I think that Matthew is correct that things are coming around on the academic/museum difference. It is much better than it used to be. I believe that this is an "old rift" which was deep and I also agree that it is becoming less prominent.
I find it to be older professors in more traditional departments who do not see the value in public history (I am only referring to History departments here since that is the field I've studied in and also the field I am most closely able to observe today).
I could put an informal, off-the-top-of-my-head historical spin on the topic which may bore people to death, but since I know you are a kind and civil group, I will take a chance:
In the past, historians were trained to produce more historians like themselves. Their be-all and end-all was to produce Ph.D.s who would teach undergrads, some of whom would themselves eventually pursue Ph.D.s and start the whole cycle over. History museums at that time were run by non-professionals with little or no formal historical training and those academics who chose to go into the museum field in say, 1972 (or even in 1988 when I made my choice) probably really were thought of as throwing away their careers.
But as we all know and have discussed on this list on more occasions than I can remember, the field has changed (witness the inclusion, as Matthew mentioned below of museum exhibit reviews in the Journal of American History), and our training is changing (it's hard to get a good professional museum job without an M.A.) and the attitudes of academic historians are changing as well.
The traditional emphasis by most academic historians has been on intellectual, political or social history. While social history is accepted as a worthy pursuit by almost all traditional historians, it wasn't that way before about the 60s or 70s. Social history had to struggle to find its place and validity and now it is the study of Material Culture that is finding its place in academia and this is lending academic validity to what museums do. Material Culture is not just being taught at schools such as the University of Delaware, where it's been accepted and encouraged for much longer, but aspects of material culture study are sneaking into "regular" intellectual and political history as well.
So I think it may depend on where you studied and when on what attitudes you ran into from academic historians. We can see where we've been and where we're probably going and I think it's getting better.
Chris.
Christine Mouw
Assistant Curator
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum
West Branch, Iowa 52358
[log in to unmask]
>>> [log in to unmask] 09/05 4:26 AM >>>
I must back up David Haberstitch's take on this. Although there will
always been some history professors who look down on a more practical
application of historical scholarship, I think the trend is very quickly
moving away from that attitude, and, like David, I have yet to meet a
history professor that wasn't supportive of my career choice or happy to
help out when called upon to serve as an advisor, help write programs, or
even conduct workshops and lectures in a museum setting. Major history
journals are more and more including museum exhibit reviews in their pages
and many newsletters such as the AHA's Perspective include regular columns
on many areas of Public History. A rather lively set of which included
debates on how to consider work done by academic historians in a museum
setting when deciding tenure. Excellent stuff and well overdue. I have no
statistics at my finger tips, but I believe the number of History programs
with Public History or Museum Studies concentrations is growing as is
membership in the National Council for Public History. I am not saying
there is no "rift" in some areas or that some professors are not petty and
condescending toward museum professionals, but these cases are becoming
more rare with each passing year and I would echo other's advice to dump
these people and look for more supportive advisors.
Have a nice day,
Matthew White
Director of Museums
Mount Washington Observatory
=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
========================================================Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
|
