The Digital Shadow

Last term in our course on Digital History, I believe I got the reputation of being the anti-digital crank. I even wrote a blog post in my own defence.

In the 24 February Globe & Mail of this year, in an article on our society’s increasing individual isolation, author Erin Anderssen refers to what is called a “digital shadow.” A digital shadow includes, among other things, “a camera phone [that] makes it possible to document that rush-hour fender-bender or to record a farewell to your loved ones if you’re trapped in an avalanche”[1].

I could add a few other things to this list, but suffice it to say that this idea is both novel, and old, to me. I've thought of it before, but I always considered it more of a leash than a shadow. But I like the shadow metaphor better. It's darker, perhaps more looming.

And ominous.

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[1]: Erin Anderssen quoting John Pliniussen, The Globe and Mail, 24 February 2007, F6.

Canadian History Podcasts?

A few months ago, I decided to drop my guard against all things digital. Well, not all things. But a good number of them. One of the digital technologies I have since embraced is podcasting.

Podcasts, for those unfamiliar with the term, are sort of like digital radio programs you can listen to on a computer or mobile audio player. (With the introduction of video to the world of portable music players, some podcasts have also taken to offering visual complements to their audio files, but I will not delve into that realm in this post.)

In a December blog post, Joel Ralph, a graduate of the UWO’s Public History Program (in which I am currently enrolled), wrote about history podcasts. I, too, had been thinking about that topic all last semester. Ever since enrolling in Digital History, I’ve searched – and found quite a few – podcasts suited to my liking. Unfortunately, though, not one of the podcasts I regularly listen to are about history (My interest in history tends to focus on Canadian content. If I were to broaden my scope, I am certain that I’d find many more podcasts that deal with history. Joel even mentioned a few in his blog).

One organization that is, I believe, really making quite a lot of headway in podcasting is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I first stumbled upon a podcast called All in the Mind, hosted by Natasha Mitchell. Actually, just like Alan Cross’s The Ongoing History of New Music podcast, All in the Mind is really a radio show that is also available in podcast format. One of the reasons I like All in the Mind is that I am constantly educated and entertained. Scouring the ABC podcast site, I found some other very interesting podcasts, not the least of which were two history podcasts, Verbatim and Hindsight.

Compared to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Aussies have us licked. There are probably 40 or 50 podcasts on the ABC website, compared with only 27 at the CBC.

The CBC conducted a survey in December 2005 about who downloads their podcasts, and how and when those people listen. Unfortunately – for people interested in history – the results are not promising. As the summary of the survey notes, “When asked what kind of content Canadians want from CBC Radio podcasts, the overwhelming response was for national news, current affairs and music.”

Again, I should point out that all of the podcasts on both sites are really radio shows put into podcast format. And seeing as the ABC and CBC are already equipped with the technology, the people, the budgets, and their respective brand names, the appeal to potential listeners is likely greater than for some schmo producing podcasts out of his two-bedroom flat in London, Ontario (I toyed with the idea of making some of my own history podcasts to fill the void in content I mentioned earlier. It's on hold for now.).

Browsing the web for Canadian history podcasts, I, too, like Joel, did a Google search for “history + podcast” and received these results:




One interesting thing that appears is that two of the first ten results are military history podcasts. Not surprising really, considering that, in my view, many people practicing history outside the academic realm tend to like – and therefore engage with – military history. Just walk into a large bookstore like Chapters or Indigo, and look at the history books. More likely than not, the portion allotted to military history will be as large or larger than the entire remaining history section.

Note, however, that there are over 63 million hits on that Google search. 63 MILLION! Well, there is no way there are 63 million history podcasts out there. So, utilizing the skills I acquired in my digital history class this term, I played with my search a little. This time I tried “’history podcast,’” with quotation marks around the phrase, and no addition symbol. It trimmed down the results significantly:



Instead of 63 million hits, I got about 78,000. Two are still devoted specifically to military history, but more of these results focus on history education than in the previous search.

