Carl Becker Redivivus: Popular Uses of History and Cultural Memory

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical scholars, survey methodologies, and theoretical frameworks from Carl Becker Redivivus: Popular Uses of History and Cultural Memory.

Popular history making

A term coined by a cohort of historians in 1989 to describe how ordinary Americans take an active role in using and understanding the past, rather than acting as passive consumers of professional historical narratives.

John Fiske

Cultural scholar and author of Understanding Popular Culture (1989) who argued that media texts become popular because consumers selectively adapt and reshape them according to their own sociocultural desires.

Center for Survey Research at Indiana University

The organization that provided technical and methodological guidance for the national survey documented in The Presence of the Past.

Primary Sample (Presence of the Past Survey)

A sample of 808 randomly selected Americans interviewed via telephone in 1994 to evaluate laypersons' engagement with the past.

Minority Oversample (Presence of the Past Survey)

A group of 645 minority respondents (African Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans) targeted via telephone area codes to study racial variations in historical consciousness.

Museums (Trustworthiness Ranking)

The historical information source ranked highest in reliability and integrity by survey respondents by a substantial margin.

Movies or TV programs about the past (Trustworthiness Ranking)

The information source ranked lowest in trustworthiness by respondents, despite exerting a profound influence on public knowledge of national historical narratives.

Secondary School Teachers ("Villains" of Popular History)

Figures consistently criticized by survey respondents for making history boring through instructions focused on rote memorization and factual regurgitation.

African American Historical Consciousness

A perspective in which family history is viewed through collective pronouns ("we" or "us") as a microcosm of the broader African American experience.

1890 Wounded Knee Massacre

A historical event that serves as a vivid, active landmark in the collective memory and historical consciousness of the Pine Ridge Reservation community.

Louis R. Harlan

American Historical Association (AHA) President who deplored the "present public ignorance of our cultural heritage" in his 1989 presidential address.

David Lowenthal

Author of Possessed by the Past (1996) who argued that modern heritage growth reflects widespread trauma surrounding loss, rapid social change, and anxiety over an uncertain future.

The Past versus History (Pilot Survey Findings)

A distinction made by 75% of pilot respondents, who defined "the past" as inclusive, personal, and emotional, and "history" as formal, analytical, official, or distant.

Heritage

A declaration of faith in the past designed to build empathy, shared identity, and moral lessons by constructing uncritical fables that resist analytical or comparative scrutiny.

History

A rational, critical, and testable account of past events that requires contextualizing change over time.

German Heimat Concept

An idea centered on ancestral loyalty to local village scenes, emphasizing emotional bonding rather than rigorous historical analysis.

Carl Becker

Author of Everyman His Own Historian (1931) who argued that ordinary citizens use memory for practical daily needs, encouraging professional historians to adapt knowledge to present necessities.

Whig Interpretation of History

A concept described by Herbert Butterfield where history is viewed instrumentally to search only for seeds of the present, ignoring the principle that change over time is a complex process.

1995 Enola Gay Exhibition Controversy

A public dispute at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum that damaged public perception of museum neutrality and curator objectivity.

Implicit Relativism

A conceptual flaw in The Presence of the Past study where the authors validated almost any popular use or interpretation of the past as legitimate historical practice.

Chicago Historical Society Data

Surveys under President Douglas Greenberg showing that visitors favor local, 20th-century history within living memory, and systematically exaggerate their museum attendance.

Lynn Spigel and Henry Jenkins Study

A 1991/1992 study examining adult memories of watching Batman, revealing complex and contradictory attitudes within popular memory.

W. Lloyd Warner

Author of The Living and the Dead (1959), which established early on that historical engagement is not restricted to specific social or economic classes.

David Thelen

Co-author who concluded that individuals actively, critically, and creatively use the past for universal human purposes such as identity, morality, agency, and immortality.