Public History and Public Policy

I found this article talking about starting up walking tours, and family and immigration history projects in Boston and thought it was cool.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/tph.2010.32.2.62.pdf

Here is a little summary of the article.



In this article about Boston’s innovated and historical past, by Robert Krim, we see what it is like to rebrand a city by showing the city’s history and its past with innovation. His project was a collaboration to show people Boston’s history, other than the famous Freedom Trail. This project or collaborative brought about the “Literary Trail”, “Boston by the Sea”, a history project on families and immigrants, plays and “Innovation Odyssey”.

This collaborative came about from a renewal of interest in history, a change in Boston’s social, physical, and cultural environment, and the recognition of tourism’s impact on the economy. With the renewal of interest in history, Krim thought he could show people another side of Boston, since most of the focus of Boston’s history was on the Revolutionary War. At first not many people backed Krim’s ideas until he went on NPR’s talk show “The Connection” hosted by Christopher Lydon. After tons of research was put into these projects, they started working on them.          

The Family and Immigration History Project was a web based project where families could trace back family lines if they were rooted in Boston.  The people could be linked to the Genealogical services, the national and state archives, and other local history services.  The “Boston by the Sea” tour would take people through the harbor to the Tea Party Site, the USS Constitution, and they would watch clips of biographies on television screens on the tour, and they would also see live skits played out.  The projects saw ups and downs and finally came up with showing the innovation history of the city.