Conversely, and these results are by no means inclusive, a search in the iTunes Store of podcasts with the word “history,” reveals only thirty podcasts. Four of those podcasts are the same: Alan Cross’ The Ongoing History of New Music, so the total number of history podcasts available through iTunes is really twenty-seven. Of those twenty-seven, only six fall under the “History” category. Fourteen fall under “Education” or “Higher Education” or “K-12” (another way of saying “Education”). “Podcasts,” “Music,” “Places & Travel,” “Tech News,” “TV & Film,” and “Visual Arts” make up the remaining podcasts’ categorization:

Search: “history”
6 history
14 education
2 podcasts
1visual arts
1 places and travel
1 tech news
1 music
1 tv and film

Joel’s focus for history podcasts appears, by the name of his blog, to be about education, and more specifically, education as it occurs in the classroom. I like my history to be entertaining and broader in audience, which makes my search for history podcasts troubling.

First, one could conclude that I think education and entertainment are incompatible, which is simply not true. The disappointing outcome of my search is largely the result of the (admittedly) narrow scope of my subject matter (Canadian history). I do not think that by virtue of something being educational it is naturally devoid of entertainment value. I am both educated and entertained all the time. Take Alan MacEachern, for example. He teaches me and makes me laugh, often at once.

The second problem with my search results is the implication that history is not entertaining. Anyone who has seen Band of Brothers, the HBO six-part series on a Second World War U.S. Airborne Company, should be able to tell you otherwise.

I think podcasts present an interesting venue for public history creators. We talked about it in our class on numerous occasions. So where are all the entertaining Canadian history podcasts?

Another Google First

Wow.



I can only imagine the sirens and whooping going on down at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway.

The hissy fits happening around the world must be horrendous.

What happens when a googol of people are disappointed with Google? Does the world dissolve into a black hole? Does time as we know it stand still?

Or do we simply move on, acknowledging with relish the chinks in our gods' armour?

Personal Histories: What Use?

I read the Globe & Mail yesterday. I try to read the paper, any paper, whenever I can, but find it difficult with all the reading I have for school. Regardless, the back page of the Globe's front section, or rather, the "Facts & Arguments" section, contains an article by Chana Thau called "The Tale of a Lifetime." [1] It is about the growth of personal histories and historians and the (arguable) importance of that specific branch of history.

Thau herself is a personal historian (the author of two biographies), and thinks that personal histories are important and worthwhile. I like her use of Mark Twain's claim that "There was never yet an uninteresting life...Inside the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy."

The key in what Twain said, though, lies in audience and presentation. I can agree that history is life, and life is interesting. And the everyday things that make up a life are ever so important. But do these personal stories really matter?

Of course they matter. Especially for those whose stories they are. And, as I will get to in a moment, they will matter to future historians.

First, though, it comes as no surprise to me that the demographic group who make up the majority of personal historians ("The demographics are interesting. Most of us [at the 12th annual conference of the Association of Personal Historians] were in our fifties, sixties and seventies") are of the same generation who grew up in the heyday of social history [2], where the small story is paramount.

Beginning in the 1960s, many historians (though certainly not all; see Jack Granatstein for a stellar Canadian example) in western societies turned their backs on "big" histories that focus on "white men in suits," histories about politicians and other powerful figures. Instead, social historians often sought (and still seek) to uncover some aspect of the past via a relative unknown, some dark corner of history that was previously ignored. Women's history does this to great effect, as do other histories of marginalized or otherwise ignored groups or individuals.

So personal historians are doing what they do as a logical extension of what their history teachers no doubt told them. If the story of a relatively unknown nineteenth century Ukrainian-Canadian Manitoba housewife is important to know and understand, it follows that the personal historians' own stories, and the stories of their families do - and should - matter. As Carling points out, however, history is often only interesting to us when we can see its connection to our own lives. So while I agree that it is all well and good for personal historians to keep doing what they are doing, don't - and I do not think for a second that they do - expect me to read, or want to read, anyone's personal history.

I liken personal histories (personal historians, it seems, are just biographers with a new name) to the oil paintings that once hung (perhaps still hang?) in the houses of wealthy élites depicting their family heritage ("Here is great-great grandfather Jeremy, Earl of Haffordshire"; "Here we see my great uncle Bertram, Archduke of Brandenburg").

