Where does history learning belong? Despite the tendency for museums to identify themselves by their disciplinary commitments, there’s truth in George Ellis Burcaw’s assertion that “all museums are history museums, in the sense that all museums preserve objects pertaining to past events and situations.”1 Finding History Where You Least Expect It endorses that notion, arguing that explorations of the past don’t need to be confined to museums grounded exclusively in history. The book’s co-editors highlight the possibilities that emerge when public history work takes place in the wider informal learning ecosystem. In eighteen chapters—each a case study of a specific site and program—this collection explores history topics through programs that cross disciplines, blend perspectives, and poke through traditional boundaries between bodies of knowledge.
The book is place-based, emerging from a decade of collaboration among cultural organizations in greater Buffalo, New York. Co-editors Gladwell, a professor and coordinator of social...