Complex Commonwealth: Public History in Pennsylvania

There are thousands of historic sites across Pennsylvania. The question of whose memories, what histories, and what local heritage deserve preservation has animated historians and communities for centuries. The editors and contributors to Complex Commonwealth provide a collection of accessible essays about public history in Pennsylvania that show how we have commemorated and preserved the state’s material culture, museums, monuments and memorials, parks, archives, libraries, and historic sites over centuries.

Chapters examine the Homestead Steel Strike, the Carlisle Indian School’s Digital Resource Center, and African American cemeteries and burial grounds, among other case studies. The methodologies these public historians use are as diverse as the various histories of labor, gender, religion, and race. It is by shedding light on these underseen histories that Complex Commonwealth affirms the importance of state and regional history to everyday Pennsylvanians.

Complex Commonwealth emphasizes the importance of place and space in shaping how we know what we know about the past and how that collectively shapes our future.

Contributors: Barbara Barksdale, Zachary L. Brodt, Steven Burg, Mary Catherine Foltz, Kelly C. George, James Gerencser, Alexandra Acri Godfrey, Kris Lowrey, Devin C. Manzullo-Thomas, Carol W. Smith, Frank Vitale IV, and the editors