Public History
The Arizona State University Public History Program is one of the oldest, largest, and most diversified in the country. Since 1980, the program has enabled students to specialize in local and community history, historic preservation and cultural resources management, historical administration, museum studies, public policy history, and scholarly publishing.
The Public History program prepares students for the professional practice of history outside the classroom. Courses are specially designed to introduce students to the theories and methodologies appropriate to applied practice. In addition, they not only prepare students in necessary skills but also encourage them to think and work as professionals.
The Public History Methodology course develops research techniques and practices appropriate for public historians, thus teaching students to apply a problem-solving approach to a wide range of issues and topics through readings, case studies, short papers, oral presentations, and a brief research project. Other courses acquaint students with the diverse work they will encounter, provide them with specific skills they will need to compete in their fields, and introduce them to an interdisciplinary approach to research and problem solving. Students acquire the degree of media literacy that they will need in their careers through class projects, independent work in the departmental computer laboratory, and in on-campus workshops.
The Public History program offers several areas of emphasis:
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Historic Preservation: Students prepare for careers in historic preservation and cultural resource management. Students are encouraged to include courses on historic preservation offered in the School of Planning in the College of Design.
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Community History: With special training in local history research methods, students prepare for positions as local, state, or regional historians.
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Historical Administration: Students interested in careers in historical museums and societies, sites, and agencies follow this track. Students in this area have opportunities to enroll in public administration courses in the School of Public Affairs.
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The Public Sector: Students prepare for careers as historians in public agencies such as planning offices or historical offices or departments. Students are encouraged to incorporate courses from the public administration program in the School of Public Affairs.
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Museum Studies: This option is offered in conjunction with the Museum Studies Program in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Anthropology).
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Faculty
Three full-time public history faculty members direct the program, together with a Public History program associate.
Noel J. Stowe's areas of expertise are public history, the Southwest, Mexico, and Latin America. His publications include Accountancy in Arizona, Arizona at 75: The Next 25 Years; and California Government: The Challenge of Change. He has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Park Service, American Historical Association, and Arizona Humanities Council. He has served on committees of the American Historical Association and Organization of American Historians and is currently a member of committees of the American Association for State and Local History and the National Council on Public History, in addition to serving on numerous boards in Arizona and its communities.
Jannelle Warren-Findley teaches historic preservation, cultural resources management, cultural institutions, and international practice. She is currently writing book-length manuscripts for the National Park Service and, with a group of students, surveying a post–World War II neighborhood in Phoenix. She serves as a reviewer for the Fulbright Senior Scholar Program for the Council on International Educational Exchange in Washington.
J. Kent Calder teaches scholarly publishing. He has more than twenty-five years' experience in scholarly and educational publishing, having served as director of publications for the Texas State Historical Association Press, editorial director for the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, managing editor for the Indiana Historical Society Press, and manager of development and permissions for Harcourt College Publishers.
Nancy Dallett, the Public History Program associate, conducts public history projects for the department and coordinates internships for public history students. Recent projects include administrative histories and historic surveys for the National Park Service, an oral history project to document the city-council management form of government in Arizona, and interpretive signage on the canal banks in the Phoenix area.
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Courses
Core courses include:
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Public History Methodology, which develops research techniques and practices appropriate for public historians, using a problem-solving approach, a wide range of issues and topics through readings, case studies, short papers, oral presentations, and a research project.
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U.S. Cultural Institutions and Public Practice, which focuses on roles that public historians and cultural institutions play in U.S. society and prepares historians to understand practices in museums, historic preservation, archaeology, cultural landscapes, folklore, and ethnography.
Elective courses include:
- Historians and Preservation, which presents the political, regulatory and cultural history of historic preservation in the United States and provides each student a hands-on project to gain experience in the field.
- Historical Administration, which focuses on leadership, management, marketing, and grant writing. The course prepares historians to administer archives; historical sites, museums, and societies; and offices in government agencies.
- Community History, which focuses on the changing role and character of American communities. The course prepares historians to evaluate central elements of community including family, neighborhood, church, school, fraternal and other voluntary organizations, politics, and government.
- Public History Seminar, which focuses on acquiring new research tools and refining writing and communication skills, prepares historians to write legislative histories, to work on a team land use history, to conduct oral interviews, and to write a targeted research paper, typically a chapter of a master's thesis.
- Historical Resource Management, which focuses on the physical remains of historic sites, landscapes, buildings, structures, districts, and artifacts, and examines the theories that underlie the discovery, analysis, treatment, interpretation, and preservation of cultural resources.
