Readings Response: Communities and Their Pasts

Michael Frisch in the introduction to his collection A Shared Authority tackles questions of authorship and the divide between both traditional historians and public historians as well as between public communities and historians. Public history shines through as a way to “redefine and redistribute intellectual authority.” (xx) Intellectual authority is a central issue in both oral history and community history projects.

The Oral History Manual provides a straightforward instructional guide for students and professionals about to embark on an oral history project. The authors are clear about everything with the exception of the origins of oral history, at which the writing’s tone becomes defensive. They dismiss the Federal Writers Project and resulting slave narratives, instead focusing on the more journalistic post-WWII soldier interviews as a precursor to oral history as an established research methodology. Though limited by the technologies and social structures of the time, the goal of the slave narratives is in line with that of oral history, as defined by the authors. It is as if admitting that oral history has roots in the traditions of folklorists would somehow discredit the methodology today.

            “When Community Comes Home to Roost” by Leon Fink, is a troublesome piece from beginning to end. It tells of a northern historian’s failed collaboration with the Cooleemee Historical Association (CHA) in North Carolina. The CHA, led by Jim and Lynn Rumley, clearly cares more about preserving a fabricated, romanticized version of the town’s heritage rather than thought provoking historical work. What is worse is that the organization becomes involved in politics with a blatant conservative bias. Worst is the fact Mr. Fink only became disenchanted with the project when the people he thought were left-leaning activists turn out to be conservative. His aversion is not to self-interested activists, but to activists with whom he disagrees.

Fink would best do to take the advice of Michael Frisch. Frisch claims, “It is history, not memory, that can provide the basis for shared reimagination of how the past connects to the present.” (xxiii) The shared part is integral: Fink makes no effort to understand the culture of the white southerners he is dealing with. Fink correlates Civil War reenactments with “sentimentalizing a Jim-Crow ordered social world,” (125) and never goes beyond his initial reaction to understand the meaning of reenactments to the community. In a racially volatile environment the CHA is not doing the community any favors. Neither is Fink.

The conclusion of this article says all the right things. Historians need to be aware of what happens outside of the academe and how academic work can be construed. Likewise, communities need to be aware of the way constructing a positive sense of heritage can manipulate the past. Unfortunately, the self-reflection Fink talks about never extends to his own actions and biases.  

Readings:

Fink, Leon. “When Community Comes Home to Roost: The Southern Milltown as Lost Cause.” Journal of Social History Vol. 40, No. 1 (Autumn 2006), 119-145.

Frisch, Michael. “Introduction.” A Shared Authority. SUNY Press, 1990.

Sommer, Barbara W. & Mary Kay Quinlan. The Oral History Manual. 2^nd ed. Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2009.