Public history
History practiced for the public, outside academic settings.
Public history describes the work of people with historical training who apply their skills outside of university settings. It draws heavily on fields like historic preservation, archival science, oral history, and museum work. Since the late 1970s, it has become a more formal profession, especially in the United States and Canada. Practitioners are commonly found in museums, historic houses, parks, battlefields, archives, film and television, new media, and government offices at every level.
Defining public history is tricky because it covers so many practices and places. Still, those who call themselves public historians tend to agree on a few core ideas: they focus on history for the general public rather than for academics; they use standard historical methods; they value professional training and standards; they aim to make historical knowledge useful beyond pure scholarship; and they want to strengthen the public’s connection to the past. These ideas appear in the 1989 mission statement of the National Council on Public History, which promotes “the utility of history in society through professional practice.” A 2007 draft definition from the same group called public history “a movement, methodology, and approach that promotes the collaborative study and practice of history,” with a mission to make insights “accessible and useful to the public.” That draft sparked debate among practitioners, with some questioning whether public history requires trained historians or should instead emphasize shared authority with the public. Others noted that the existence of many different “publics” makes a single definition hard to pin down. Some scholars have questioned whether certain forms of public history—like corporate histories—might better be called “private history,” and whether other work, such as research outside academic norms, is better described as “popular history.” Cathy Stanton pointed to a more radical side of North American public history but asked how much room that progressive element really has. Hilda Kean and Paul Ashton argued against a strict line between historians and their audiences, noting differences in how public history is practiced in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. A 2008 survey of approximately 3,386 mostly U.S.-based practitioners found that almost a quarter had reservations about the term itself.
- Field
- Public history
- Key elements
- Focus on history for the general public, use of historical methods, emphasis on professional standards and usefulness of historical knowledge
- Professionalization began
- Late 1970s
- Primary regions
- United States and Canada
- Common settings
- Museums, historic homes and sites, parks, battlefields, archives, film and television, new media, government
- Related fields
- Applied history, archival science, cultural heritage management, digital history, historic preservation, oral history, public humanities
Lore & Background
Public history has many antecedents, including history museums, historical societies, public and private archives, preservation organizations, and depictions of history in popular culture. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a distinct historical discipline formed within Western universities, gradually separating professional scholars from amateur or public practitioners. By the middle decades of the twentieth century, trained historians had largely retreated from public engagement.
During the 1970s, political, economic, social, and historiographical developments reversed this trend. Social justice movements sparked interest in histories of non-dominant groups, while a shortage of academic jobs led many historians to consider careers outside the academy. Publicly funded efforts such as the United States Bicentennial and multiculturalist projects in Australia and Canada, along with deindustrialization and government regeneration projects, created demand for historical work in non-academic settings. In the U.S., the University of California, Santa Barbara created a graduate program in 1976 to train historians for public and private sector careers, and conferences in Scottsdale, Arizona (1978) and Montecito, California (1979) helped catalyze the field. The journal The Public Historian launched in 1978, and the National Council on Public History was founded in 1979.
Reader's Guide
Public history resists precise definition, but key elements include a focus on history for the general public, use of historical methods, emphasis on professional standards, and an aim to deepen the public's connection with the past. The 1989 mission statement of the National Council on Public History promotes 'the utility of history in society through professional practice.' A 2007 draft definition described public history as 'a movement, methodology, and approach that promotes the collaborative study and practice of history,' but this prompted challenges about whether shared historical authority should be a key element. Historian Peter Novick questioned whether some work called public history should be termed 'private history' or 'popular history.' A 2008 survey of nearly 4,000 practitioners showed almost one quarter expressed reservations about the term. The field's boundaries remain flexible, and its definition is subject to continual re-evaluation. Public history's significance lies in its professionalization of historical practice outside academia, its engagement with diverse publics, and its ongoing debates about authority, definition, and the relationship between private and public forms of history.
Did You Know?
- Public history became increasingly professionalized in the United States and Canada since the late 1970s.
- A 2008 survey of nearly 4,000 practitioners found almost one quarter expressed reservations about the term 'public history.'
- Historian Peter Novick questioned whether some public history should be called 'private history' or 'popular history.'
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