This semester’s course on Digital Public History introduced us to the role of the pubic historian.  We learned about how to collaborate with an audience and how to create a digital history project. For the public historian, the process and methods used are the same as the historian working within academia, but instead of working in isolation or towards publishing historical analyses, the public historian works in conjunction with others to share their findings and results. 

My initial interest in creating a digital project in collaboration with the public was based on hand knitting and the 2017 Women’s March. Previously I had completed a research project on the history of hand knitting, which included a section on how hand knitting can be used as a means of resistance. As part of the early process, we were taught to interview several people who could be potential audience members, based on their profiles and interests. After interviewing a few participants from the 2017 Women’s March who also enjoy hand knitting, plus posing the question on several social media sites, I decided to focus my project on the 2017 Women’s March based on the feedback I received. 

The concept of personas can be a helpful tool for the public historian in identifying the type of person who would potentially make up an audience. Personas are built around common characteristics and interests, and become imaginary audience members. For my project documenting images and stories of the 2017 Women’s March, I used social media platforms and conversations with several participants to create prototypes of the type of person who would utilize a website dedicated to preserving the memories of the historic event. 

Public historians work in collaboration with others. In developing a prototype for a website dedicated to the 2017 Women’s March, I reached out to experts for help. I scheduled several appointments with the Digital Scholarship Consultants at George Mason University for assistance with how to design a digital website. They recommended Omeka themes that could best serve my topic idea, and which plugins I should consider installing. They offered feedback and suggestions on how to improve the overall design. The team at Reclaim Hosting, the web server that hosts the open source web platform Omeka, was also supportive in fixing some parts of the website that I was unable to change on my own (removing “Mykitchen” from the URL). 

In developing a digital, interactive public history project this semester, we had the opportunity to experience the core tenants of the field of public history. We worked in collaboration with an audience to create a digital platform that can bring members of a community together, based on historical events and shared memories that are meaningful to them.