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Perseverance and Variety in American Public Memory

 

In Carolyn Kitch’s Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past, Kitch researches Pennsylvania’s steel industry from America’s Industrial Revolution era to the 21st century to determine the ways Pennsylvania’s labor history is recalled today. Through a multi-disciplinary approach of research, oral history, and ethnography, Kitch discovers the passion and concern placed towards Pennsylvanian labor history and labor representation. Kitch found that by making history relatable, pertinent, and noticeable today, Pennsylvanian historical sites succeeded in capturing visitor attention. One site, the Heritage Discovery Center, created connections from past citizens to people today by allowing visitors upon entry to select a card presenting an immigrant whose story they could follow throughout the site[1]. With personal attention given to past Pennsylvanian immigrants, the museum succeeded in producing an interesting and sentimental way in which the public could not only view history but relate to the everyday struggles of people making a life for themselves.

Within the article How Do We Define Public History, the NCHP provides descriptions of the practice of public history. The NCHP states that public historians try to make public history useful and relevant in the eyes of the public and that many take a collaborative approach to research and present history [2]. I perceived in Kitch’s research of Pennsylvanian labor a very collective means to unveil public memory. Her inclusiveness of historical places ranging from large corporations like Yuengling who give visitors tours to show the craftsmanship of their bottles to small-scale attention like visiting rural Pennsylvania to connect with past laborers who relied on rural life to sustain the state are influential; each example successfully encapsulates the consideration Pennsylvanians show towards labor history and the measures to extend its existence in the state.
                                                  [3]   

 Rosenzweig and Thelen’s book The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life presents a series of phone call interviews in the 90s between college students and random Americans which revealed details of Americans’ outlook on history. The interviewees were asked questions like which American historical figures and events were important/unimportant to them, which life events remind the interviewees of history, what historical narratives should be taught in American society, and which histories are most significant to American society. With these interviews, Rosenzweig and Thelen found some very notable trends of the interviewees, such as White interviewees believing that American society was declining, whereas African Americans and Native Americans focused on historical events which brought their communities progress[4]. The findings of certain historical narratives and people being more important to one group than another suggests that Americans of diverse groups are often inspired through personal life events and states of existence to pay attention to history in different ways. Though the interviews took place 3 decades ago, I have detected throughout my own public history experiences that depending on one’s ethnicity, social class, and race, the public memory of 21st century Americans today are very much inspired by an individual’s life experience and/or experiences that happen to Americans in their same racial, social, or economic class. This being said, I do believe that with current movements like Black Lives Matter, Americans of various backgrounds will band together to make sure that the history and lives of past Americans and future citizens will be safeguarded through the knowledge of past wrongdoings and the want for harmony for future Americans.

[5] 


[1] Kitch, Carolyn. Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past. University Park: Penn State Univ Press, 2014.

[4] Rosenzweig, Roy, and David Thelen. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Comments

  1. Margaret SanfordSeptember 9, 2020 at 12:59 PM

    Great post! I really love the centering of labor in deciding what narratives to include in public memory as well as the proximity to social movements. Really makes me think about #MuseumsRespondtoFerguson and how we are in a pivotal moment to watch history FORM with and outside of "formal" historical production.

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