Shelley Reid, Austin College
I. A view of the future's Public History
A. Theories about "core curriculum" courses.
B. Bernard Lummerman (business mogul) and Georgette Simms (ambassador)
1. EuroCaucasian
2. Upper Middle Class
3. Suburban
4. Protestant
C. Conclusions -- HWC students think the class is
1. relevant
2. exciting
3. easy
4. useful
D. If Bernard and Georgette think so, it must be true.
(or not...)
E. The limitations of Public History
1. Public history is often incomplete
2. Public history often generalizes, incorrectly, about "the masses"
II. Judith Shakespeare
A. Created by V. Woolf who was trying to find information about previous women
B. Imagined as living in the late 1500s, but representative of many later women's lives
C. Judith gives us a face to put in "the masses"
1. Masses composed of individuals
2. 50% of masses are women
3. Individuals in the masses may be intelligent and/or oppressive
D. If Judith was in "the masses" at an event, why? if not, why not?
E. Judith lets us see the community's support and inertia
1. What happens if we educate women?
2. Community response: don't deviate from the norm
3. Judith may not be successful
4. Progress is not linear
III. John Shakespeare
A. 13 years old, living in the early 1700s
B. John's family life
C. John's stats:
1. Low literacy
2. Possible 81-hour work week
3. Low life expectancy
D. John represents a large part of the population
E. Poor taxes as social pressure
F. John's motivations (Hobbesian? Lockean?)
G. John's difficulty participating in Enlightenment conversations
IV. Martha Ballard
A. Midwife living in Maine in the late 1700s/early 1800s
B. 27-year-diary
C. Martha's busy life
D. Family life in the 1700s
1. Large family size
2. High infant and mother mortality rates
E. Why didn't/couldn't women participate? (separate spheres)
F. How Martha was already participating in Enlightenment ideas
Ordinary people can become figures in public history.
V. Frederick Douglass
A. Slave born in Maryland in the early 1800s
B. Reasons for slave non-individuality
1. Limited self-identity
2. Limited family support
3. No control over individual private life
4. No public recognition
C. Douglass nevertheless striving to be a "mature, Enlightened human"
D. Douglass's move from invisibility to public stature
VI. Summary
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This page last modified 3/98