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July 01, 2009

What We’re Reading: July 2, 2009 Edition

What Barack Obama can Learn from FDRWe start off this week with links to two reviews. The first looks at the play “Arcadia,” while the second analyzes the book The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Then, we point to a series of articles on FDR in a recent issue of TIME magazine.  A number of links this week address history online: take a new look at e-mail lists, read an update on Zotero, learn about iTunes U, get advice on creating digital content, and see photos of Africa from 1860-1960. In recognition of the July 4th holiday this weekend, we bring you two related links. And finally, we wrap up with articles on a new era of historians, Monticello, and Michael Jackson.

History Online

July 4th

What Else We’re Reading

Contributors: Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, Jessica Pritchard, Pillarisetti Sudhir, and Robert B. Townsend

Comment

June 30, 2009

Government Ventures into Declassification Issues via Web 2.0

By Robert B. Townsend

Declassification Policy ForumThe federal government is currently seeking information on its declassification policies, and is doing so through a blog—offering a high-level test of the value of Web 2.0. The Declassification Policy Forum was launched as part of the White House’s Open Government blog yesterday. The initiative is being run by the federal Public Interest Declassification Board, as part of an ongoing review of declassification policies by the new administration.

The Declassification Policy Forum will be used to solicit recommendations for revisions to the current policy in four topical areas: Declassification Policy (June 29 – July 1), a National Declassification Center (July 2 – July 4), Classification Policy (July 5 – July 7), and Technology Challenges and Opportunities (July 8 – July 10). The first posting asks if members of the public are satisfied with the governing declassification policy (laid out in Section 3 of Executive Order 12958), and asks for more specific assessments of what has worked, what hasn’t, and how the policy can and should be revised. Once posted, each topic will be available for comments for three days. At the conclusion of the third day, the comment function on the topic will be turned off and the next topic will begin the following day. After each topic closes, a concluding summary will be posted.

Given the importance of the issues involved, and the very short window of opportunity for making comments, members who work with federal records are strongly encouraged to actively engage participate in the blog—demonstrating our community’s concern about these issues, and support for this novel way of involving the general public in the process.

Comment

June 29, 2009

AHA Membership Grows Modestly, as History of Religion Surpasses Culture

By Robert B. Townsend

Changes in Proportion of Members Working in Select Categories 1992, 2000, 2008 Despite the hardships in the economy, membership in the AHA actually increased slightly over the past year. In our annual membership snapshot (taken on March 31 of each year), membership rose to over 15,000 members for the first time in 35 years. While this marks an important milestone, in real terms the 15,055 members marked only a modest increase (just 152 more than last year).

And beneath the changes on the surface, there was a troubling loss in the number of members in many of the higher dues-paying categories, as many faculty members and professional historians felt the effects of the economy. These losses were only offset by significant gains in the number of student members (whose memberships are subsidized by senior members). Students now comprise 28.2 percent of the membership—the highest proportion since 1996, when they accounted for 32.0 percent of the membership.

The most notable change in the profile of our membership is the continuing rise of specialists in religious history. More members selected the history of religion as field of specialization (7.7 percent in all) than any other thematic category. Religion surpassed cultural history (selected by 7.5 percent of the membership), which has been the most popular subject category among members for more than 15 years. (Cultural history eclipsed social history as the field of choice in the mid-1990s.)

Members specializing in the history of religion were working in most of the geographic categories, but the highest proportions seemed to be studying early European or recent U.S. history.

A plurality of the membership (38 percent) specializes in European history (lumping together all the different periods). This is slightly larger than U.S. history, which accounts for another 35.5 percent of the membership. In real terms, the number of specialists in both fields has been growing along with the larger membership, but more slowly than the number of historians identifying with other regions of the world. In 2000, European and U.S. historians comprised approximately 78.3 percent of the membership, where today they account for 73.5 percent.

Specialists in Asian and Latin American history account for the largest areas of interest outside of Europe and the U.S., accounting for just a bit more than 7.6 percent of the membership each. Historians working on the Islamic World and Near East comprise another 3.5 percent of the membership, while specialists on Africa account for another 2.0 percent. The remaining 5.7 percent are specialists in various transnational fields.

Demographically the membership of the Association is more diverse than the profession in academia, but only slightly. At present, women comprise 38.1 percent of the membership, while racial and ethnic minorities account for 14.9 percent. The proportion of women and minorities in the membership has grown modestly faster than their representation among historians in academia over the past decade.

Meanwhile, the membership has become slightly more concentrated at four-year colleges and universities in recent years. In the most recent snapshot, 61 percent of the membership was affiliated at a four-year institution—up from 56 percent in 2000. This is largely due to the growing proportion of students in the membership.

California has the largest number of members (1,593), followed by New York (with 1,461). But in relative terms, members are most concentrated in Washington, D.C., followed by New England, the mid-Atlantic states, and the upper Midwest. Another 6.9 percent of the membership lives outside of the United States—down slightly from a decade ago when 7.2 percent of the membership lived outside the country.

A significant plurality of the membership earned their highest degrees since 2000, reflecting the significant generational change now taking place in the profession. Currently, 43.8 percent of the membership earned their highest degrees in the past decade. In comparison, in 1999 just 35.0 percent of the membership had earned their degree in the previous decade.

Comment [2]

June 28, 2009

Hidden Lives Revealed: Archive of Children in Care 1881-1918

By Elisabeth Grant

Waifs and Strays' Society childThe Hidden Lives Revealed site draws from archival materials of the Waifs and Strays’ Society, which took care of “poor and disadvantaged children” from England and Wales from 1881 through WWI. The main concentration of the site is 150 case files, presented as both high-quality scanned images and in transcribed form. Navigate through these files by using the search form or list of keywords. All of the names on the case files have been removed. The case files FAQs section explains that this was done because “[e]ven though these children were in the care of the Waifs and Strays’ Society around a hundred years ago, The Children’s Society, as the Waifs and Stray’s Society successor organisation, still owes them a duty of care.”

Also available on the site are dozens of photographs organized into 12 sections; see children in the Society’s care, children at play, children first taken into care, and much more.

Since its founding around 22,500 children when through the Waifs and Strays’ Society and were housed in about 175 homes.  Browse through and learn the histories of these homes, from the “small cottages” to the “industrial homes.”

For teachers interested in using the Hidden Lives site in the classroom there are learning materials (with worksheets and “fact files” that incorporate the sites photos and information), articles with more information on the Society and the children that were in its care, a bibliography of further reading, links to related sites, and even some fun activities.

The Waifs and Strays’ Society is known today as The Children’s Society, and they helped put together this site along with the EnrichUK Lottery Fund, and the Big Lottery Fund. Hat tip."

Comment

June 25, 2009

Grant of the Week: ASECS/Folger Institute Fellowship

The Folger Institute, a center for advanced study and research in the humanities, is sponsored by the Folger Shakespeare Library, which houses one of the world’s finest collections of Renaissance books, and by a consortium of universities. In collaboration with the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), the institute awards an annual ASECS/Folger Institute Fellowship of $2,000 to an ABD graduate student or a postdoctoral scholar conducting research in the period 1660 to 1815. The application deadline for this fellowship falls on the institute’s September application deadline, and applicants must be ASECS members in good standing. Preference is given to scholars concurrently applying to institute programs. For more information and instructions on how to apply see the ASECS/Folger Institute Fellowship page.

Comment

June 24, 2009

What We’re Reading: June 25, 2009 Edition

Book SeerIn the news this week, the AHA has sent a letter of concern to Russian Federation president Dmitrii Medvedev, historian Gerhard Weinberg wins an award from the Pritzker Military Library, and the Library of Congress adds its one-millionth page to its Chronicling American project. We also link to an article on the future of university presses, selling dollars to make dollars, and a new collection of four Frederick Douglass speeches. Finally, we link to two bits of fun: more photos in the “Looking Into the Past” series and wise recommendations from the Book Seer.

Comment [1]

June 22, 2009

Letters of Introduction: A Valuable Tool when Conducting Overseas Research

By Matthew Keough

It is sometimes difficult to gain access to institutions while doing research abroad.  This is why the American Historical Association (AHA) provides Letters of Introduction to assist researchers in gaining access to foreign research facilities, special collections, and government archives. These letters are very effective because the executive director signs them and they are embossed with the official seal of the AHA.  The only requirement for obtaining the letters is that one must be an AHA member.  If interested, please submit a request to Matthew Keough via e-mail or by mail at

American Historical Association
400 A Street SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
Attn: Matthew Keough

The following information should be included in the request. Please be as brief as possible.

