11

The Future of Public History

This book has highlighted the effects of changes in disciplinary methodological and
theoretical frameworks on the practice of public history. These have been influenced not
only by internal disciplinary developments in pedagogical practices but also by external
forces beyond the historical sector, including politics, policies and economies. This serves
to demonstrate how alterations in dominant social and political ideologies have influenced
the practice of history and public history.
Public history’s key achievements, which include communicating and sharing
ownership of the past with the public, relate to its ability to draw on multidisciplinary
concepts and methods. Its freedom from academic conceptualization and recognition has
given public historians the opportunity to explore new relations that history has to the
wider world and to embrace its broader public influence. This has enabled the discipline’s
practice to be influenced by the community. As a result, history has benefited
economically, politically and professionally from the relationship public history has
developed with the wider community.
The challenge for the future is to find mechanisms by which public history can
influence politics and practice, rather than merely being influenced by them. This requires
developing new mediums for communication and opportunities for interdisciplinary
collaboration. Public historians and organizations must continue to form multidisciplinary
partnerships, which integrate the practice of public history within a wider disciplinary
palimpsest, providing history with public relevancy. The aim of public history
programmes and organizations is to support the development of symbiotic relationships
between professions, policymakers and the public.
Public history is integral to the practice of history by incorporating history and heritage
and embracing intangible pasts; it supports historical research and its wider
communication. The practice of public history has enabled history to become contextually
meaningful and relevant to the public in the present. The effects of public history, ‘history
in, with and for the public’, are far-reaching, effecting wider historical discourse and
narratives, changing
 historical content, altering history’s values and impacting directly on public lives
through policy’s implementation and education. Public history should not be regarded as a
separate sub-discipline but rather an essential component of the practice of history, an
overarching moral and ethical framework that encompasses elements of the entire
discipline. Understanding this will enable history to move beyond its traditional
boundaries, something that is essential to its long-term public support and survival. It is
essential that public historians understand the innate need to broaden history’s scope, and
museums, archives and heritage professionals must seek to collaborate with an
increasingly varied number of stakeholders and partners to adapt and communicate a
relevant past.
Understanding the external influences and factors that affect the practice of history both
within and beyond academia is an essential element of being a public historian, as is
understanding the ‘public’, their values and the potential impacts of any public project
upon them. This is a challenge as the varied and complex social units that make up the
public often seem rather confusing to many historians. This challenge can be met through
communication, partnerships and collaboration, requiring public historians to be more
organic and flexible in their approaches to collecting, interpreting and presenting the past.
Public history projects are thwarted with complexities and dangers that are not faced in
the classroom; it requires representing different interpretations and values in a way that
requires listening, decision-making and balancing conflicting demands to produce a final
story or stories of the past. It also requires and demands both an overarching and specialist
knowledge of history, which is essential in order to provide an authentic, valid and
publically acceptable interpretation of the past and to prevent manipulation, stereotyping
and dangerous abuses of history that can lead to conflict and social alienation. Public
historians and historians have a moral and ethical obligation to provide a balanced
portrayal of the multiple voices of the past. This portrayal requires that they combine
traditional primary ‘tangible’ source of evidence with intangible stories of unrecorded
pasts. Through maintaining professional standards and integrity of research and analysis,
historians can construct complex and multidimensional versions of past that are both
professionally and publically acceptable. Providing a ‘balanced’ portrayal of the past
requires collaboration with the public and consideration and critical analysis of new
sources of historical research, knowledge and presentation.

Conclusion
Public history has developed based on an ethos of public communication, cooperation
and collaboration. Despite methodological developments, advancements in digital
technology, and the incorporation of interdisciplinary
 THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC HISTORY 301

techniques of evaluation and pedagogical practices, the premise and key aims of public
history have remained static.
Since public history’s inception as a formally recognized sub-discipline of history in
the 1970s and 1980s, its principles and practices have metamorphosed, moving from
theory to actions and formal acceptance as performing a vital role in the practice of the
subject.1 The practice of public history has guided modern historical communication
methods and influenced research practices of history.
Historians are now actively seeking to incorporate public history within their formal
organizational research agendas and teaching practices. ‘Historians’ are no longer regarded
as those solely working in academic institutions but are now seen as professionals, civil
servants, government officials and public practitioners. As such, history is not a career
limited to academia and education; rather a ‘historian’ can work in many guises, contexts
and environments, ranging from government archives to community settings. Public
history has led history as a discipline to diversify its methods and theories, and it is playing
a critical role in shaping history’s futures and altering its practice. For example,
community history is no longer overlooked as historical work undertaken by amateurs and
non-academics; rather it plays an active role in shaping historical knowledge and research
agendas and has become a key component of public history. Similarly, media history is no
longer shunned as unauthentic and unprofessional but has been embraced by some
historians for its ability to inform and enable public communication.
Since the nineteenth century and the beginning of professional history movements
around the world, historians have fought to be heard in the sociopolitical arena. They have
developed a political voice and resultantly begun to be accepted as having public value.
Public history has provided the platform to enable this acceptance and to formally prove its
validity, giving history the diversity in practice to make it relevant to the public.
The community and the public are increasingly playing a role in shaping the practice of
history and the production of historical knowledge. Public history as a discipline has
helped shape the production and consumption of history. It has highlighted the complex
nature of the relationships between academics, heritage professionals and the public and
the multiple voices these disparate ‘communities’ have and has considered how academics
and professionals can work with communities to provide new knowledge through a range
of techniques. This has enabled public history projects to have value to communities, value
that goes beyond simply the acquisition of knowledge.
This book has highlighted how public history projects in a range of settings are
undertaken. The ten chapters provide an oversight of public history in practice and seek
not only what is required to work in different public history sectors but to highlight
overarching themes in methods and patterns in practice. This has illustrated how the
practice of public history
 is not limited to ‘official’ public history institutions, such as museums, but rather
practised in a multitude of community and official contexts. This is particularly
illustrated in the community history and political chapters. These projects are
delivered through various mechanisms, all of which indicate that it is critical that
public history projects are developed to incorporate aspects of not only the visual
and ‘tangible’ past but also the intangible past, that is, that ‘lacking physical form
and proof’. It is this that requires heritage professionals, including historians, to
tread the delicate minefield between various historical ‘truths’ and often to challenge
preconceived notions of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction.’
This book has sought to provide the reader with an insight as to the multiple
concepts of best practice in public history. It has illustrated that best practice within
the practice of public history is not a consensus, but rather it is contextually specific
and linked to wider professional debates pertaining to ownership, authenticity,
validity, professional standards, co-production of knowledge, consumption, and
ethics and morals. The complex range of what is regarded as ‘best practice’ is
illustrated in the broad range of case studies presented, from community-led history,
such as Bellarine Bayside Project (Case study 19), to larger, institutionally
established public history projects, such as the United States Forest Service Passport
in Time (Case study 30).2
This book has illustrated the diverse skill sets public historians require, which are
adapted and developed based on contextual requirements and working
environments. It has highlighted the diversity in the mediums of communication
used by public historians in the field. This book has sought to demonstrate the
diverse set of skills that studying history provides individuals with and how these
skills, such as critical thinking and project management, can be applied to a range of
jobs beyond the field of history.
The future of public history requires current and future professionals to continue
to evaluate, reassess and critically review these methods and approaches, adapting
both personal skills and overarching techniques to meet the public’s, politicians’ and
professionals’ changing demands. Providing a sustainable future for public history
requires individuals working in the sector of history to continue to strive for wider
relevancy while maintaining and advocating for professional standards and integrity.