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In the practice of public history, how the wider community receives a project is just as important as the intentions behind its creation. As work done for and with public audiences, the exhibits, media, and spaces we cultivate form a dialogue where agency is shared, emotions are welcome, and diverse experiences are honored. As Dr. Stephen Vider comments in Season 2, “I think that we place so much emphasis on the intellectual value of our research, but I think many people engage with history in a much more bodily and affective way - in an emotional way - and I like how public history draws that out.”

In that spirit, join Aracely Lara, a first generation Mexican-American graduate student in public history, as she processes the “100 Years of Stories: Documenting a Century at the University of Houston” exhibit at the M.D. Anderson Library. Learn how she finds radical hope in the perseverance of alumnae before her like Yolanda Black Navarro, Maria Jimenez, and Graciela Saenz. 

This episode was researched, recorded, and produced by Aracely Lara for the Center of Public History at the University of Houston. 

To learn more: 

• Gomez, Denise. “Yolanda Black Navarro: East End Reina.” Houston History 15.2 (April 2018): 8-12. 
• Gomez, Denise. “A Life of Activism: Maria Jimenez.” Houston History 12.3 (July 2015): 14-18.
• Gomez, Stephanie. “Gracie Saenz’s Life of Public Service.” Houston History 15.2 (April 2018): 13-17. 
• "Latina Leaders. 100 Years of Houston: 1997-2007." Houston Public Media.  

Oral Histories from the UH Libraries Special Collections:

• Jimenez, Maria. Feb. 25, 2012. 
• Navarro Black, Yolanda. March 28, 2006. 

Saenz, Graciela Guzman; Grevious, Danielle & Bobadilla, Eladio. Oral History Interview with Graciela Guzman Saenz, July 8, 2016, video, July 8, 2016; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth984718/m1/: accessed Dec. 26, 2023), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting TCU Mary Couts Burnett Library.

Music via the Free Music Archive:

• Gregor Quendel – “Debussy – Clair de Lune – L 75.mp3” - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 
• Monplaisir – “Red Hair, Blue Sky” and "Hélice" – Public Domain
• Patrick Davies – “Piano Medley For Those in Various Places.mp3” – Public Domain
• HoliznaCC0 – “Poor, But Happy” – Public Domain

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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In 2027, the University of Houston in Texas will celebrate its centennial anniversary. In honor of that upcoming milestone, the Center for Public History (CPH) partnered with UH Libraries and Houston Public Media to collect, share, and preserve stories related to the university’s legacy across one hundred years. On November 30th, 2023, the three project leaders – Dr. Debbie Harwell (Instructional Assistant Professor of History and Editor of Houston History magazine), Mary Manning (University Archivist in Special Collections, M.D. Anderson Library), and Fujio Watanabe (Manager of Media Production, Houston Public Media) – came together to discuss the collaborative process of training students how to transform archival material and oral histories into magazine articles, television and radio spots, pop-up displays, and ultimately, a public exhibit, "100 Years of Stories: Documenting a Century at the University of Houston." This kind of public history work requires deep research, advanced planning, and flexibility, but the outcome is indispensable in helping a wider community understand the importance and influence of a local institution and its dynamic people.

To learn more about the "100 Years of Stories" project: https://uh.edu/class/ctr-public-history/projects/100-years-of-stories/100-years-home.php

On Houston Public Media's "100 Years of Houston, 1927-2027": https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/100-years-of-houston/

On Houston History magazine: https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/  

To support the Center for Public History: https://uh.edu/class/cph 

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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In 1977, over 100 people with disabilities and their allies occupied a federal building in San Francisco for almost a month. Part of the national 504 Sit-In, this remarkable protest sought to finally sign into law Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973), which would make it illegal for any federally funded facilities or programs to discriminate against individuals based on their disability. Not only was the protest successful, it paved the way for the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.  

In this final episode of Season Two (recorded on July 19, 2022), Dr. Wes Jackson speaks with Dr. Cathy Kudlick (Professor of History and Director Emeritus of the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability, San Francisco State University) and Fran Osborne (Freelance Designer/Museum Consultant and Lecturer in Museum Studies, San Francisco State University) on their public exhibit about the 504 Sit-in. First launched in 2015, “Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights” not only captures this pivotal historical moment but exemplifies innovative public history practice by making accessibility and community involvement integral to its design. 

Check out the amazing virtual exhibit for “Patient No More”: https://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/patient-no-more.

Learn more about the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability: https://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/. 

Explore the Global Museum at San Francisco State University: https://museum.sfsu.edu/global-museum.

For more on Dr. Kudlick: https://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/catherine-j-kudlick.

For more on Prof. Osborne: https://art.sfsu.edu/fran-osborne.

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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What do millennia-old plagues have to do with the current COVID-19 pandemic? In this episode (recorded on May 11, 2022), Dr. Kristina Neumann sits down with Drs. Merle Eisenberg (Assistant Professor of History, Oklahoma State University) and Lee Mordechai (Senior Lecturer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem), late antique & medieval historians and hosts of the podcast Infectious Historians. Now with over 100 episodes, this dynamic series engages past disease outbreaks and contemporary questions through a series of interviews with historians, scientists, and public policy experts. Drs. Eisenberg and Mordechai dissect their process and vision for the podcast, specifically how it serves as an interdisciplinary seminar and living archive for academic and public audiences alike. They discuss the bad historical comparisons for modern disease that often spread throughout our culture and the social responsibility of historians to correct these narratives. Most importantly, they emphasize the use of history to remind everyone that human beings matter in a pandemic.

Listen to Infectious Historians: https://infectioushistorians.com/.

Learn more about Dr. Mordechai: https://huji.academia.edu/LeeMordechai.

Learn more about Dr. Eisenberg: https://cas.okstate.edu/department_of_history/faculty_bios/eisenberg.html. 

