Transcripts For CSPAN3 Public History On The Early Republic

Microphone you to speak into, so it will get reported for , and all of your residence in oklahoma will be able to jump out of their chair when you speak. We will go in the order that people are listed in the program, so i will jump right in. Douglas bradburn holds a ba in history from the university of geneva and if each the in history from the in mercy of chicago. From 2005 to 2013, he taught in the History Department at beaman Temple University bennington use o university. He was named founding director of the Fred W Smith Library at mount vernon where he oversees Mount Vernons efforts to safeguard original washington many scripts and encourage scholarship about George Washington and the founding era, and develops outreach activities. He received the chancellors award for excellence in teaching in 2010 for his books include the citizenship resident revolution, politics of the creation and the american union, and early modern virginia, reconsidering the old dominion, published in 2011. Welcome, doug. [applause] dr. Bradburn i am used to play into a friendly audience in melbourne and. My goodness. As you see, mount vernon is in terrible shape here. So, mount vernon in had 1. 1, last year, it million visitors. It is in some ways the birthplace or one of the roots to the birthplace of modern nationalist or preservation. For those of you who dont know the story, it was a group of women who came together in the 1850s to raise the money to purchase the home and make it available for visitors. They achieved that goal in 1860, really remarkable at a time when women could not really even own property in their own rights in many states, and it is still a privateowned woman board, so there is one woman per se, not every state, and they are called vice regents. The chairman of the board is the region of melbourne in, so i work at a notforprofit Educational Institution Whose Mission is to preserve, restore, and manage the estate of George Washington to the highest standards and to educate visitors and people throughout the world about the life and legacy of George Washingtons of the his example, character, and leadership will continue to inform and inspire future generations. HasLadies Association restored the home. They have done a tremendous job of it. It changes every generation what that will mean for people who visit, and in the late 1990s, the Ladies Association decided to mountle coming vernon did not know enough about George Washington feared not have enough knowledge about him, so they decided to create an Education Center and museum, which they opened in 2006. On the heels of that, they said all of the modern president s president ial libraries. George washington its a president ial library. So they raised the money, 1. 6 million, to build a library, which was opened in 2013. I am the director of that library, which is one way to think of it is as a is eventual library, but of course it is not a president ial library because it is not managed by the National Archive system. It is part of the privately run mount vernon Ladies Association. The mount vernon ladies have never taken any government money, which is part of the ethos of preservation and private philanthropy. But they have this private mission in which they are trying to teach people. When i came on, i left an academic, senior job at bin ghamton, which is a wonderful school. I was the founding director, and the good news of that is the only be one, no matter what happens to me. [applause] dr. Bradburn [laughter] dr. Bradburn so that is good. I wanted them to think of their education strategy for the next five years when i came aboard. Vernon is, as i said, the most visited historic home in america, and here are some attendance numbers, kind of uptodate as they emerge. You can kind of get a sense from the light areas, which you probably cannot see. It is seasonal in the way it goes. Were just ending the high season of visitation now. Of the 1. 1 Million People who come to mount vernon, it is about 350,000 schoolkids in the age of eighth grade, typically. You do not get a lot of school , thoughn high school some fear it one of the things number and wants to do over the next five years is not only maintain attendance theyre not really interested in growing because the state cannot really manage more. It is an 18thcentury house that has been added onto, and a Million People going up and down the stairs is an ongoing challenge. Breachnted to develop through digital nanosphere that means a lot of different things, including the web, but as you can see some of the web page and you may cannot read these numbers, the alltime high in february was 1. 6 million that month. At 9to date, we are million web views, and that unique users. 3. 3 by the end of year, we should have 6 million unique users. This was an initiative that came out of the new ceo who came on after he hired me. He has a background in new media. He had come out of hollywood. That mountthings vernon had lagged behind was the digital creation. So to what content online that would bring people to the estate virtually in different ways and be educated, and part of what we do in the National Library deals with the development of those materials. I will talk a little but about that. Platforms. Lly means there are apps and of her ways of receiving information, and that is the crucial part of the strategies as mount vernon tries to expand its way to reach people and teach the stories of George Washington, and content is what is possible. We created virtual tools, some apps, and all different ways that people are engaging. Just to give you a