The past is present
Despite a renowned career as a writer and activist, Upton Sinclair lacks a museum in his honor. His home in California would make an ideal house museum. His biographer reflects on Sinclair's legacy, the importance of public history sites, and the role of historic homes in shaping public memory.
Historical commissions function as state-sponsored public history initiatives that negotiate contested national pasts.
Mayor Mamdani’s use of a Quran from Schomburg’s collection [...] embraces the Afro-diasporic history and identity that Arturo Schomburg strove to create through his archive-building and auto/biographical writing.
Even well-intentioned efforts at historical reckoning can reproduce epistemic harm when they rely on unexamined disciplinary assumptions.
We invite innovative instructors who teach history beyond the conventions of the classroom and meet the challenges of the moment to contribute to the "History Beyond the Classroom" series .
Working at a public history site is a reminder that no community is monolithic or similar-minded. Even at James Monroe's Highland more localized communities are composed of diverse needs, questions, and missions.
We are always learning new things about the past, and that's good. As we learn more, we are also obligated to share these new discoveries to our public. That is currently what we are doing at James Monroe's Highland: telling new, more truthful stories about a place with a complicated historical and institutional history.
The Business of History syllabus challenges students to merge the often creative, open-ended nature of academic inquiry with the outcomes-oriented and deadline-driven world of business.
Teaching about historical and public memory should challenge students to think and interpret outside the classroom. This course empowered students to serve as producers of their own sites of memory.
This course explores historical "happenings" and their interpretations after 1945 with a heightened focus on if/how the United States has maintained, strengthened, and perpetuated its image of global excellence.
Clio and the Contemporary 