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Carol Kammen is honoured by her peers |
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Carol Kammen is honoured by her peers |
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The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) presented local historian Carol Kammen with its prestigious Award of Distinction at the Annual Leadership in History Awards ceremony in Atlanta on 8 September 2007. Carol is a senior lecturer in local history at Cornell University in upper New York State and has been writing about local history for many years. Carol first came to our attention in 1987 when, as editors and publishers of Local History Magazine, we were sent a review copy of Carol’s seminal work On Doing Local History: Reflections on What Local Historians Do, Why, and What It Means. Here was someone who articulated many of our own thoughts and ideas in a language which was understandable wherever one lived and practised local history, while demonstrating that there is nothing parochial about good local history. When Carol wrote ‘Local historians need to be intellectually honest, in order to change what needs to be altered, and challenge that which needs to be questioned’ she really was saying something new, amazing as it may seem in 2007. After reading On Doing Local History we contacted Carol and gained her permission to re-produce her articles about local history, originally published in New York History, in Local History Magazine. When Carol began writing for History News, AASLH kindly allowed the arrangement to continue. We never had the money to pay Carol, but ever since we have corresponded from time to time and exchanged ideas and regard one another as friends. Since Susan and I founded Local History Magazine in 1984, I have probably reviewed more local history articles and books than anyone else in Britain and, as much as I cherish the work of some present day English local historians, it is always Carol that I return to for inspiration and guidance. Carol’s essay, ‘Concerning Footnotes: A token of openness’ from New York History, reprinted in LHM 20 (Dec 1988), is still as relevant today as it was twenty years ago. Her description of what a footnote is has never, in my opinion, been bettered: ‘Footnotes are like rungs on a ladder: each one allows the reader to move along with a writer’s progress through the source material and secondary literature. Footnotes are a roadmap showing where a historian has been: they are a trust left to those who come after us so that they may understand how we know what we write and why we conclude that which we conclude. Footnotes are our badge of honesty, one generation to the next. Without footnotes, history is more an art form: that is, history appears to be the creation of one individual mind. With footnotes the historian is accountable to the past and to the future and history becomes a responsible discipline that can be replicated, that is honest, that can be a shared human experience’. In 1996, Carol edited and contributed to The Pursuit of Local History: Readings on Theory and Practice and in her essay ‘In Search of Common Threads’ argued that ‘local history has common aspects that transcend the particularities of one community or another. And it is those common threads that local historians need to grasp. They must understand that the history of Portland, Oregon, or Pocatello, Idaho, fits into a regional and national context, either as part of a pattern or as apart from that pattern. They must realise that questions of one place can be asked of other localities, thereby creating comparative history. And they must appreciate that local historians have common problems concerning the documents they use, their research methods and strategies, and their presentation. We have a commonality of interest that draws us together’. Her words could so easily be about local history in any of the countries which make up the British Isles, or any other country. Indeed, Carol follows the words quoted above with a section about how local history in England attempted to address the same challenge in the 1950s and 1960s. With the exception of W G Hoskins, there never has been a local historian in England with the ability to reach out to the wider local history community in the same way as Carol has managed to achieve in America. By any measure Carol Kammen is an exceptionally talented local historian. Four years later Carol co-edited the Encyclopedia of Local History with Norma Prendergast and once again demonstrated why she is so special. To identify and then manage the process by which over 130 individuals contributed entries to the encyclopaedia was a magnificent achievement and a mammoth task. By including entries about the state of local history in a selection of other countries Carol provided readers with an all too rare glimpse of the ‘common thread’ which unites local historians across the world. Susan and I contributed an entry on the state of local history in England. In 2004, writing in History News (Vol.59, No.1), Carol addressed ‘The Future Survival of Historical Societies’ and argued that ‘(local historians) have over-organised, just as people in the nineteenth century over-churched’. In England, just as in America, we have seen a growth in local history societies and now, just like America, we see many struggling to survive for want of volunteers and committee members and we wonder about what will happen to the documents and artefacts they have collected. These are issues to be faced and Carol has given voice to the concerns of many and shows how she embraces local history at all levels, from an interest in what is happening in other countries to what is happening in her own county and state. Carol’s latest contribution to History News (Spring 2007) is just the latest in a long line of challenges she has put before her readers. This time it is about renaming streets and buildings. She presents the evidence for and against, interwoven with examples of good and bad practice, but she leaves you in no doubt about her position on this emotive topic: ‘I am in favour of renaming streets and buildings (and) I support the idea of creating local commissions that set guidelines, accept nominations of individual who might be honoured, and designate appropriate new memorial. This places any one decision in a larger context and within a process in which all can participate’. This is a topic which has consumed the attention of historians and political activists alike in different parts of England this year, as we commemorate the 200th anniversary of the law abolishing slave trading and wrestle with the fact that streets and public buildings in many of our towns and cities are named after slave owners and traders. Our debates about the issue would be better informed if we were all able to read Carol’s words beforehand. Carol has written numerous articles on the relationship between local history and social issues, such as race, disadvantage and poverty — topics which all too many local historians avoid because they are fearful of offending some within their local community. In tackling these issues Carol has challenged local historians to confront unspoken truths about their own families and communities. History always takes sides and this is perhaps the quality that we most admire in Carol. Understanding and accepting the challenge of other interpretations of (local) history is not the same as agreeing with them. For over twenty years Carol has interweaved the ‘common threads’ of local history with skill and passion, whether writing about good practice, organisation, comparative local history or a specific topic. Her audience is international and my own, limited, knowledge and understanding of local history has been made better by Carol, but, above all, it is how I practice local history which owes so much to Carol. In Carol Kammen America has a local historian who is treasured by anyone fortunate enough to come into contact with her work. Robert Howard |
14 Sept 2007 |
