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From the Frontline to the Picket Line: Public History and the Cultural Labor Revolution
Shaffer, Alanna
Shaffer, Alanna
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Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2020
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Department
History
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DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/329
Abstract
A dramatic wave of unionizing in the museum world over the past year has
sparked new conversations about labor and collective organizing throughout the cultural
sector. Yet while those at the forefront of these conversations hope to leverage this
moment into a cohesive movement, cultural labor activism has manifested in different
ways throughout the cultural sector. This thesis seeks to understand the specific role of
public history within the recent movement, through interviews with staff members
involved in organizing efforts at their museum/historic site and media coverage of both
successful and failed union drives.
The goal of this work is to bring together the many disparate threads of
conversation surrounding cultural labor activism to highlight the specific ways that public
historical work prevents social movements. This thesis will build upon an existing yet
nascent scholarship on public historical labor to contextualize this moment in a way that
will appeal to a broad cross section of cultural workers. This analysis also offers potential
solutions to build on the momentum of this current cultural revolution, such as calling on
professional organizations like the National Council of Public History to become a player
in the fight for public history labor protections.
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