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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According to Dr. Stephen Vider (Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University), capturing feeling is just as important to public history as transmitting knowledge. Whether collecting an oral history or cultivating a museum exhibit, Dr. Vider emphasizes the ethical responsibility to honor people’s bodily and emotional responses to history. As he tells UH History graduate Timothy Vale (PhD, 2022) in their conversation recorded on May 6, 2022, valuing the full human experience has played a key role in shaping each of his projects. This includes the 2017 exhibition, AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism, at the Museum of the City of New York, which explored how artists and activists have mobilized domestic space during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Now, as the director of Cornell’s Public History Initiative, Dr. Vider teaches students that doing historical research with the public is more than an intellectual exercise, but a high stakes and even personal endeavor that elicits emotion and contributes to the contemporary world.

Learn more about Dr. Vider: https://history.cornell.edu/stephen-vider

Check out the Public History Initiative at Cornell University: https://phi.history.cornell.edu/ 

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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If a medical institution’s mission is to make cancer a relic of the past, the archivist’s role is to collect, preserve, and make that history available. So says Javier Garza, Senior Library Analyst and Archivist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Historical Resources Center in Houston, TX. In his interview with graduate student Allison Anderson – recorded on November 19th, 2021 – Garza describes how he got involved in the dynamic and communal effort to document and digitally disseminate the development of the nation’s leading cancer center. Garza discusses the unique challenges of bringing medical archives and a robust oral history collection to the general public while balancing patient privacy and institutional transparency.

For more on MD Anderson's Historical Resources Center, go to: https://www3.mdanderson.org/library/hrc/index.html

To access “The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Project”: https://www3.mdanderson.org/library/hrc/interviews.html

Editing assistance of this episode provided by Dylan Allen. 

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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There are many ways to produce public history, but one of the most unique publications comes from the University of Houston. Houston History magazine is a student-written and edited publication dedicated to the under-told stories of one of the largest and most diverse metropolitan regions of the United States. Join Dr. Debbie Z. Harwell (Instructional Assistant Professor of US History, University of Houston) and PhD candidate Caitlyn Jones for their November 8, 2021, conversation about a recent issue focused on Houston’s San Jose Clinic. For one hundred years, this clinic has provided medical, dental, pharmacy, and specialty services to low-income and uninsured individuals. Dr. Harwell and Jones discuss how the magazine has captured San Jose’s legacy and then expand their conversation to the process, challenges, and joys of working with undergraduates through this public-engaged medium.

To learn more about Houston History magazine: https://uh.edu/class/ctr-public-history/projects/projects/index2.php

Read Houston History magazine online: https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/

Find out more about 100 Years of Houston: https://uh.edu/class/ctr-public-history/news/hpm-shuart-100-years.php

Support the work of Houston History: https://giving.uh.edu/publichistory/

Editing assistance of this episode provided by Dylan Allen. 

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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With debates about healthcare dominating the news, the past resonates all the more. American historian Dr. Ronit Stahl (Associate Professor of History, University of California: Berkeley) clearly illustrates this principle in her conversation with Dr. Mark Goldberg on February 11, 2022. Whether understanding the 2014 Hobby Lobby ruling about the birth control insurance mandate, the claim of religious hospitals to conscience rights and public funds, or the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops, Dr. Stahl reveals how history can help us ask better questions about the present. This is no mere academic exercise but one of service to the wider public, as Dr. Stahl demonstrates through her many meetings with community groups and military organizations, numerous op-eds, and even a 2018 amicus brief before the United States Court of Appeals.

For more on Dr. Stahl’s work, see https://ronitstahl.com/.  

Historians’ Amicus Brief, written with Jennifer Mittelstadt, for Plaintiffs in Jane Doe 2 v. Donald J. Trump, December 10, 2018.

 Editing assistance of this episode provided by Dylan Allen.  

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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Digital and Analog. Big data and Qualitative Research. Humanities and STEM. Activism and Academia. For some, these concepts may seem like polar opposites, but each is integral to the work of Dr. Merlin Chowkwanyun, a historian at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. In his conversation with Dr. Josiah Rector on Dec. 7th, 2021, Dr. Chowkwanyun details his varied career on the intersection of history, data, and health advocacy. From publishing online once secret documents from toxic chemical companies to contextualizing racial health disparities within the ongoing COVID crisis, Dr. Chowkwanyun lives out the values of public history and encourages other historians to enter the crucial policy debates of our time.   

Visit Dr. Chowkwanyun online at http://www.merlinc16.com/. 

Explore the millions of pages of previously classified documents on industrial poisons through Project Toxicdocs at https://www.toxicdocs.org/.

Read Dr. Chowkwanyun's latest book, All Health Politics is Local:  Community Battles for Medical Care and Environmental Health (The University of North Carolina Press, 2022).

Editing assistance of this episode provided by Dylan Allen.  

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph

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You might not think of a night in jail as a “nice time,” but for public anthropologist, Dr. Alexandra Arkhipova (Wilson Center, DC), her arrest in Russia in 2017 was both an opportunity for research and part of a long-standing tradition for public scholars within her country. In her interview with Dr. Alexey Golubev - recorded on March 23rd, 2022, - Dr. Arkhipova discusses the difficult work of collecting and preserving information under the oppressive regimes of the Soviet Union and Putin’s modern-day Russia. A self-described “anthropologist of crisis,” Dr. Arkhipova uses social media to crowdsource for people’s memories and eyewitness accounts of protest against the authoritarian government and the current war in Ukraine. She talks about how this work of gathering and archiving people’s diverse experiences becomes its own form of protest against governmental censorship and attempted control of the historical record.

For more on Dr. Arkhipova's work, see https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/alexandra-arkhipova.

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph