What is Public History

The success of the Public Relations marketplace in a country like Nigeria is a partial indication of the essence of Public History.If we take into consideration that Public Relations is simply an aggregate of efforts and initiatives to create a better understanding between a company and its publics.And in this realm of Public History,it is simply the offer of Historical services to family foundations,trade associations,private museums,companies and by doing the Oral History projects of eminent persons or events.

Posters:on the life of J.K.Randle in Lagos,Nigeria during the renovation of the Centre and the Cultural Day Carnival by the Lagos-Island East L.C.D.A

The Limitations of Public History

In Nigeria,there is that institutional limit on the practice areas of Public Historians due to the Acts that created the National Commission For Museums and Monuments.Both the decree and the revised act of 2004 affirmed the objectives of the agency as follows:to identify,document, preserve,manage and display to the public for education,information and entertainment the heritage of Nigeria.And to this first limit we must add the limit of geography/place of residence.Because,it is practical for budding Public Historians to seek portfolio building initiatives within their place of residence,rather than travelling to far away local government areas in search of Public History assignments.

Who is a Public Historian

By accepting the fact that the mission of the Public Historian is to offer Historical services that enable the public to have a better understanding of Historical events or themes.We must recognise,that a section of Public Historians are of the opinion that this definition is not adequate,as they consider Public History to be exclusively any Historical work,outside the circuit of academic institutions.However, these observations published by Lee Anderson and Kathy Penningroth,After a varied series of contracts in the History of Medecine,Pharmacy and Nursing,we have come to see ourselves as true Public Historians,in the Perspectives of January 1997(titled Is There Life After Graduate School, Maybe in Public History),clarified the issue of who is a Public Historian.

 | PH workshop | article  |  article |