Comprehensive notes on public history: Baltimore ’68, collecting, and museum exhibits

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Attendance
Takeaways from The Baltimore ’68 Oral History Project
Collecting
- Terms
- Collection
- Preservation
- Archiving
- Systematic collecting
- Representative collecting
- Ethical collecting
- Community-based collecting
- Witnessing objects
Homework for Friday 8/29: Practicing the Historical Method assignment due by 11:59 \text{ PM}
Read chapter 6 in Introduction to Public History

The Baltimore ’68 Oral History Project
- Takeaways:
- “In public settings, an upcoming anniversary or a new source of social unrest or conflict may raise new questions about historical events and prompt the desire for fresh interpretations.” (48)
- When using community-based research methods, the community’s narrative helps shape the research questions.
- Ethical public history requires us to ask the people we study what they would like to be called, their preferred terminology, and what meaning they assign to terminology. “This is not to say that academics do not have a role to play in defining terms that are accurate.” (48)

Systematic
- Ex. Archives
- Texts that we want to preserve are placed in “archives”
- They are catalogued and finding aids are produced

Representative Collecting
- As historians focused on "bottom up" history, collectors responded.
- Example: a Pelican Book The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson

Ethical Collecting
- The relationship between the desires of collectors and the rights of the individuals whose histories those collections represent has become more regulated by government

Ethical Collecting: Deaccessioning
- Definition: To officially remove an item from the listed holdings of a library, museum, or art gallery.

Community Based Collecting: Systematic, Representative, and Ethical
- Example: Latinos and Baseball Exhibit
- Began with an event inviting the community to discuss their experiences and then donate objects for the exhibit.
- Latinos and Baseball: A National Community Collecting and Exhibit Initiative, National Museum of American History Behring Center, 2020, https://americanhistory.si.edu/latinos-and-baseball

Objects in Museum Exhibits
VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY & CULTURE
CASTER MATHEWS MIDDLESEX NORTHUMBERLAND POQUOSON
Shenandoah Valley (region)
Open today 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Visit ▾ Exhibitions ▾ Events ▾ Learn ▾ Research ▼ ▾ Support Shop ▾
Explore Virginia's past through exhibitions that feature authentic historical objects, hands-on experiences, and multimedia presentations.

Objects in Museum Exhibits: Witnessing Objects
History museum exhibits display artifacts and/or images that were there during the events and the times on which the exhibition focuses.