People and their Pasts: Public History Today PDF
Preview People and their Pasts: Public History Today
People and their Pasts Public History Today Edited by Paul Ashton and Hilda Kean People and their Pasts Also by Paul Ashton THE ACCIDENTAL CITY: Planning Sydney Since 1788 CENTENNIAL PARK: A History (with Kate Blackmore) ON THE LAND: A Photographic History of Farming in Australia (with Kate Blackmore) SUTHERLAND SHIRE: A History (with Jennifer Cornwall and Annette Salt) SYDNEY TAKES SHAPE: A History in Maps (with Duncan Waterson) Also by Hilda Kean ANIMAL RIGHTS: Political and Social Change in Britain Since 1800 CHALLENGING THE STATE: The Socialist and Feminist Educational Experience DEEDS NOT WORDS: The Lives of Suffragette Teachers LONDON STORIES: Personal Lives, Public Histories RUSKIN COLLEGE: Contesting Knowledge, Dissenting Politics (co-edited with Geoff Andrews and Jane Thompson) SEEING HISTORY: Public History in Britain Now (co-edited with Paul Martin, Sally J. Morgan) People and their Pasts Public History Today Edited by Paul Ashton Associate Professor, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia and Hilda Kean Director of Public History, Ruskin College, Oxford Editorial matter, selection and introductions © Paul Ashton and Hilda Kean 2009 All remaining chapters © their respective authors 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-54669-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36109-0 ISBN 978-0-230-23446-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230234468 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Contents List of Figures vii Acknowledgements x Notes on Contributors xi Introduction: People and their Pasts and Public History Today 1 Hilda Kean and Paul Ashton Section 1 The Making of History 21 1 Connecting with History: Australians and their Pasts 23 Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton 2 Usable Pasts: Comparing Approaches to Popular and 42 Public History Bernard Eric Jensen 3 The Past as a Public Good: The US National Park Service 57 and ‘Cultural Repair’ in Post-Industrial Places Cathy Stanton 4 Shades of Grey: Public History and Government in 74 New Zealand Bronwyn Dalley Section 2 Presenting the Past in Place and Space 91 5 ‘Garden of Gratitude’: The National Memorial Arboretum 95 and Strategic Remembering Paul Gough 6 Re-enacting the Wars of the Roses: History and Identity 113 Meghan O’Brien Backhouse 7 Creating New Pasts in Museums: Planning the Museum of 131 London’s Modern London Galleries Darryl McIntyre 8 ‘Monument Mania’? Public Space and the Black and Asian 146 Presence in the London Landscape John Siblon v vi Contents 9 Museum Theatre: Children’s Reading of ‘First Person 163 Interpretation’ in Museums Vasiliki Tzibazi Section 3 Material Culture, Memory and Public 183 Histories 10 A Nation’s Moment and a Teacher’s Mark Book: 187 Interconnecting Personal and Public Histories Hilda Kean and Brenda Kirsch 11 Absent Fathers, Present Histories 203 Martin Bashforth 12 ‘Memoryscape’: Integrating Oral History, Memory and 223 Landscape on the River Thames Toby Butler 13 Expanding the Archive: The Role of Family History in 240 Exploring Connections Within a Settler’s World Mary Stewart 14 Harry Jacobs: The Studio Photographer and the Visual 260 Archive Jon Newman Select Bibliography 279 Index 297 List of Figures 3.1 Remains of the Hopewell Furnace stack in 1939 59 3.2 National Park Service workers and living history 64 volunteers at a charcoal ‘burn’, May 2005 3.3 US Senator Paul Tsongas, a Lowell native, presides over 66 the opening of the Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Center in September 1978 3.4 A Lowell National Historical Park ranger leads a group of 69 visitors on a walking tour of one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods in 2003 5.1 Plaques to Police forces, ‘The Beat’, National Memorial 102 Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire, UK 5.2 Plaque to the Rugeley Phoenix Activities Club, National 103 Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire, UK 5.3 The ‘Shot at Dawn’ memorial, National Memorial 105 Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire, UK 5.4 General view of the aboretum’s western aspect, National 106 Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire, UK 5.5 Grove of trees, National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, 107 Staffordshire, UK 6.1 English Civil War Re-enactors: English Civil War 114 re-enactors at a multi-period event at Warwick Castle, Warwick, UK, in 2000, displaying