This week we read Beyond
Preservation: Using Public History to Revitalize Inner Cities by Andrew
Hurley, and "I: Claiming Urban
Landscapes as Public History" in
The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History by Dolores Hayden.
These two books brought to light the difficulties and rewards of using history
to revitalize and preserve urban communities. Hayden's book drives home the
idea that places are marked with different meanings for many different people.
Hayden explains that it is important to remember that places are embedded with
shared memory, and shared meaning. That being said, it is vital to include all peoples' pasts in the narrative that
is presented to the community. Cultural identity can be connected with places, so
reaching out to the community can give an inclusive direction to a nonprofit's
project. Hayden really practiced what she preached, so to speak. She founded
the nonprofit, The Power of Place,
in Los Angeles, and engaged with people from many different backgrounds on her
projects. Hayden came from a background in architecture and worked with historians,
designers, and artists in her nonprofit work. This is very inspiring to me to
see a woman coming from an interdisciplinary background and working so well
with many different people; I hope to be like that one day in the field.
Beyond Preservation
is also about using history to better understand urban spaces, but takes it a
step further by explaining how public history can be used to revitalize inner
cities. Hurley explains that by using public history to revitalize inner
cities, there is the possibility of cultivating a shared sense of purpose and
belonging. Hurley notes that over the years, cities have used urban historic
revitalization as a means of generating profit from tourism and of bringing in
higher-income families. Though there are economic benefits to any
revitalization, the problem with focusing only
on the economic benefits is losing sight of the community as a whole. Hurley
discusses ways to avoid the displacement of poorer residents, and the exclusion
of non-elite voices. "In recovering the voices and material culture of
non-elite groups, archaeology and oral history facilitate the construction of counter
narratives that decouple the concepts of inner city and slum". (Hurley 184).
Both of the readings brought up methods of public history that I had never
given a lot of thought to before, as terrible as that sounds. As an undergrad,
I had always assumed I would eventually be using public history in a large institution.
Hurley and Hayden both reference nonprofit work, "bottom-up" history,
and grassroots organizations. Starting from the bottom and allowing the
community to define the historical questions they want answered is an extremely
effective way of building community ties with historic sites. There is more
than one way to work with public history, and using a community as your #1
resource is a great approach. I also never gave much thought to using history
in inner city revitalization. I knew it was happening in many cities, but it
seemed sort of inauthentic to me. Hurley explains that there are ways to
revitalize inner cities without just focusing on the rehabilitation of
buildings, and instead focusing on the community's ties to the building(s), and
their shared memories of that space. This does not just mean telling the story
of "happier times", but opening lines of communication and sharing
honest narratives of the good times and the not-so-good times; the times which
people have struggled through together
as a community.
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