Comment

June 21, 2009

National History Day 2009: The Individual in History

By Elisabeth Grant

National History Day 2009 - The Individual in HistoryThis year over a half a million students across the country participated in National History Day and explored historical topics centered on the theme of “The Individual in History.”

Last week the finalists in National History Day descended on the University of Maryland for one last round of performances and presentations.  Then, last Thursday, the winners were announced. We’ve listed them below, but encourage you to visit the contest winners page on the NHD site for a more complete list (including all medalists, outstanding entry winners, special award recipients, and more).

Group Exhibit

Group Documentary

Individual Documentary

Individual Exhibit

Paper

Individual Performance

Group Performance

Web Site

Comment

June 18, 2009

Grant of the Week: Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellowship

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the John Carter Brown Library offers the Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellowship to support work by academics, independent scholars, and writers working on significant projects relating to the literature, history, culture, or art of the Americas before 1830. The fellowship is also open to filmmakers, novelists, creative and performing artists, and others working on projects that draw on this period of history. The fellowship award supports two months of research and two months of writing. The stipend is $5,000 per month for a total of $20,000, plus housing and university privileges. The deadline for applications is July 15. See the fellowship page for more information.

Comment

June 17, 2009

What We’re Reading: June 18, 2009 Edition

Historic Newspapers from the Library of Congress - TaftA recent article in the New York Times on “traditional history courses” has created a bit of a stir in the blogosphere. We start off this post by linking to the article and some responses. Then, check out Michele Lamont’s view of the field of history, read about a new college for history only, and listen to a layman’s approach to historic preservation. And finally, see historic newspapers on the Library of Congress Flickr page, read a critique of Google Books, learn seven lesser-known Civil War stories, revisit a two-century-old mystery, and learn about the life of Gypsy Rose Lee.

Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, and Robert B. Townsend

Comment

June 15, 2009

Government on Twitter

By Elisabeth Grant

TwitterFirst YouTube, then blogging, and now Twitter; it appears that the U.S. government has fully embraced Web 2.0.

By now, most people have heard of Twitter, the “micro-blogging” service that allows users to post 140 (or less) character messages on their profile pages, or send these messages to other users who subscribe to their “tweets.” And now the U.S. Government is getting into the act.

While Twitter is a popular site for the text-happy younger generation who want to stay in touch with friends, it’s also being embraced by organizations and established institutions as a way to communicate news, events, exhibits, and more. And this group includes government agencies.

What parts of the government are on Twitter? Steve Lunceford, blogger and managing director of a PR firm, has created an extensive list of areas of government on Twitter, including “state and local, federal, contractors, reporters, academics, judicial branch and more.” He plans to keep this list up to date, and will announce changes to it in a very appropriate manner: through the Twitter feed GovTwit.

Here are just a handful of Twitter feeds from Steve Lunceford’s GovTwit Directory, along with some of their recent posts.

Comment [1]

June 14, 2009

In Memoriam: Ernest R. May

By David Darlington

Ernest R. MayErnest R. May, Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard University and a consultant to numerous government agencies, passed away on June 1, 2009, following complications from cancer surgery. He was a 50 year member of the AHA.

Ernest May was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 19, 1928. He received his PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles (1951). He joined the Harvard University faculty in 1954, after serving in the Navy Reserve during the Korean War and working as a historian for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, achieved full professorship in 1963, and was named Charles Warren professor in 1981. In additional to teaching in the history department, May served at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he taught courses on reasoning from history and assessing other governments, and directed a program studying the relationship between intelligence analysis and policymaking. He also served as dean of Harvard College, 1969–71, and chair of the department of history, 1976–79.

May was an authority on international relations, particularly on how history influences political decision making. His first book, The World War and American Isolation: 1914–17 (Harvard Univ. Press) won the AHA’s George Louis Beer Prize in 1959 for the best work on European international history. He also  won the AHA’s Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2001 He authored or co-authored 14 books in all, covering diverse subjects such as the U.S. entry intro World War I, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Monroe Doctrine, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and, most recently, the fall of France in 1940 (Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France, 2000). With Richard Neustadt he wrote Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers (Free Press, 1986), based on their work at the Kennedy School, which sought to uncover better ways historical knowledge could be used to make decisions—what to ask of history, how to ask it, and how to draw meaningful historical comparisons. Robert Wampler, senior fellow at the National Security Archive, said of The Uses of History (the course on which the book was based), “The overarching theme—that history properly interrogated and analyzed can provide useful information for those engaged in the task of understanding and solving policy problems—left its mark on my subsequent work, as on many others in academia and government.”

