Connecticut Humanities (CTH), one of the largest and most prosperous state humanities councils in the country, created a model of the public humanities around the production of heritage tourism. State funding for heritage tourism helped CTH develop into a major advocacy organization that has provided funding and capacity building services to the state’s heritage institutions while it also cultivated appreciation and understanding of Connecticut history. But because of state budget deficits and the failure of heritage tourism to sustain the state’s history museums, heritage tourism may no longer offer a viable paradigm and CTH must likely develop a new model of the public humanities that engages more directly with public audiences and a wider variety of humanities organizations.
Making the Humanities Public: The Example of Connecticut’s Humanities Council
Briann Greenfield is Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University where she administers the department’s public history programs. She received a MA in Museum Studies from Brown University and her PhD in American Civilization, also from Brown. She is a board member of Connecticut Humanities, where she chairs the Connecticut Humanities Fund Application and Review Committee. Briann's published works include Out of the Attic: Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-Century New England (UMass Press, 2009), which examines the rise of the modern market for antique goods.
Briann Greenfield; Making the Humanities Public: The Example of Connecticut’s Humanities Council. The Public Historian 1 February 2013; 35 (1): 51–66. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2013.35.1.51
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University of California Press