need in urban planning offices.Now, however, the spreading tax revolt spearheaded by California s Proposi tion 13 campaign may drastical ly reduce the sources of funds whichmight have financed the entry of historians, historians, into urban andregional government.It is unlikely, in any event, that there will be many front doors : thatis, situat ions where historians will be hired at the outset in their profes

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    116 PUBLIC HISTORY READINGS PUBLIC HISTORY: ITS ORIGINS, NATURE, AND PROSPECTS 117especially in business corporations. Lawrence Bruser, now in the publicaffairs office of Mitsui Corporation, has been insisting for some years thatthere is not a job crisis for historians, there is an identity crisis. In fact,historians have a number of qualities which are essential to organizationsof all kinds. They should think of themselves, Bruser observes, as specialistsin information management. Under the auspices of the Graduate Programin Public Historical Studies here at UCSB (and with NEH funding), wehave held a series of conferences, the most recent of them with a groupof business executives. From these people welearned that Bruser s conceptis quite sound. A room full of corporation executives-representing firmslike Dow Corning, DataProducts, Hewlett Packard, Bank of America, andInterAmerican Bank-informed us that the information services market isexploding; that specialists in information management are much in demand.

    What corporat ions increasingly need on their staffs, they tell us, areanalysts and planners. That is, they need people who have the skills andqualities historians traditionally develop: narrative communication in concise clear form; an appetite for extended research; an interest in problemsolving; and the power of conceptualization. People are important to largeorganizations who are good at presenting things, learn fast, seize quicklyupon ideas, have a wide body of general knowledge to draw upon, understand the workings of the larger society, and can link things together.The strictly business ski lls which such people need to acquire are relatively simple, related to the reading of budgets and programming.We anticipate, therefore, that graduate students in Public History willmove into positions in the community at large, either at the governmentalor corporate business level, not so much as historians to fill a postspecifically so designated, but as planners, analysts, managers of the internal flow of information, directors of public affairs offices in privatecorporations, assistants to administrators, and the like. The variety of suchpositions open to them, reaching into the media and into such immensefields as medical administration, is impossible to list in any comprehensiveway. Certainly the rapidly growing profession of cultural resource management, involving historic preservation, museums, and the like, will continue to provide a major theater of employment for professional historians,in this case one where historical research and writing are the center ofthe enterprise. Wherever located, historians trained with the public historyideal-that the historical method is uniquely valuable in problem solvingand policy making-will serve as missionaries for that concept, and willput it to use at every opportunity. The Fabian tactic of permeation, inshort, provides the model the historical profession should follow as it seeks,in our own time, to begin enlarging its role in national life.TR INING IN THE PU LIC HISTORIC L STUDIES PROGR MWe admitted the first class to the Graduate Program in Public Historical

    accepted nine students to study for the master s degree, and one whobegan work on his doctorate. As we screened applicants, we looked carefully to see if their dossiers revealed a certain entrepreneurial, risk-takingquali ty of mind and character. We have continued ever since to make thisour highest priority, in addition to the capacity for strong scholarly performance. To pioneer isdifficult, requiring a certain resilience and a readiness to make one s own way. There are few role models to follow, andvery little in the way of an established pattern of career progression inPublic History.Essentially, the Public History curriculum is an option, a second routeby which the student may earn a master s or doctoral degree. It has beentailored to equip the student for what we believe lies ahead, in the way oflikely challenges and necessary skills. We will continue to learn as we proceed, and already, in the Program s second year, we have begun the polishing and reforming process in the curriculum. The heart of the Programis a two-quarter core seminar, taken by every master s candidate and byentering doctoral students. It provides, fi rst of all, a continuing forum inwhich to discuss the nature of Public History and its ethical challenges:how do staff historians keep their integrity, when under pressure to produce desired results rather than a history which is true to the facts? Tothe core seminar, wealso bring historians from around the country, alreadyworking in public settings, to serve as visiting lecturers. This has provedto be one of the Program s most valuable and fruitful features. It not onlygives students direct knowledge of the many waysin which historians canbe employed, outside of academia, it gives them personal acquaintancesand the prospect of future assistance within the profession.In our planning of the Program, we talked with historians already employed in public settings. We learned that students need to get used toworking in team situations, which isunlike the usual pattern of professionalactivi ty among academic historians, and they need to get used to the concept of mission-oriented research. In public settings, they will usually beengaged in helping their organization achieve its goals, and the questionsthey will be asked to explore-as earlier remarked-will not, as amongacademic historians, arise simply out of their own interests. To give directexperience in this kind of team, mission-oriented research, the core seminar in the Program focuses upon a problem of current concern to theCityof Santa Barbara. The students are asked jointly to research and writea historical study of that problem, of book length, which is then put touse by the City in its planning and operations. During this process, theylearn how to do community-centered research, which is different fromlibrary-centered research (though library resources, where available, arealso used). They learn where the documentary resources in a city are tobe found: in voting offices, surveyor s files, court records, tax assessor srecords, newspaper archives, city council minutes, private homes, basements, dusty at tics, and in private memories-to just begin the list. Theyalso learn how to work with various media, including television, to transmit

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    118 PUBLIC HISTORY READINGS PUBLlC HISTORY: ITS ORIGINS, NATURE, AND PROSPECTS 119rat ive. Meanwhi le, t he students i n t he Program are eng aged in other activities as well: putting on the Program s series of conferences; editing thisjournal; and acquiring such practical competencies as the writing of grantapplications. Also, during the first quarter, the students enroll in a seminarin the history and nature of planning, and another in the use of socialscience, quantitative methods in historical research.Out of th ese div erse joi nt experiences, a stron g sense of communi tydevelops within each class of graduate students in the Program whichgreatly enhances and intensifies every lear ning activity. I n a way deniedto traditional graduate students, who scatter widely in their seminars andwork individually in their research, students in the Public History programacquire a feeling of corporate identity and common involvement. The levelof mutual assistance, and the depth of personal ties between participantsin the Prog ram, is quite beyond the usual graduate stud ent experience.Field trips enhance the sense of community. A valuable trip of this nature,each y ear, is to the state o ffi ce of cu ltural resource management in Sacramento and its historic preservation activities, both as they relate to localcommunities and to the state park system. Students and f aculty take mealstogether with visiting lecturers, and in faculty-student r etreats, when extended discussi on of_the Program and of ind ividu al stud ent needs constitutes the agenda.

