News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Life
Culture & Art
Hobbies
News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Culture & Art
Hobbies
From Around the Field this week: NCPH is accepting letters of interest for multiple National Park Service contract positions; the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is accepting submissions for the 2026 ASALH Book Prize; American Historical Review seeks proposals for a special issue on “Methods for Archival Silence in […]
The editor's corner discusses public history and historic preservation in many aspects, including the racial implications of historic commemoration and preservation; preservation of historical sites affected by COVID-19 shutdowns; recommendations for the management of historical house museums and sites; and the preservation of records created by campus organizations.
From Around the Field this week: The National Park Service is accepting applications for its Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Subgrant Program; the Organization of American Historians’ first session in their Lectureship Program series takes place this Saturday; Omeka is hosting a webinar next Wednesday; NCPH has released an updated Graduate Student Handbook. ANNOUNCEMENTS The American […]
What shapes public history in 2025? The answer (for me) is social media. By utilizing the online persona of The Sex Work Historian as public history, I have uncovered social media as a medium and a method of history, allowing me to see it as a path forward for some historians’ work and as a […]
Editor’s note: This piece builds on an article that appeared in the June 2025 edition of Public History News. Going into the 2025 NCPH Annual Meeting in Montréal this March, I expected to bear the weight of the experience more deeply than prior years, not just because of our current political moment but because of my […]
From Around the Field this week: The American Historical Association hosts a webinar on supporting new college students this Friday; the Alliance for Texas History seeks a public history editor; Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services for New York hosts a webinar discussing how to plan a successful digitization project; Collections: A Journal for Museum and […]
What shapes public history in 2025? The answer (for me) is social media. By utilizing the online persona of The Sex Work Historian as public history, I have uncovered social media as a medium and a method of history, allowing me to see it as a path forward for some historians’ work and as a […]
At NCPH's annual meeting in Montreal this year, one session focused on how workers across industries are demanding structural change through an unprecedented wave of labor organizing.
From Around the Field this week: Virtual events for the Association of Midwest Museums annual meeting begin this Friday; American Alliance of Museums hosts an advocacy webinar this Thursday; The Alliance for Texas History seeks a public history editor. AWARDS AND FUNDING The Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) is accepting entries for the Arline Custer […]
From Around the Field this week: AASLH announces the Leadership in History Awards of Excellence winners; The Association for Gravestone Studies will be hosted in York, Pennsylvania, this week; Research fellows sought for work on British and environmental work; and Black in Historic Preservation hosts a member talk and teach-in this week. AWARDS AND FUNDING […]
From Around the Field this week: MARAC is accepting book award nominations; The New Jersey Association of Museums hosts their annual meeting this week; The American Council of Learned Societies releases a new study on digital humanities; and abstracts for the DAR Museum are due this week. AWARDS AND FUNDING The Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference […]
As federal cuts have threatened or fully hollowed the NPS, NEH, IMLS, the National Digital Newspaper Program, and the Smithsonian, history is undergoing systemic white-washing and straight-washing around the country. In response, some public historians at the recent NCPH Educator's Forum in Montréal, Canada, transformed their annual breakfast into an urgent call to action.
From Around the Field this week: AASLH announces the Leadership in History Awards of Excellence winners; The Association for Gravestone Studies will be hosted in York, Pennsylvania, this week; Research fellows sought for work on British and environmental work; and Black in Historic Preservation hosts a member talk and teach-in this week. AWARDS AND FUNDING […]
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a 2025 History@Work series authored by members of the NCPH Labor Task Force in response to our Special Open Call on “#Advocacy in the Field”. You can read each post as it’s published throughout the year under H@W‘s #Advocacy tag. Utilizing a rally cry of labor activists from the past, public historians say, […]
From Around the Field this week: Latinos in Heritage Conservation closes endangered site nominations this week; The Association for Gravestone Studies hosts their annual conference this month; The Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts will host a webinar on their new preservation glossary in two weeks. AWARDS AND FUNDING Massachusetts Humanities is seeking applications […]
From Around the Field this week: The Association of Midwest Museums finalizes nominations for their 2025 awards; The Society for History in the Federal Government will host their annual meeting next week; The George Wright Society will be hosting a webinar “National Parks Culture: Art, Placemaking, and Belonging” next week. AWARDS AND FUNDING The […]
From Around the Field this week: The Association of African American Museums wraps up nominations for their 2025 awards; the National Humanities Alliance and Federation of State Humanities Councils have extended proposals until May 11, 2025; NCPH will co-host an AAPI Digital Public History Project Showcase. ANNOUNCEMENTS Inspection copies of How Museums Tell Stories by […]
