This issue presents four articles that demonstrate the diversity of public history scholarship today. Labor issues, racial justice, new media, and the intersection of the built and natural environment are considered in these pages.
In “Renting History: Housing and Labor on Public History’s Front Lines,” Brian Whetstone takes a close look at the practice of house museums and historical societies renting their property to tenants, many of whom acted as both caretakers and interpreters. Focusing primarily on the mid-twentieth century Northeast, Whetstone shows that this practice not only sustained these institutions, but further, argues that “renting and tenant labor were vital to the interpretive, labor, and curatorial practices of house museums throughout the twentieth century.” Although often overlooked by both visitors and public history scholarship, “renting history” sustained and shaped public history institutions. Further, Whetstone shows that this phenomenon “makes explicit an uncomfortable reality: the practice of public history is...
University of California Press