    We urge stud ents in th e Program to take wo rk outside t he Departmentin f ields such as public administr ation and business economics. As we areable to develop relevant courses in other depar tments, they will probablybecome requirements. The Department continues to require competencyin a foreig n language, involv ing an ex aminati on. We also stress that thehi st orian has not only a method to offer, b ut a bro ad command of humanhistory and the per spectives upon government, ideas, and social institutions that such a command provides. The students are involved, therefore,in int ensi ve readin g seminars, and in a great d eal o f j oin t study in prep aration for a broad master s level comprehensive examination usually inAmerican history). They also start moving in individualized directions during the winter quarter, according to the particular public history directionthat they wish to head toward, and its associated studies. Taking wor k withind ividu al p rofessors in the depart ment, they devel op a special field insuch areas as historic preservation, planning, urban studies, the history oftechnology, water resour ce history, environmental studies, and the like.This, in turn, leads to a second master s level comprehensive examination.PR TI L EXPERIEN E FOR STUDENTS

    At th e end of th ree quarters of resid en cy , t he M.A. studen ts depart for salaried) internships. Planned to take six months, dur ing this per iod thestudents research an d writ e the history of a pro blem of current concernto t heir h ost ing o rganizati ons. Wh ile doi ng so, th ey are under the jo intsupervi sio n of a superior in the organi zat ion it self, and of a professor in

    Docto ral stud ents parti cipate in most of this first year s work , thou ghthey do not prep are eith er for the M.A. comprehensi ves or t ak e, necessaril y, an i nternshi p. Rather, their prog ram o f study aims, as is usual, ata series of doctoral level written and oral examinations, and a dissertationon a publi c history top ic. They present three fields o f hi sto ry for exami nat ion, on e in a broad, general field of history, and two closely related toor directl y concerned wi th an area of p ublic history interest. An o utsidefield in another Department is supportive of that interest. One of ourdo ct oral students i s i nterested in the history of technolo gy and in t hat oflocal communities, leading to an appropriately designed program of study.Another is heading for a career in the history of marine resource management, which dictates yet a different grouping of learning experiences.The dissertation is to be prepared in conformity with the gener al principlegoverning the nature of the M.A. thesis: it is to be on a major issue in thepublic setting in which a hosting organization or group of organizationsis interested.

    Our experience with the first class of entering students was most enco uragin g, and it has conti nued to b e so with the second class as well. Wehave had students inter ning in a number of cities making studies of waterr ights issues, historic preser vation needs, the operations of municipal departments, and the like); at the Los Angeles International Airport makinga study of noise pollution and expansion contr oversies with surr oundingcommunities); the Gover nor s Office of Research in the state capital researching the history of the state s civil ser vice system) ; the National ParkS ervice; and in the headquarter s offices of a national corporation. I n several cases, these exper iences have led either to per manent positions or tot he promi se of such posit ions when th e M.A. is comp leted. On e studenti s g oing on fo r do ct oral st udies in urban resource manag ement h ist ory atan other univ ersity; another has gone to a g raduate school of business totake a second M.A.; a third is preparing to form a private company to doen viron mental impact studi es; a fou rth is preparing to work for the stat ein historic preservation; and a fifth has now decided, in light of her internship activity, to proceed further in the P rogr am to the doctorate. Thesecond class,just now preparing to depart for internships in San Francisco a priv at e foundat ion), Kansas City the Pub lic Work s department), LosAngeles a private corporation), and others involving the US Forest Service,the University of California, a privately-funded research organization, thef ederal Historic American Engineer ing Recor d survey, and the like.The Pro gram is considerabl y more arduous, for b oth faculty and students, than the traditional curriculum. The students have to work at atiring pace acquiring skills much more various and novel than those nor mally involved in graduate study. Learning how to do community-centeredhistorical resear ch; acquiring a command of oral history techniques, andof media skills;venturing into public administration courses and others inecon omics; developin g the abili ty to program computers, to di vide upr esear ch tasks, and to write a team- cr eated piece of analysis and historical

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    120 PUBLICHISTORYREADINGSanalysis in corporation or government documents; struggling with the ethical complexities of being a house historian who nonetheless is goingto call the shots as the evidence dictates: these are not the things thatgraduate students in history have in the past been called upon to undertake.Out of all of this, however, there seems to come a sense of pride andaccomplishment which brings a fresh atmosphere and an optimistic spiritinto a situation which, in recent years, had become one of depression andloss of purpose. The ultimate dividend, for the faculty persons involved,lies in working with such students. To this point, therefore, Public Historyhas seemed to us an enterprise well worth the heavy commitment of timeand energies it requires. It is an experiment with many risks, but its rewardsthus far for both faculty and students, and its potentiality, make it anundertaking which is far preferable to going on as we were before.

    OT S1. See his The Historian and Public Policy, delivered as the Nora and EdwardRyerson Lecture at the Center for PolicyStudy of the Universityof Chicagoin 1974, in The istory Teacher 11 May, 1978), 380-383.