My U.S. history survey class includes an exploration of different genres of historical presentation. The students are reading three autobiographies and then comparing them with works of academic, public, and popular history. In a recent post, I discussed the experience of comparing Cabeza de Vaca’s Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition with Andrés Reséndez’s A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (Basic Books, 2009). The The second assignment asked the students to compare The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin with the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, an online museum exhibition. The assignment was as follows:
We once again used this opportunity to skype with the creators of our secondary source. Page Talbott and Melissa Clemmer graciously took the time to answer questions from my students that included: “how do you become a public historian?” “how do you, as a public historian, understand your work as similar and different to historians who write books?” “how do you design exhibits to reach different age levels?” “who decides what gets in and what gets left out, how do you make those decisions?” and several more. Page and Melissa were wonderful, and one of my students teased me at the end of class that I was the wrong kind of historian. (Looking at the job market, it seems that he might be correct)
I was very pleased by the papers generated by the assignment. In addition to improvements in style (we’ve been working on writing with an argument, organization, and using active verbs), the papers reflected a considerable amount of creativity from the students. One student wrote a wonderfully thoughtful reflection on the value of intimacy in historical narrative, evaluating the different levels of intimacy that one feels when reading an autobiography versus experiencing a museum exhibit or reading a monograph. Another wrote on the nature of historical celebrity and the challenge of wrestling with the popular imagination of historical figures like Franklin. Many students reflected thoughtfully on the opportunities and limitations of digital exhibits. All of the students walked away with a greater appreciation of the work and value of public history exhibits.
While I may be the wrong kind of historian, I am committed to using the work of public historians in the classroom. They have much to teach both students and scholars.
(The final assignment in this series will include as assessment of popular history through Solomon Northrup’s 12 Years a Slave, in print and film; stay tuned for that)
