It is only fitting that for our last topic of class
discussion we return to an issue that each of us have debated heavily over the
last year. How do historians handle
everyone being able to share their story of an event in this new “information age?”
I thought that the Boston Marathon article was awesome in
that the historian was reaching out to the public through the media to have
people tell their stories. While prior
to this we have been focused on actually documenting people’s stories for our
own use, we have not really gotten into how a historian would reach out to the
public to find these people. Some of the
public history articles we read today helped me out with that problem, but that
is one thing that I wish we could discuss a little more today.
The scientific research piece was interesting for me because
I had never thought about the different ways to compile research (especially in
relation to a museum). I have never
taken a public history class here, so in a way some of this is foreign to
me. The majority of my experience has
been conducting my own research for projects, and I have not ever gotten a good
feel for how museums do theirs. There
must be some differences or there would not be a Public History emphasis area
here.
Even though coming into this class I had the idea that
history was moving closer to some of the sciences in the way we are able to
conduct research, I struggled defending that case. This class has exposed me to many unique
programs, and projects that I probably would not had much exposure to anywhere
else. Most importantly, now that I have
a feel for some of the new technologies that are out there, I have been given
new ways to refute the constant jabs from the biologists and engineers around
this campus.
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