Introduction to Public History
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HIS 311/511 • MWF 12:15-1:20 p.m. • LB 241 • Fall 2009

J. Mark Souther, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History
B.A. Furman University, M.A. University of Richmond, Ph.D. Tulane University

Contact info:  RT 1934 • (216) 687-3970 • m.souther@csuohio.edu
Office hours:  MF 1:35-2:45 p.m., or by appointment, MWF only
Course website:  http://souther311.clevelandhistory.org

This course explores “public history,” or history crafted through dialogues between professional historians and collaborating partners in the broader community.  It examines the foundations of and best practices in archives, museums, historic preservation, heritage tourism, cultural resource management, documentary film, oral history, and community history projects.  It also explores the role of public memory in advancing certain historical interpretations and suppressing others in public history venues.  Occasional guest speakers from various Northeast Ohio public history venues will bring their perspectives into the classroom.

A rapidly growing segment of public history involves digital technology.  The digital-age public historian must do more than understand history and how to make it compelling for diverse audiences.  Public history also requires one to apply technology to collect, analyze, and present the past.  Thus, digital history accounts for an increasing proportion of history-related careers.  After this semester, you will possess a cache of career-applicable knowledge.  In short, you will learn public history by doing public history.

Accordingly, the practical component of the course involves developing virtual museum exhibits that draw upon a collection of primary sources to tell a story about Cleveland and situate the city’s experience within a broader national context.  You will learn the basics of conducting digitally recorded oral histories, electronically clipping and exporting sound files, creating a digital archive, and building an online exhibit.  Specifically, you will digitize, upload, add metadata for, and interpret historical images and documents that you carefully select for their ability convey a historical narrative.  This content will become the centerpiece around which you construct a historically informed interpretation of your chosen project topic.  You will create an online exhibit in tandem with researching and writing an interpretive essay.  Your project will be a multi-step process that involves two preliminary essays in which you analyze the larger context for your topic in secondary sources and, second, a body of primary sources about the topic itself, writing a more extended interpretive essay, and curating an online exhibit.

My name is Mark Souther, and I am the host of the course blog.  I am an Associate Professor of History at Cleveland State University, where I have taught for the past seven years.  I am a native of Gainesville, Georgia, and earned my B.A. in History at Furman University, M.A. in History at the University of Richmond, and Ph.D. in History at Tulane University.  My first book, New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the Transformation of the Crescent City, was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2006, and I have authored several articles and essays on tourism and suburban new-town planning.  My current research includes a co-edited volume, Tourist Nation, under review by the Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago, a book project on Great Lakes cities and how their citizens coped with the growing realization that they faced futures of decline, and an article project on the role of University Circle institutions in fighting urban decay in postwar Cleveland.  My recent public history endeavors have included involvement in the Sounds of American History, a Teaching American History grant program; the Euclid Corridor History Project; and various activities of the Center for Public History and Digital Humanities.  I live in Cleveland Heights.