Spring 2023 Newsletter Feature
The newly established H. Duane Hampton Public History Program has been expanding rapidly, with growing numbers of both undergraduate and graduate students taking advantage of our many classes, internships, certificates, and work opportunities.
Torrie Cooney, who interned with the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, came up with the idea of an exhibit of all the historical clothes in the museum’s collections. The exhibit, “Undressing History,” has been very popular and received coverage on the front page of the Missoulian.
Kali Zaglauer was an associate producer on a new documentary, Hidden Stories: Montana's Black Past, about Montana's surprising African-American history. Zaglauer worked with the Montana Historical Society on the project.
Several students have worked with historian Dee Garceau on the forthcoming documentary film, A Different, Deadly Beast: The 1918 Influenza in Montana. The UM history interns were Kevin Mobley (Fall 2021- Fall 2022), Kym MacEwan (Fall 2021), Chad Keller (Fall 2022) and Ginger Duncan (Fall 2022). The film will be finished in July 2023.
Eric Zimmer’s Spring 2023 US Environmental History Class undertook a collaborative project with the Montana Natural History Center (MNHC) in Missoula. Funded by the MNHC and a grant from the UM Experiential Learning Faculty Support Fund, the class worked to examine, inventory, and preserve more than 75,000 35mm slides donated by Dr. Herman William “Bill” Gabriel, a graduate of the UM College of Forestry (PhD 1976) and lifelong advocate for wild places.
Other student interns worked on projects that involved editing manuscripts, digitizing and cataloging historical documents, creating interactive maps, creating virtual tours, and diving for archeological artifacts off the coast of Scotland!
Students have also had the opportunity to hear from a range of practicing public historians. Speakers that have come to campus to talk with students included Michael Kustudia, a state park manager whose job blends historical interpretation with resource management; Emma Selfors, the collections manager from the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula; and Kayla Blackman from Historical Research Associates. Finally, we had a very special visit from Professor Martin Melosi, an eminent environmental historian and founder of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. Professor Melosi gave a talk titled "History Matters: What We can Learn by Practicing Public History," which discussed a variety of public history projects and considered what worked, what didn’t, and why they were significant.