In 2003–04, May served as a senior advisor to the 9/11 Commission, recruited by Executive Director Philip D. Zelikow, a frequent collaborator of his. He had a hand in writing the commission’s 600-page final report, which was finalist for a National Book Award. His job was to “help produce the historical narrative,” he said in a memoir of the experience for the New Republic (reprinted here at HNN). He added: “[T]he report was dedicated to the idea that a genuine concern for communicating an accurate picture of our reality to future generations may allow us to transcend the passions of the moment. For this reason, I hope that this official report will not be the last government document of its kind. In these perilous times, there will surely be other events that will require the principles of historiography allied to the resources of government, so that urgency will sometimes become the friend of truth.”

Ernest R. May is survived by his second wife, Susan Wood, a son and two daughters, and three grandchildren. A fuller treatment of his career will appear in a fall issue of Perspectives on History.

Comment

June 11, 2009

Grant of the Week: National Humanities Center Residential Fellowships

The National Humanities Center offers 40 residential fellowships for advanced study in the humanities during the academic year, September 2010 through May 2011. Applicants must hold doctorate or equivalent scholarly credentials. Fellowships are individually determined, the amount depending upon the needs of the fellow and the center’s ability to meet them.  The center seeks to provide at least half salary and also covers travel expenses to and from North Carolina for fellows and their dependents.  For more information, see the NHC’s fellowships page. Deadline for applications is October 15.

Comment

June 10, 2009

What We’re Reading: June 11, 2009 Edition

A century of crayonsAfter protest, investigation, and a report, the State Department’s Office of the Historian has a new chief. See a collection of articles on the current situation and how it all began. Then, read about the NHPRC recommending $5.9 million in grants for documentary editing and archives, the dismissal of the case against Zotero, the death of Ernest May, and the history of crayon packaging.

Comment

June 09, 2009

Jobs and Careers in History: Interview with Tim Grove – Part 2

By Jessica Pritchard

In part two of this interview with Tim Grove, acting chief of education at the National Air and Space Museum, learn about misconceptions in the history profession, advice for those with history degrees, and his thoughts on digital history.

In part one of this interview, which appeared on the blog yesterday, Grove spoke about the responsibilities of his current job, his background, and how he got into history.

Q: It seems history can be a tough thing to sell sometimes. There are a lot of misperceptions around it. What misperceptions do you see within the discipline?
A: It’s boring! Everyone thinks it’s boring because they were forced to memorize dates and names. The other challenge is that history museums traditionally have been places where you can’t touch anything and have to read labels. If you know how people learn, there are various types of learners that want to touch and don’t like to read, so those people right away don’t want to step foot inside a history museum. The neat thing is that history museums are changing; I think we’ve found a way to have hands-on and still maintain conservation and preservation. That’s really my job and my goal—to make history accessible to everyone.

Q: What advice would you give to students coming out with a history degree, especially if they don’t want to stay in the academy?
A: There are many places to find public history jobs. Certainly archives, libraries, historic preservation, cultural heritage, and museums. Persistence is the absolute key. You have to want the job very badly. I went through a period where I was working part-time jobs for several years after graduate school. I worked at the Portrait Gallery for about three years part-time, so persistence. Internships are extremely valuable and informational interviews. Go talk to someone—people love to talk about what they do! Have lunch with them and ask them questions. This is a field where networking is pretty valuable.

Q: What is some of the best advice you’ve gotten that has carried with you in your career?
A: I guess persistence, again. You have to want the job. My thinking was always in looking around [for jobs], if someone has a job that I want, they got the job somehow, so why can’t I? If there are people doing the jobs I want to do, then they’re out there. I think along the way people have told me that networking is important and keeping in touch with your contacts because you never know when someone will start a project that you might want to be part of. They’ll think of you, and it’ll be a great partnership. Also, always look for opportunities to gain experience in a variety of formats.