sense, there has been a heavy investment in video, all kinds of video. Some of it is longform lectures, some of it is short, threeminute, you know, interviews about the whiskey rebellion by scholars who come through or how the gristmill works. In february ise 130,000 videos played the ish there in february 130,000 videos played. The George Washington library is a niche Resource Library focused on the founding era. I was saying to somebody i am not a public historian. N have never been to the i chp. I am an academic historian, but i am part of a great team of people who are public a story is in are engaged in the theory and thinking about it. I want to talk a little bit we are doing. Then i want to talk about what you all want to know, what you want to ask about public history today. I think it is a golden age in many ways. There are more books being published than ever before. There are more platforms to get published on. There is more resource s more Resources Available more broadly. There are more relevance, maybe not more, but as much as ever. Think, thatucial, i academic historians get out and help institutions and museums, make sure they are teaching it up to the latest standards of the profession and asking the best questions. Our library is intended to help do that. It is another resource for people. It is a small, niche like very focused on the founding, like i said. It used some of the different numbers. It is a place that has some great resources for research, particularly in the archives of the mount vernon Ladies Association, going back to 1850 and help us understand how americans have sought to tell the story of their founding. We are building a large collection of as well as for. He legacy t everyone is working on the National History day work, Pulitzer Prize in house fellows, which i will talk about a little bit as well. One of the Digital Projects is the guiding the George Washington digital encyclopedia. 450 digitalt has injuries. It is an encyclopedia that we want to continue to grow. We have over 5 million views. Ofs slide right here kind device the years up into 12month segments. The high bars are the yeartoyear growth that you are we see it being used widely by the general public, by students, file sorts of different folks mos. Most people are coming directly through Google Search or being or a direct way. There are occasions where people use social media and other ways to drive interest. I would encourage anybody who is interested in working on it to contact me, contact joe. We are always looking for good entries really broadly. If you think the story of the whiskey rebellion is not any good on our encyclopedia, write a new one. Or if you think we need to include the story of the money that is raised in havana to pay for the troops at yorktown, write it for us. You will find that historical institutions in your local Historical Society and museums, what they really lack is people who know the history. They have a lot of great Museum Professionals whom i have been trained in the history of the 20th century, and they end up at county Historical Societys i think the members of s. H. E. A. R. To offeral opportunity their expertise come if they are interested, and trying to improve in the Public Engagement to the history that we all care about their here is a general view of the faculty over a period of 2014 and 2015. You can see the attention to it, it is waxing and waning. Thingsee that when happen, like the sons of liberty awful,ed, abysmal, historically inaccurate mess sponsored by sam adams [laughter] dr. Bradburn when it aired, we saw a spike in people looking characters. That is a role that the encyclopedia can play. We wanted to be incited by lots of news sources. Newgreat thing about sources as it gives you lots of data. You can see who was working what, what is interesting to people. As academic historians, we have less ways to measure enthusiasm, but what exactly is driving interest . You can look at statebystate numbers, gender, ages, etc. We have our top entries in the encyclopedia, what are people asking about . You can kind of get the feedback in this world, which is really a fascinating to see. Move along to some of the public programming that we do in the library at health. It is a place where we try to get academics to engage directly with the general public audiences. Freef those ways is a booklet that we have every month that is streamed online and is reported and available in video form. Since we started doing it, we have had 36 different book talks. They are free and open to the general public. They have become so popular that they do not serve my purpose anymore, which is to welcome local people to the library. Now i have to move them all down to the big auditorium indian in the estate. Mary bilder, when she talks on madison in september, she has got 350 people already signed up to come to it, so it has really been a success in getting the local community we are really blessed in a location. You have a lot of people who are interested in history former government, former military in virginia they like to come out and see. It has really been an effort to mix popular authors with more academic books. Like a book that a typical public audience would never pick up, never know about, and never see, but they are coming to these events, and i want to try to do more. Much being published, that i find it difficult to schedule everything we want. We have a number of different symposiums, which bring together all sorts of different academic historians, as well as museum curators, preservationists, to present to a general public. But it is typically scholars and academics presenting