Let's Dispense with the Formalities...

[gvgktang]

How and where would you dispense $10,000; $100,000; $1,000,000; and $10,000,000 to have maximum impact for public history?

$10,000

• $3,000 grants to three people of color from low-income neighborhoods.

• These individuals collect the stories of their neighbors, to be uploaded to a shared and collaboratively moderated site/database.

• The remaining $1,000 would fund a community exhibition and event.

$100,000

• $30,000 grants to three grassroots organizations (cultural and social service).

• The organizations collect the stories of their constituents, to be uploaded to a shared and collaboratively moderated site/database.

• The remaining $10,000 would fund a community exhibition and event.

$1,000,000

• $200,000 endowments to five grassroots organizations (cultural and social service).

• The organizations engage in the ongoing collection of the stories of their constituents, to be uploaded to a shared and collaboratively moderated site/database.

• $200,000 would generate $10,000 of general operating support per year (given a 5% return rate).

• This amount would be enough to provide some continued stability and cash flow for small nonprofits.

$10,000,000

• Start a foundation.

• Ten million dollars would generate $500,000 of general operating support per year (given a 5% return rate).

• Grant five $50,000 scholarships for low-income, first generation public history students of color.

• Grant five $50,000 fellowships for faculty of color.

• This guarantees infiltration of the white, middle-class "profession" is both bottom-up and top-down.

^{Courtesy of GIPHY}

---

^{100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment is part of a graduate course at Temple University's Center for Public History and is exploring history and empowering education to endow meaning. To learn more click here.}

Comments

[marvindean]

Looks to me like you rolling in dough I just want little bit

[charliehersh]

Love it, and I appreciate the consideration of investment and growth from these initial amounts.

[phillyhistory]

You may have presented the case for collecting stories at the grassroots level elsewhere in a previous post, but I think the rationale repeated here would strengthen your argument for investment. And can you cite an existing program that would serve as a model?

[gvgktang]

Rationale
The profession has lost touch with the original role of history as a catalyst for social change – as a medium through which to divine collective memory and meaning. As American socialist and feminist Rose Schneiderman once proclaimed, "The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too." It is important that we use our funding to dually support community members' everyday needs, while also fostering interest and investment in past and present legacies. By engaging civically-minded organizations in a collaborative public history project, we would not only draw connections between the academy and the public at large, but between disenfranchised populations themselves.

I do not personally know of an example/model. But it's inevitable that someone has to spearhead a new initiative. It would be invaluable to draw on the community-building, collaborative practices and frameworks of these social service organizations. That's the precedent for grassroots history work.

[phillyhistory]

Thanks! Good stuff.

Reminds me of architect Louis Kahn's poetic speech when he was awarded The American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1971: "A city is measured by the character of its institutions. The street is one of its first institutions. Today, these institutions are on trial. I believe it is so because they have lost the inspirations of
their beginning. The institutions of learning must stem from the undeniable feeling in all of us a desire to learn. I have often thought that this feeling came from the way we were made, that nature records in everything it makes how it was made."

Also reminds me of the Labor Lyceum Movement, which nourished all aspects of the worker's body and spirit and thrived, for a time, in late 19th century industrial neighborhoods. I wrote about it here and here.