Q: You’ve been to a lot of places; I’m sure you’ve met some colorful people. Do you have one story (or two or three!) that really stands out? A fun story that sort reminds you why you love what you do?
A: One is actually written up on our web site. During the America by Air research phase, we decided that we wanted to do an interactive [exhibit] about “contact flying” and what that is. Basically, it’s navigating using landmarks. We found this great map from the National Archives of part of the Transcontinental Mail Route over the mountains of Pennsylvania, near State College. It was hand drawn by an airmail pilot in his 20s in about 1921 or so. The way we developed the interactive was that visitors would follow along the map, and we would have photographs of the various landmarks that they would have to put … in correct order, as if they were flying along. I was combing archives in Pennsylvania trying to see if there were any aerial photographs of these landmarks, and I could not find any. We resorted to going up in a helicopter, bringing a Smithsonian photographer, and following the Transcontinental airmail route, just like the airmail pilot did. [We] used his map, our primary source, and looked for the landmarks that were on the map; quite a few were still around today because most were natural landmarks. [It] was a wonderful, fascinating experience, which was a unique opportunity to, in some ways, replicate history—have the experience that the person that made the primary source [had].

Another fun story—for Lewis and Clark, the grizzly bear obviously plays a role in the story. One of my tasks, for some reason, was to find a good grizzly bear that we could use in the exhibit. We had a tactile component where visitors could feel different fur swatches from the five animals that Lewis and Clark identified first for science. Grizzly was one of them, and so we had a quote about the grizzly and a bear print that they could feel how huge the print was. But finding the fur was very hard because they’re endangered, and so one of our researchers finally tracked down this fur from the state government in Alaska. They said they would send us one, so we didn’t know exactly what was coming. One day, this big box comes addressed to me. We’re all excited because we know it’s the bear, so we open it up and fall back in this stench that emanated from the box. We thought they would send us a tanned hide, but it was pretty fresh; it had not been to a taxidermist, it was not tanned, and it stunk to high heaven! I had to find a taxidermist in St. Louis, and you can imagine the fun that was because they don’t see grizzlies that often since they’re endangered.

There are many fun moments in this job where you think, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Such as the America by Air exhibit—there’s a section that looks at the different ways that air travel affects everyone, even if you don’t fly. One of the areas is the food we eat. We wanted to show that someone in Kansas could eat fresh lobster because it’s flown in, so I was calling lobster companies in Maine finding out how they shipped their lobsters live. I never thought I’d be doing that! We also talked about how transplanted organs are shipped out. We contacted a company that ships kidneys, and they showed us exactly how they packaged the organs. We had to recreate an organ, obviously, but I had to research that. I never know what I’m going to research!

[On Digital History]
I was fortunate to be in American History Museum when the web was brand new, so we were all trying to figure out this new medium and what it would mean for learning and for museums. We recognized that it was a big change, but everyone was in the same boat, trying to figure out what it meant. Because I was manager of the Hands-On History Room, we decided to experiment to see if we could adapt hands-on to the web format, which was a really fun learning process. That’s kind of what got me into the web world. That and I worked the Within these Walls exhibit, [where] we did an online exhibit for that, which was also a great learning experience.

I have feet in different worlds. I’m on the web team here [at the National Air and Space museum], and we’re experimenting with social media. Smithsonian itself is really trying to figure out what Web 2.0 is—how we address that and meet the needs of people that want to engage with our collections in a way that we might not anticipate. The other aspect of the web is that when you work on an exhibit now, it’s no longer the physical exhibit only; it has the extension to the web, so you have the virtual exhibit. Ideally the same people work on both. It’s really understanding that media, which is very different. It’s not the same as a physical exhibit, and getting historians to think that way is hard. Many historical organizations are moving to digitization projects, which is good! They should be, but the next step, I think, is working with educators and the people that will translate that raw content. Researchers know how to use it, but other people don’t. You really need to help them understand how to analyze historical sources or provide a context for them to do that. I think that’s a really important role for museum educators, or historians who are educators.

Comment

June 08, 2009

Status Update on Paper of Record Materials

By Robert B. Townsend

The staff at Google have now posted information about the status of the newspapers obtained from the Paper of Record.  As we reported last month, a number of members were deeply distressed after these materials were taken off line and they could not find out about their status.

