Public History and New London

Public History and New London

Public history has many different definitions depending on who you ask. Robert Kelley, the inventor of the term, defined it as “The employment of historians and historical method outside of academia.”. While this description is absolutely correct, it is quite broad. I believe that the most important part of public history is taking dry, academic history and making it accessible and interesting, and then presenting it to the public in an engaging way. Mead’s Tavern and historic New London are perfect examples of this, or rather they could and hopefully one day will be.

        Without this sign there would be

no way to know of

               New London's significance

.

The first thing that I thought of while Mr. Lichtenburger, was talking about New London’s history was that I expected it to be bigger, considering how important it was in its prime. This served as a reminder of how different things were back then. It is obvious now that a frontier town would be small at the time no matter how important it was, but I had never really considered how small it would actually be. Being able to walk from one side of the town to the other made me think about how different life was back then.

Another thing I was intrigued by were the traces of the original town that

could still be seen. Not just buildings, but depressions in the ground where structures used to be. Gaps in fences where roads were in the original layout. I probably would not have noticed little things like these, but once they were pointed out to me it made me wonder what other traces there were to be found. It made me start thinking “why?”. Why is this there and not over there? Why is something one way, when it could be another? It could be coincidence or it could be significant. The only way to find out is to research. I think the “why?” question is an essential question for any historian, public or academic.

These additions help illustrate the cycle.

One last thing that I noticed in New London was the cycle that buildings go through over time. Most buildings go through a cycle of construction, abandonment, conversion, abandonment, demolition, and finally new construction. The cycle does not always follow that pattern exactly, but almost every building goes through some version of it eventually. What was interesting to me, was that there were many example of the cycle completing itself, and one example where it did not. The one example of course, was Mead’s Tavern. The building is hardly unaltered, as the picture demonstrates, but the original structure is still standing. The rest of New London however, has come and gone many times over the years. I find it fascinating how the entire cycle can be seen in the space of a few blocks. Original construction at Mead’s, the abandoned doctor’s office across the street, Mead’s was converted and added onto many times, almost every original structure has been demolished and replaced with new construction.

New London is a chance to see public history in action. Opportunities for restoration, interpretation, and presentation are all there. The possibilities are many, and it will be fascinating to see what happens.