in the general public, so we have to really that book ended the year. Bookend the that year. In the fall, we have the mount vernon symposium or in the spring, sorry, which focuses more on the history of decorative art, 18th century culture, on landscapes a kind of rotates. We have a number of partnerships, institutions which is crucial to be able to serve the educational mission. I want to mention the upcoming 6,very conference on october seventh, eighth. Mount vernon is opening a major slavery exhibit and the zmapp exhibit on october first. The partnership is to focus on slavery regionally, but when we do academic conferences, we also like to have a public evening. The first evening, the thursday night of the conference, will actually be in the auditorium, and the academic attendees will be there, but it will also be open to the general melbourne in public to comment in and engage. That is something i was try to enact. That is an example of one of the rooms of the library, we do a lot of other things, you know about the teacher support from melbourn mount vernon. We do events all over the country every year. We are providing a lot of materials digitally. There was a lot of talk about the hamilton way and how people can teach it. We have resources for people to connect songs to primary sources, that sort of thing. A lot of weight coming you get a lot more region that world of the development of digital materials during the other thing i do not know people want to talk about this or not that we do, is this Leadership Institute, which is different, i think. You all know that there are leadership tors of battlefield, like gettysburg and other places. Mount vernon now has a Leadership Institute in which we have had a number of different groups come through. Have had 33e different programs sense of 1200 people. We have had a true military groups, two government groups, and 17 business corporations. Gets a unique way to certain public engaged with the history of the founding, and i would love to talk more about it if you want to ask. Here is an example of one of the factory members, doug bradford, talking to the executive women in government group, and that is in the main reading room there. I want to conclude in empathizing that the importance of the Research Mission to all the different public programming that we do, we have a Research Fellows program, which scholars live on the ground of the in 2013. Ince we opened we have had over 63 scholars through there. Mr. Cooper mr. Cooper onemonth scholars, one month scholars, three month scholars, etc. We do study everything under the sun that you will see on the program of the academic conferences. They are incredibly important to a dynamic institution and sustainable educational environment. We use the fellows, they are interested in being part of our public and academic programs. They have been involved in symposium presentation, 12 have given what we call a luncheon fellowship presentation, in which scholars talk about their research to a group of members. We have a members only sneak peek of what the scholars have been working on. Four have been involved in academic conferences. 15 have written a cyclic the articles encyclopedia articles. Five have been lecturers in the Leadership Institute. Theave been involved in George Washington Teachers Institute as well. They are crucial for us to remain engaged and give people the latest argument. The notion of the library it is not a place fraser agar free, fors a place for a place geography, it is a place to stimulate. That is the goal. One of the other challenges is the need to make sure your matching your strategy with your available resources. Here are some of the people who have been Research Fellows. Among them he might see in the room here. Here is a program for next year. I try to have between 15 and 28 year. And here they are, doing things with the public in different ways. Conclude in a strong manner by saying that it has been really exciting to think about public history as an withmic historian and work a team together, a team of people who are passionate and engaged about the history of the founding era who are trained to find innovative ways to teach all sorts of different audiences. That is one of the key things. You have the key materials, make the program for the audience and deliver it on the platform that the audience wants to engage with it in. Those are the three principles we work with on. Excited to hear questions as we move forward, and i am excited and hear what public history actually is. [laughter] dr. Bradburn thank you. [applause] paul unfortunately, nancy davis from a Smithsonian Institution could not be with us today. She is not able to make feature. We wish her well. Our next speaker is marla miller. Thehas for in a from university of North Carolina at chapel hill. Andis professor of history the public history program, should she will be able to tell us what public history is. She wrote betsy ross and the making of america and the needles eye. She has been involved in several Major Research works. She is held fellowships from the National Endowment for electeds, and is an member of the massachusetts Historical Society. [applause] miller thank you three mustard i also have the honor of serving as the Vice President of the National Council for public history, so let me personally invite doug to the meeting at bloomington in the spring in vegas. [laughter] at miller i natural history. It energizes i encourage you to take a look at National History. It interjected as you. They have a blog called history at work. If you are interested, that is a great way to followup, and i would love to s