According to a member of the Google staff, 4.91 million articles from 522 titles obtained from Paper of Record are now live on Google News Archive search (though he adds the caveat that “all articles from these titles may not be comprehensively available, but will otherwise be made available in browse-only mode within 3 months.”)

Another half million additional pages from 381 titles are projected to be available in “browse-only mode within 3 months.” These materials “were of low quality, and we were therefore unable to get quality text after following the OCR process. We are working to put up content from these titles so that they can be browsed.”

They report that materials from additional ten titles will not be available for the foreseeable future, because they could not obtain the rights from the original rights holders.

The materials are currently searchable by a number of search criteria—though searching by particular titles and particular ranges of years can be rather difficult. Staff at Google say they are working to improve the interface and allow improved browsing, which will be critical for newspapers with poor-quality OCR.

Comment [1]

June 07, 2009

Jobs and Careers in History: Interview with Tim Grove – Part 1

By Jessica Pritchard

Tim Grove chief of education for the National Air and Space MuseumOne of the fun things about studying history is it isn’t restricted solely to historical eras you read in textbooks; you can find history in everything from cars, to McDonalds’ Happy Meal toys, to the Appalachian Trail.

Tim Grove knows the variety of history topics out there. He has held both conventional historical jobs at places such as the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American History, and somewhat unconventional ones, like his current position as the acting chief of education at the National Air and Space Museum. Not only has Tim made a fulfilling career working at three Smithsonian museums (a historian’s dream!), but he has countless stories in the field that exemplify the unpredictability of historical research and the infinite learning opportunities pervasive in the field.

In this interview, Tim shares his experiences working as a historian and educator at Smithsonian museums; explains the challenges of creating permanent museum exhibits; discusses quirky research assignments he never anticipated conducting; and much more!

Q: What exactly do you do here?
A: My exact role is acting chief of education for the National Mall Unit.

Q: What are your responsibilities?
A: The jobs that are under me are responsible for public programs and our docent program. We have an early childhood program, which is relatively new. We have a How Things Fly gallery, the museum’s main interactive gallery, which is ten years old and has its own staff. I do a lot of work with exhibit development.

Q: What are the details on those exhibits?
A: One exhibit is a redo on our Pioneers of Flight gallery, which is bringing it back to the 1920s and 30s, when the original gallery was. Over time, they [the museum staff] put other things in, so it went beyond its intended time period, but now we’re bringing it back to the 20s and 30s and [adding] space history into that too. Normally we do exhibits that are either air or space; this time we’re trying to combine them. The most recent permanent exhibit, which I worked on, was called America by Air: The History of Commercial Flight. That exhibit targeted five-year-olds and above, and this time we’re targeting about three and above [for Pioneers of Flight], which is the biggest challenge yet. That age is really hard, as you can imagine, especially for history because kids don’t have an understanding of past, present, future until around age eight.

The other exhibit is Moving Beyond Earth, which is about the shuttle era and the international space station. There are several challenges: one, how do you convey the scale of the space program/the shuttle program in a 5,000-6,000 square foot black box? The second challenge: it’s barely history. It’s the 1980s, which any good historian is only starting to think of as history, but it goes to today and beyond. NASA is currently trying to figure out exactly what it’s going to do, what the beyond means. The challenge with this topic is often how you keep it current. With air transportation and commercial aviation, who knows what’s going to happen with air travel in the next year. That particular gallery is a permanent exhibition, so it could be there 20 years, which is scary when you’re working on an exhibit to think of how many people will see that.

Q: How did you get involved here at the museum?
A: I’d been at the Smithsonian before. This is my third Smithsonian.

Q: What were the other two?
A: National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American History. I left the National Museum of American History to take a job working on the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Exhibition in St. Louis. It was a three-year project, so when that ended I had to look for another job and decided that I really wanted to come back to Washington. I really missed the stimulating environment of the Smithsonian. There weren’t any jobs in American history, but a job opened up here. So here I am.

Q: What’s your educational background?
A: I have a graduate degree in American history from George Mason. I was in the Applied History track, so I had to fulfill a six-credit graduate internship. I spent a summer at Colonial Williamsburg, which was fascinating experience because I’d always wanted to see the behind the scenes there.