That these personal historians are themselves the legatees of the social historians who so despised big political histories, then - the histories of great men and their great accomplishments - is to my mind a funny paradox. Because to me, personal historians engage in the very same kind of history as the wealthy people of the past: they paint pictures of themselves, often in a flattering light, so that their families and others may look upon them in the future and remember their greatness.

The idea of personal history is inherently selfish (and I mean that in the most favourable way possible). As Thau points out in the conclusion to her article, by writing personal histories, "you can create a priceless legacy for current and future generations." And, as Bill Turkel might argue, a rich well for future historians to plumb. I think personal histories will better serve as primary source documents for future historians, rather than tales to be told today. By documenting (or archiving, if you will), your personal story, you are leaving it, with all its historical flaws, for future historians to examine and interpret.

Again, though, don't expect me to read it. I am happy that people are doing this. I think it is valuable. I may even write a few myself. But as a commercial product, and in my opinion as a public historian, personal histories are worthless. I don't particularly enjoy archival research; I can do it, and I can do it well, but it is not what I like most about historical work. And since, as I already said, the best place for these personal histories is in archives, they offer me very little interest.

Just as the bulk of written history from the nineteenth century and backward that a historian can access today is mostly only that of élites, by having people write personal histories now, future historians will be able to get a broader, richer look at our world and the people who inhabited it. To be sure, historians like Laurel Thatcher Ulrich have developed novel ways to examine non-élite life in earlier periods (See for example her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Midwife's Tale, in which she examines the everyday life of an eighteenth century New England midwife. She even manages to make it interesting.). And the written word is certainly not the be-all and end-all of sources for historians. But by leaving for future generations some clues, some hints of ourselves through these written histories, I think we will serve them well. And for bringing this to mind, I thank Chana Thau.


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[1]: Like Lauren, the Globe's (and other publications') unwillingness to allow readers to see their content online frustrates me. If I want to, I can stroll down to my local library and read old papers on the shelf or on microfilm, anyway, so why make life so hard for us online visitors? They should be happy we are reading their newspapers at all.

[2]: I would have included the wikipedia entry for social history (There. I gave it to you. Are you happy?), but I do not like the definition it gives. So I present it in this footnote with a qualifier. Humph.

A Comedic History Break

This comic from Pearls Before Swine captures exactly how I often feel about history and its aficionados:




I fell off my chair when I read this. Really. Right off.

Have you ever experienced the horror of telling someone a historical nugget that, to you, is intensely interesting, only to look at the receiver of your tale and see a thick, clear glaze over their eyes? It seems to happen to me almost every time I open my mouth.

To the historian, be they amateur or professional, tidbits of history like the one in the comic above can seem like the blood of everyday life. To others, though, they may (read: most likely) are irrelevant and dull. Part of the reason why I enrolled in the Public History program at Western was an idealistic bent of mine that wants to improve upon history-telling of the sort depicted in Pearls Before Swine.

I do not think that history has to be boring, but I admit that it often is. I have no prescription for how to change this. All I can say is that I know interesting history when I see (or hear, or read, or listen to) it, but that what is interesting to me may be lifeless to another.

I didn't mean for this post to be intellectual at all; I just wanted to share the comic. Then I got thinking about it and dug a little hole from which I cannot seem to extricate myself. So instead of trying to climb out, I'll dig deeper and request that anyone with an interest in history think before they next speak about a history topic. You may be doing more harm than good.

Public History: In Need of an Attitude Adjustment

As part of the University of Western Ontario’s Public History Program, we students must complete an internship over the four-month summer term (May-August). To help us find our internships, and clarify some questions, we had three guest speakers come to our class last month. Two are museum professionals, while the other works in the private sector as an historical consultant.

It was a great experience, and I, for one, learned a lot from the speakers. I take issue, however, with two ideas our guests presented.

