Carl Becker boils the definition of history down to its core, stating that “history is the memory of things said and done” (Becker 1932, 223). The keyword in this definition being ‘memory.’ The “struggle of memory against forgetting” is a battle that must continue to be waged in the field of public history, not only via the preservation of sources, spaces, and objects, but also of the memory of history that we cultivate in the minds of our audiences (Brinkley 1994, 1030). A writer must always know their audience, and what is a historian if not a writer? The challenge for the National Parks Service in controlling a national narrative, then, is considerable indeed given the sheer scale of their audience and what it attempted to achieve during its more than a century of work laying the foundation of the field of public history.
Today, we have (mostly) embraced a diverse perspective in academic history that aims to highlight a more balanced view of the world in which we live. This lies in stark contrast to much of the history produced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that sharply excluded any view that did not support the “comfortable myths” that served as the basis of our national story (Brinkley 1994, 1029). However, overcoming our own comfort in telling uncomfortable history has pitted exclusionary academic historians against those who are willing to embrace more agreeable myths to keep the public “inspired and entertained” (Brinkley 1994,1029).
The origins of the field of public history are inextricably linked to the marginalization of anyone not white, male, or academy trained (Meringolo 2012, 5). These complications arose partially from nineteenth century gendered associations of the “soft” field of historical preservation. Led by women’s societies, early preservation efforts served as a means for wealthy, white women to entwine physical spaces to the “dreams of the early Anglo-Saxon settlers” and the mythology of national narratives like the establishment of national heroes and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy after the Civil War (Meringolo 2012, 30).
The “soft” field of historical preservation stood in contrast to the newly emerging “hard” field of history that incorporated the scientific methodology to not only legitimize the profession, but also to standardize scholarship into a palatable format that was fit for government adoption (Meringolo 2012, 11, 31-32). The wealthy, white, exclusively male establishment achieved its goal and was given the power to become the “arbiter of historical significance” with the control of the National Parks Service in historical landmark designation, interpretation, and curation (Meringolo 2012, 31-32). The role the National Parks Service played in establishing the field of public history, preserving public historical spaces, and its resulting narratives, cannot be understated, though it is equally important to closely examine what has become a normalization of the great (white) man theory and continue to seek out those perspectives which were eschewed in favor of interpretive tales of hero worship instead of potentially uncomfortable narratives.
The history of the National Parks Service is the history of public history itself. Understanding who created the foundations and standards of the field and why is integral to understanding how the professional fields of history, both public and academic, have shaped our national identity.
Bibliography
Becker, Carl. “Everyman His Own Historian.” The American Historical Review 37, no.2 (January, 1932): 221-236. Accessed January 9, 2023, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1838208
Brinkley, Alan. “Historians and Their Publics.” Journal of American History 81, no. 3 (December 1994): 1027-1030. Accessed January 9, 2023, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2081443
Meringolo, Christine D. Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.
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