My Portrait Gallery job was in education. I didn’t even know museums had education departments! I didn’t really have a goal in mind when I started the graduate program, but a friend recommended I go for an informational interview with the curator of education at the Portrait Gallery. The curator was this very dynamic, energetic guy…. I could see that my personality fits into the education role. I love research, but I don’t think I would be happy if I was doing research behind the scenes all the time. I really like applying the research, interacting with people, and seeing them learn. I’ve ended up as a museum educator, which is not how I like to label myself. It’s a label I seem to have because I’ve sat in the education department in the museums I’ve worked, but I really call myself a historian because my degree’s in history. I do research; I just don’t get to do it all the time. I love to do research—I love to go to the Library of Congress, the National Archives, just like every historian does!

Q: What did you do while you were at the American history museum?
A: I worked on exhibit teams [and] managed the popular Hands-On History room, which was made of 35 different activities. Each activity related to an exhibit somewhere in the building—you could gin cotton, ride a high-wheel bicycle, put together a Chippendale chair, look at the carving on an 18th-century-style Chippendale chair, make rope, try your hand at Morse code. It was a really fun learning environment for all ages. It was also an international model, the first of its kind. We had people from all around the world coming from museums to talk about it.

I did several really fun projects at the American History Museum. One was Within These Walls, a house brought down from Massachusetts. The exhibit looks at five families who lived in a house over time.

And then the Star Spangled Banner Project went on for ten or more years, conserving the actual flag. I worked on researching a map-based activity for the Hands-On History room about the Star Spangled Banner; that’s where I really got to do a lot of research. We based it on this map of Baltimore from 1814; it was a military map from the National Archives.

Q: How did you get into studying history?
A: I’ve always loved history. I grew up in Pennsylvania—my parents took me to Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, Washington. Somehow something sparked an interest in me as a child. I think maybe because I visited the sites I could imagine it as I was learning about it.

Q: Did you have any favorite places you visited as a child that really stand out?
A: Williamsburg, certainly, is a great place because it’s such an immersive environment.

Q: What do you love most about your job here?
A: I like the variety—every day is different. The variety of subject material also keeps it interesting. And the continual learning. The neat thing about what we’re doing here now is taking a hard look at our exhibition program and thinking about how we can make it stronger in the future.

Q: Do you have a favorite historical era you enjoy studying?
A: That’s always a hard question to answer! I like the Revolutionary War. I love the Civil War. I kind of like the decade before the Civil War. The truthful answer is that I can get excited about any time period in history.

Q: With the Revolutionary War, the Civil War—what is it about those eras that fascinate you or hook you?
A: Just the conflict that caused people to make really hard decisions in. Lewis and Clark was a great project too. I was sick of Lewis and Clark by the end! When I look back on that project, it really was fun because it expanded my knowledge of Native American history and opened up cultural landscapes that I never had experience with before.

Q: Is there anything you miss here at the National Air and Space Museum? Activities? Responsibilities? Subject matter?
A: I miss the cultural history. I really like social history and cultural history. We are making much more of an effort in recent exhibits to include social history. For example, for America by Air, we talk about who flew because different types of people were flying in different periods. During the 1930s, the Hollywood stars had a clause in their contract that said they weren’t allowed to fly, so that tells you that the studios thought it was dangerous because the studios owned them, basically. Around 1935, we found an article in the LA Times that said Studios are allowing stars to fly now because stars wanted to fly; they almost couldn’t stop them. We added that part about stars flying because people like celebrities, so we have all of those great shots of stars leaving the airplane and how it was promotion for the airlines. [These photographs] also made the interpretive point we wanted to make: by this time period, there’s a general perception that flying is safer.

One more example—we were talking about African Americans and flying. The topic of segregation came up, and everyone said, Well you think of trains and buses; you don’t think of planes. Was there segregation with flying? We did some research and found that not a lot of research has been done on that, so we added a whole panel that talks about segregation and flying.

Q: And was there [segregation]?
A: The answer is that the airports were segregated, so the lounges, the restroom facilities, and the restaurants in southern airports, even National Airport. The flights weren’t segregated, probably because they couldn’t figure out a way to do that. If you’re flying from the north and halfway through you cross into southern air, you can’t all change seats. There was a big campaign to integrate the airports because a lot of federal money was supporting the airports, so it was a big deal; you just don’t hear about it. That’s an example of how we want our visitors to see themselves in the exhibits, hear their stories.