their military capabilities 6.2 Twelfth Light Dragoons: Re-enactors of the Napoleonic 115 era British Army’s Twelfth Light Dragoons at a multi- period event at Warwick Castle, Warwick, UK, in 2000 6.3 War of the Roses Battle display. Here members are 116 demonstrating how a battle between bill-lines would take place. Members of one group are representing both Yorkist and Lancastrian sides for this small display at Warwick Castle, Warwick, UK, 2000 6.4 War of the Roses Camp: Quiet time in camp after the 117 midday meal. Notice the cleaned plates and bowls drying on the table, and while most of the men are demonstrating or drilling, the women pass the time by sewing or catching up on chores such as mending torn clothes. Warwick Castle, Warwick, UK, 2000 vii viii List of Figures 6.5 English Civil War Tent: ‘Authentic’ English Civil War 125 period tent, including period furnishings, clothing and firearm 6.6 Twelfth Light Dragoons Camp: An officer of the Twelfth 126 Light Dragoons and his wife, also dressed in army-style dress, outside their tent in an ‘authentic’ camp at Warwick Castle, Warwick, UK, in 2000 8.1 The Siblon family (mother taking photo) outside 148 Buckingham Palace, 1968. I am the young boy on the right 8.2 A black sailor at the Battle of Trafalgar 151 8.3 Statue of William Beckford in the Guildhall 153 8.4 The spruced up Buxton Memorial Fountain in Victoria 155 Tower Gardens 9.1 Child’s drawing before the museum visit, Year 5: 171 ‘I done the drawing because when I read about the Romans and when they went to war I thought about how they battled and that’s what I imagined.’ 9.2 and 9.3 Drawings conducted in the individual interviews 174 four months after the event, Year 5 child: ‘This man wearing sandals, he was just like Caesure because he was a rich man. He had slaves underneath turning this big wheel so heat would come on. Every time it was cold when he was standing on floor would shout them to turn the wheel harder. It would be like that and the long stick would come out here.’ 10.1 Infant and junior teachers, 1956 187 10.2 Class photograph of children about to leave junior 190 school, 1960 10.3 Example of poetry for the grammar school in the 193 teacher’s collection 10.4 The authors – and artefacts – at an infants’ open day 198 11.1 Private 14956 Thomas Bashforth, Durham Light Infantry. 208 Undated, probably October 1914. Postcard given to the author by Ray Bashforth in 1997 11.2 Corporal Thomas Bashforth on pre-embarkation leave, 209 summer 1915, with wife Florence and children, Edith (standing) and Thomas junior 11.3 The tool chest in which Ray Bashforth hid his private 211 collection of mementoes. The box was at the back of the second drawer down List of Figures ix 11.4 Ray Bashforth at Royal Signals Territorial Army summer 213 camp, circa 1935, with Ray Bashforth middle front row among unknown friends. Photograph from Ray’s ‘hidden archive’. Was it also a hidden identity? 12.1 The float used for the drifting experiment was made 228 from rubbish found floating in the river. It made a good image for the drifting CD 12.2 The author (right) interviewing Steve Bolam, Molesey 230 Lock Keeper and node of river culture 12.3 The houseboat wedding that was aurally recreated by 231 editing together interviews with the wedding guests 12.4 The drifting route map, showing walkers where to play 234 each oral history track 13.1 Painted photograph of William and Isabella McCaw, 242 original photograph 1896 13.2 Frontispiece of Truth Frae ‘Mang the Heather, 6th edition 244 c1884 13.3 Teapot presented to Isabella McCaw as the family left 246 Tynron. The inscription reads, ‘presented to Mrs McCaw by her friends on leaving Cormilligan for New Zealand, May 28th1880.’ Teapot in the keeping of the Allison family 13.4 Cormilligan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, January 2003 247 13.5 Lunch or tea break for the farmworkers at McCaw’s 250 Glenore farm, 1890s 14.1 Great-aunt Jo’s photo-collage. Family photographs risk 263 loosing their original meaning when they enter a public archive 14.2 Harry Jacobs in his studio 267 14.3 Marcia finds her uncle. A visitor to the Twin Lens Reflex 272 exhibition finds a previously unknown photograph of her relative 14.4 The self-captioning exhibition. ‘Post-it’ notes left by 274 visitors to the Twin Lens Reflexexhibition identifying individual portraits 14.5 ‘Members of the Small Axe Posse; D, Juicy & Michael’. 275 Caption to anonymous portrait photograph provided by an exhibition visitor in 2005
The list of books you might like
