Public History and the Problem of Perspective
How the Portrayal of Historical Events Shapes the Public's Reception
Aug 10, 2008
Historical Narratives are Inevitably Subjective
As history is always constructed and never simply given, there exist the problems of perspective and reception when an event or period in history is captured either in writing, a monument, or in a museum. That is, from whose vantage point is the particular story being told? And how does that particular conceptualization of the historical event tarnish or praise the subject(s) in the exhibit or presentation? As public history - of all the historical subfields – is most conscious of the public’s reception of historical scholarship and presentations, it serves as an ideal framework from which to analyze trends whose reach inevitably touches all the fields of the discipline.
The Enola Gay Exhibit as Victory Narrative
The exhibition of the Enola Gay as described in Robert Post’s “A Narrative of our Time: The Enola Gay ‘and after that, period,’” is illustrative of the problem of historical perspective. As Post’s article goes to great lengths to show, the decision to venerate the bomber by placing it conspicuously in the Smithsonian has had a decisive impact on how that particular narrative has been interpreted and received by the American public. As the apprehensive historical advisors and public critics of the monument’s one-sided narrative argued, the exhibit’s creators skewed a much more complex story by excluding imagery or historical background information which might cloud the overly triumphant portrayal of the bomber that brought the war to an end. [1]
The Haymarket Riots: A Forgotten Chapter of Social History
This problem of one-sided narratives is also contained in an article by James Green, dealing with the Haymarket Riot of 1886. As the event is well recorded in the annals of history, it serves as a powerful reminder of how easily even well-known events can be manipulated, interpreted, and portrayed by those writing history. As James Green’s description of the global memories of the riot attest, the way an event is received outside the United States is often very different from the way American officials have cast it.
Memory of Haymarket Riot Suppressed by U.S. during Cold War
Showing the event’s reception over time and across continents, Green shows how an event that was typically repressed in the United States during the early years of the cold war was appropriated in other nations to bolster support for socialist and anarchist movements. His article serves as a painful reminder that an event as internationally recognized and explosive as the Haymarket Riot and the subsequent trial of those involved, can be buried in the historical record to suit the changing trends in social and political life while remaining a powerful symbol abroad; as Green argues, “Indeed, no other event in American history after the Civil War exerted the kind of hold the Haymarket tragedy maintained on the popular imagination of working people in other countries.”[2]
Public Historians Face Governmental Pressure
As these brief readings have demonstrated, the role public historians play in presenting historical events to a wider audience is one of the most influential in the profession. Yet their endeavors have been checked through the bureaucracies of museums, political pressure, social climates, and the problems inherent in attempting to convey complex and difficult narratives to a general audience which is not familiar with the subject material; a problem made even more difficult by those who believe that understanding history is a mere pastime or a curious antiquarian hobby. Indeed, as Douglas Greenberg argues, “At one level, it is probably true that Americans have come to look upon history as a luxury because they regard formal historical scholarship as distant, irrelevant, and, worst of all, unreadable.”[3]
Who Controls the Past Controls the Future
Yet as both the triumphalist narrative presented in the Enola Gay exhibit and the suppression of anarchist and socialist voices surrounding the Haymarket Riot suggest, there is a large degree of truth in Orwell’s ominous claim from 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past.” It is the job of public historians to ensure that no party or organization maintains the exclusive rights to the portrayal of history, as so powerful a tool as the portrayal of a nation or people’s past needs the weight of historical scholarship if it is ever to be seriously considered as approaching an accurate depiction.
[1] Robert C. Post, “A Narrative for Our Time: The Enola Gay ‘and after that, period,’ ” Technology and Culture 45.2 (2004): 384.
[2] James Green, “The Globalization of a Memory: The Enduring Remembrance of the Haymarket Martyrs around the World,” Labor Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, 2.4 (2005): 12
[3] Douglas Greenberg, “’History is a Luxury’: Mrs. Thatcher, Mr. Disney, and (Public) History,” Reviews in American History 26.1 (1998): 299.