Visit AHA Today again soon for part two of this interview, where Tim Grove will talk about misconceptions in the history profession, give advice to those with history degrees, and provide his thoughts on digital history.

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June 04, 2009

In Memoriam: Philip D. Curtin, 1922–2009

By Pillarisetti Sudhir

Philip D. Curtin

“This is no ordinary book,” wrote Geoffrey Parker in the American Historical Review of December 1985, reviewing Cross-cultural Trade in World History, published by Cambridge University Press in 1984. This was no ordinary historian, one might write with equal justification, of the book’s author, long-time member and president (in 1983) of the AHA, Philip D. Curtin, who died yesterday, June 4, 2009, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, at the age of 87.

Born in Philadelphia in 1922, Philip Curtin grew up in West Virginia. He received his early collegiate education at Swarthmore College, graduating with a degree in history in 1948, after three years of service in the Merchant Marine. He had already fallen in love with history and decided to make it a lifelong commitment, it seems, since he joined the AHA the same year, even before he went on to Harvard University for his PhD, which he received in 1953 for his dissertation, “Revolution and Decline in Jamaica, 1830–1865.”

Curtin started his long teaching career as an assistant professor back at Swarthmore College. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Here he teamed up with colleague Jan Vansina to help launch and develop the hitherto neglected field of African history, and started a department of African languages and literature (the first such department in the United States). With a series of pathbreaking publications such as The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, which raised new questions even as it set new standards for accurate cliometrics of a complex past, The World and the West: The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History, and The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850 (which received the AHA’s Schuyler Prize), Curtin made himself a name as a brilliant historian who broke away from the dominant Eurocentric models of historiography of other continents to create a critical and pioneering body of scholarship on Africa, the Atlantic world, the British empire, and comparative history. As if responding to the tug of the Atlantic (and perhaps a love of the sea rooted in his tenure with the Merchant Marines) reflected in his works, Curtin moved to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1975, where he became the Herbert Baxter Adams Professor of History.

Curtin, it has been said, wore his scholarly distinctions—the Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, the fellowship of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, among others—and the sheer magnitude of his scholarship, lightly and unostentatiously. Yet he insisted that his numerous graduate students meet the same high standards that he set for himself.

“The discipline of history has broadened enormously in the postwar decades, but historians have not,” Philip Curtin declared in his presidential address to the AHA, lamenting the increasingly narrow specializations of too many historians who thus remained ignorant of developments in fields outside their own. He himself was an exception, almost singlehandedly (but along with his many students, surely) defying the trend toward ever-narrowing subspecializations for more than 50 years. From intellectual history to the history of pandemics, from imperialism in India to the ecological history of the Chesapeake Bay, Curtin roamed across space, time, and specializations in a time-machine of his own invention.

It is telling that he begins his recently published autobiographical work, On the Fringes of History: A Memoir (Ohio University Press, 2005), “Being a West Virginian is a little different from being a Californian or a New Yorker,” and then, unable to repress the cliometrician in him, adds, “Part of the difference is quantitative.”

This report is based on material drawn from the Johns Hopkins University’s Gazette Online of May 4, 1998, an unsigned biography of Philip Curtin distributed at the December 1983 annual meeting, and the AHA’s membership records.

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June 04, 2009

Grant of the Week: Postdoctoral Bursaries from the University of Edinburgh

The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh is offering postdoctoral bursaries (residential fellowships) for candidates in any area of the humanities and social sciences, whose work falls within the scope of one of the Institute for Advanced Studies’ current research themes or across disciplinary boundaries in the humanities. The bursaries are tenable for fellowships of three to nine months, in the period of September 1, 2009 to August 31, 2010. Awards will be up to a maximum of £10,000. The deadline for applications is July 10, 2009. See the postdoctoral bursaries page for more information.

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June 03, 2009

Jim Leach Nominated for NEH Chair

On June 3, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jim Leach, former Republican congressman from Iowa, as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. President Obama has been quoted as saying, "I am confident that with Jim as its head, the National Endowment for the Humanities will continue on its vital mission of supporting the humanities and giving the American public access to the rich resources of our culture. Jim is a valued and dedicated public servant and I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead."

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