Editors’ Note: We publish the editor’s introduction to the May 2025 issue of The Public Historian here. The entire issue is available online to National Council on Public History members and others with subscription access. This issue features two research articles and two reports from the field. The two articles both consider the meaning of representation and “memoryscapes” (physical spaces that […]
This article is the author’s personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views of Colonial Williamsburg. In February 2023, I began working at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF). At the same time, an original structure then known as the Williamsburg Bray School was being moved from the College of William & Mary onto the […]
Not long ago, I described Native playwrights as public historians because their plays speak directly to audiences, their narratives confront the past as well as illuminate it, and playwrights bring life to histories Americans have forgotten or perhaps never learned. Whether through comedy or drama, satire or farce, Native playwrights are bringing complex histories to […]
From Around the Field this week: The Organization of American Historians has extended proposals for their 2026 conference “Re-Thinking American History at 250” to April 29, 2025; Seattle University hosts “Race, Racialization, and Resistance: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Humanities”; the 2025 National Humanities Conference has extended their call for proposals to May 11, 2025. ANNOUNCEMENTS The […]
Sixty-five public historians gathered at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to discuss the state of public history in the U.S. South in October 2024. These historians came from across the South—the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee—for the NCPH mini-conference co-organized by Ian Beamish, Julia Brock, and Liz Skilton. Befitting of the […]
ANNOUNCEMENTS Celebrate National Historic Marker Weekend in your community Friday, April 25 through Sunday, April 27, 2025 The University of Nebraska at Omaha Criss Library is conducting a survey on archivists teaching outside the archives and invite librarians and archivists to complete their survey by May 2, 2025 The Council of Independent Colleges has published […]
From Around the Field this week: National Humanities Alliance hosted their 2025 annual meeting in Washington, DC, US; the The National Trust for Historic Preservation wraps up applications for their Conserving Black Modernism Grant Program; Park University and the State Historical Society of Missouri hosts their 2025 Missouri Conference on History in Blue Springs, Missouri, […]
Like many of the folks who read this blog, my career in public history is a defining part of who I am. Lately though, I’ve been wondering if this tie between my professional and personal identities may be bad for my mental health. If you’ve worked in public history–or, more specifically, in museums–you’ve probably seen […]
This issue presents four articles that demonstrate the diversity of public history scholarship today. Labor issues, racial justice, new media, and the intersection of the built and natural environment are considered in these pages.
From Around the Field this week: The Society of American Archivists wraps up applications for several awards; The American Association for State and Local History will host “250 con” and wraps up applications for their Award in Excellence; The American Alliance of Museums recognizes Museum Advocacy Day 2025. ANNOUNCEMENTS The American Alliance of Museums marks […]
How public historians should respond to prevalent anti-immigrant attitudes and the immigration policies of the Trump administration, including the promised “mass deportation program,” is one of the urgent questions of our moment. In 2016, History@Work published “A response to the election,” in which the authors (including myself) wrote: “In the past several decades, our field has […]
From Around the Field this week: The Mountain-Plains Museum Association extends their calls for proposals for their Annual Conference to February 14, 2025; The National Trust for Historic Preservation wraps up applications for their African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Grant Program on February 14, 2025. AWARDS AND FUNDING The National Endowment for Humanities Division […]
From Around the Field this week: The American Association for State and Local History wraps up preliminary nominations for the Award of Distinction; Columbia University asks for applications for their NEH-funded Archives as Data – Summer Institute 2025 taking place in June; applications for the Cokie Roberts Fellowship for Women’s History to support research at the […]
Something remarkable is happening in rural Alabama: a former plantation is being reimagined as a place for truth and reconciliation. But what’s most notable is who is behind it. A group of Black descendants of the formerly enslaved, and white descendants of the enslavers, have together formed the Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation, a […]
From Around the Field this week: The University of Michigan William L. Clements Library wraps up applications for 2025-2026 research fellowships; The American Historical Association calls for proposals for their 2026 Annual Meeting in Chicago; The Indiana Association of Historians extends their call for proposals to February 1, 2025, for their 2025 conference in Hanover. […]
Oral histories challenge silences in the memorialization of the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide. This post examines private memories, public memorials, and the struggle for recognition of mass atrocity victims.
From Around the Field this week: Nominations for two American Association for State and Local History awards open; The undNational Park Service wraps up applications for its Save America’s Treasures grant program. AWARDS AND FUNDING The National Park Service is now accepting applications to its Save America’s Treasures grant program through December 12, 2024 The […]