- International Public Practice, which examines the theory and practice of cultural resource management outside the United States and focuses on international organizations such as UNESCO and ICOMOS and the role they play in promoting and aiding resource protection around the globe. This class uses the internet extensively to keep up with changing approaches and regulations.
- Scholarly Publishing courses, including Introduction to Scholarly Publishing, Scholarly Editing, Advanced Scholarly Editing, and Research in Scholarly Publishing.
Short Courses
Students complete at least two Short Courses offered by visiting professional historians either before the opening of the spring semester in January or during the spring semester break.
Through discussions, readings, and projects, visiting scholars introduce students to the issues and challenges they will encounter as public historians.
Since 1982, we have been proud to host an esteemed group of scholars across a variety of fields and interests. Recent instructors include Jo Blatti (Director, Old Independence Historical Museum, Batesville, Arkansas), Gregory M. Britton (Director, Minnesota Historical Society Press), Charles Bryan Jr. (Executive Director, Virginia Historical Society), Benjamin Filene (University of North Carolina–Greensboro), James Gardner (Associate Director, National Museum of American History), Arthur Gomez (Historian, Intermountain Cultural Resource Center, National Park Service), Brian Horrigan (Exhibit Curator, Minnesota Historical Society), Arnita Jones (Executive Director, American Historical Association), Dan Jordan (Executive Director, Monticello), Cynthia Koch (Director of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum), Roger Launius, (Chair, Division of Space History, National Air and Space Museum), William Lindsay ( CFO , Harvard University Press), Steve Lubar (Brown University), Fiona McCrae (Graywolf Press), Marilyn Nickels (American Battlefield Protection Program, National Park Service), Gale Peterson (Executive Director, Ohio Humanities Council), Dwight Pitcaithley (Chief Historian, National Park Service--retired), Daniel Ross (Director, University of Nebraska Press), Susan Rossen (Executive Director of Publications, the Art Institute of Chicago), Raymond Smock (Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies, Inc), Constance Ramirez (Historian), Dan Spock (Director, History Center Museum, Minnesota Historical Society), Robert Spude (Program Manager, Cultural Resources and National Register Programs, National Park Service--Santa Fe), Marie Tyler-McGraw (National Park Service--retired), and Jamil Zainaldin (President, Georgia Humanities Council).
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Public History Internships
Every public history student completes an internship, which varies from a full-time, eight-week program to a half-time sixteen-week program. Most internships offer a stipend, and each position provides experience useful for future jobs. The director of the Scholarly Publishing program assists students in arranging summer internships with publishers, or with documentary editing projects. Internships for the business and policy history areas of specialty familiarize students with work experience relevant to future positions in the field. Students in historical administration work on specific projects or on a variety of programs in historic sites or museums, which helps them define future employment areas of interest. In the preservation area, students work with public preservation offices or private consultants. Students in community history may conduct oral histories; write local histories; or work in museums, historical societies, or other public agencies.
Some recent interning institutions include the Arizona Department of Water Resources, Arizona Highways, Arizona Historical Society, Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, Beacon Press, Boston National Historic Park, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, College Football Hall of Fame, El Paso History Museum, History Division of the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, Louisiana State Historical Preservation Office, Mesa Southwest Museum, Minnesota Historical Society Press, Museum of Northern Arizona, National Academy Press, National Health Museum, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, Ohio State University Press, The Oryx Press, Phoenix Historic Preservation Office, Phoenix Museum of History, Prentice-Hall, Pueblo Grande Museum and Cultural Park, Roosevelt/Vanderbilt National Historic Site, Salt River Project, Scottsdale Historic Preservation Office, Smithsonian Institution, State Archives of Arizona, Tempe Historical Museum, University of Arizona Press, University of California Press, University of Illinois Press, Veterans Museum of Wisconsin, Wisconsin State Historic Preservation Office, and Yale University Press.
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Application Procedure
Financial Assistance
Research and teaching assistantships, loans, and work-study aid are available. The amount of aid ranges from a partial or full tuition to stipends for the academic year with full or partial tuition coverage and health insurance.
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Contact Information
Susan Valeri
Office: COOR 4481
Phone: 480-965-5775
Fax: 480-965-0310
Email: public.history@asu.edu
Email: Susan.Valeri@asu.edu
Nancy Dallett
Academic Professional
Coor 4498
Phone: (480) 965-9367
Email: nancy.dallett@asu.edu
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