Something of the Past, Present, or Future: Analyzing Collegiate Awareness of the Modernization of Historical Thought

Public History is a modern idea crafted to merge both professional and public interests in the dissemination of history. Its primary aim is to link different subjects to the practice of historical study, allowing the departments to flourish together within the public sphere. In many ways, it is the act of reorganizing historical information for the sake of appealing to broader audiences and hoping to improve those public communities. Benjamin Shambaugh, a primary contributor to the inception of public history, based his work in the idea of an ‘applied history.’ As defined by Shambaugh, an ‘applied history’ became the “collecting, preserving, publishing, and using history for the greater good of the state.” This ‘commonwealth history’ was Shambaugh’s new approach to publicizing history as a means to aid society rather than merely educate it. Its ambition and conception was not foreign to historians, but the direct actions taken by Shambaugh and others during the 20th century, have paved roads for projects such as the 1619 Project, hoping to provide sources as both educational and practically useful to general publics. My aim in introducing this project and examination is to create a piece of public history reflecting Shambaugh's work while also researching the impacts public history projects have had on society.Bachelor of Art