The first is the negligible credibility of practicing history. One guest suggested that to be able to practice history as a career is a privilege. Fair enough, I suppose. But the same can be said for many other jobs, so this assertion really doesn’t carry much weight with me.

My real contention with the claim, though, came when the speaker suggested that it is a privilege to practice history because 150 years ago, doing history was only the purview of wealthy élite men.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I am all for looking to the past to understand the present, but that, to me, smacks of living in the past. Sure, only rich men wrote history in the nineteenth century and before, but today’s world is much, much different. Today, history is about more than just élites, and therefore can justifiably be practiced, I think, by people of all demographic backgrounds. That is a bit of a simplistic argument, I know. But to suggest that we should feel privileged today because 150 years ago only the privileged did what we do is simply irrational.

My second complaint with the guest speakers relates to the first, and has to do with compensation within the public history field, a topic about which I wrote in a previous post. Connected with the notion that we are privileged if we practice history in the public realm is the idea that we therefore ought not to be paid well for it. The payment, so goes this line of thinking, is in the very fact that we get to practice history.

What a complete crock. Historians – and public historians, especially – add worth to their communities by providing understanding and culture. That makes us valuable, wouldn’t you say? As Molly recently wrote, “Historians have a skill set just like anyone else. Other professionals are able to lay ideology aside and get on with saving the world.” And those professionals are, more often than not, handsomely paid for the use of their skill set. While Molly would like to see a world in which we historians offer our services to those in need, I think we need to service ourselves before we can help others.

Well, that was rude, Bryan. A little too blunt, don’t you think?

Yes, yes. You’re right, Bryan. My point is that engineers and medecins who offer their services with little thought for themselves can afford to do so because the training they receive and skills they possess have value, whether real or perceived. Thus, their full-time careers provide them with sufficient remuneration so as to be able to afford to offer themselves up for free at other times.

No historian would, I believe, compare what we offer to the public with saving a life. Nonetheless, until historians start to see the real worth in what we bring to the public, or until we can convince the public that what we offer them is of value, we will continue to starve and our institutions will continue to suffer.

A Public's View of Public History

Reading through the Introduction to Fanshawe Pioneer Village's 40th Anniversary Commemorative booklet, I was struck by the simplicity of the following sentence:

"The Village offers a glimpse into the past through costumed volunteers, who re-enact the chores, pastimes and occupations of the late-19th and early-20th centuries in an authentic period setting."

Wow.

Over the last four years I have heard or read the phrase "a glimpse into the past" countless times at other museums, living history sites, in books and movies, and on television and websites. Most of us, in fact, have probably heard it more than we know. It is a refrain so ubiquitous in (Canadian) popular history as to border on cliché. But never before did that specific arrangement of words hit me the way they did today.

It made me realize that I am jaded in my view of history (some might replace jaded with "educated," or"enlightened." Sure.). I remember recognizing - at some point in my undergraduate career - that my degree in history was eroding the innocent notion of history I had held for most of my life. What was replacing it was an understanding that the past was by no means as real or as tangible as I thought.

This "glimpse of the past" realization, however, was important because it will change my approach to how I present history to the public. I realize now how it is I used to think of history, which, I assume, is also how many people without academic training in historical thought might also view it (for the record, and in spite of the snootiness of this point of view, I think they do). Many people must arrive at places like Fanshawe Pioneer Village truly believing that they are visiting the past, or at least witnessing what the past looked like. Not as though they have traveled back in time, mind you, but that the people they are seeing in the present are thinking and acting in the exact ways that people in the past did. This realization is important because it gives me a clearer understanding of the expectations of the visitor / viewer / consumer of public history.

As public historians, is it our job to inform the public that no, you are not actually seeing the past, stupid, that the past is gone, never to return? Or should we aid in the suspension of disbelief necessary to further the public's engagement with some sort of semblance of the past? To take the former approach is to adopt a more academic view than the public may care to hear. But to take the latter is to fail on some level in educating the public about the past.

Maybe we should do both. Hopefully we do both. Perhaps the success of a blend of the two depends on the medium or form the "glimpse into the past" takes; I have no answer for that. I do know this, though: like Kevin, I am hungry.