Each week, this blog will catch up with some of the leading voices on the local historical scene. First up is legendary broadcaster, journalist, author, and educator Dan Hurley. The founder and principal at Applied History Associates, a public history consulting firm, Dan retired as Director of Leadership Cincinnati in June 2016. Since then he has served as interim host of WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition and interim President of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in 2017-18. He worked for WKRC-TV News for 36 years, including Executive Producer and host of Local 12 Newsmakers and Assistant Vice President of the Cincinnati Museum Center.
* How have you been filling your time during these weeks of social isolation? Although we are trying to follow the social distancing rules, our daughter is a nurse manager in a cancer center at Christ Hospital. As a result, my wife and I are caring for our seven-year-old granddaughter, including her homeschooling (the teacher prefers "home learning"). I started out as a high school teacher (1968-72; 1977-1979 with graduate school in between). I have always said that I see the world through an historian's lens, but I am a teacher by profession. I never wanted to teach anyone younger than high school (most of whom are "minimally human") and I decided that I didn't really want to teach in universities either. I came to believe that history is best done by adults who have some life experience to bring to the table. As a result, figuring out how to be a creative teacher of a first grader is challenging. Academically, she is doing great, but this is really hard on her without the structure of the classroom and no ability to make use of community resources. She loves the Zoo, the Children's Theater, the Cincinnati Art Museum (Rosenthal Education Center) and the Cincinnati Museum Center, all of which are closed. Besides reading (the Mercy Eatson series is great) and doing math, we have developed a couple of "museum" exhibits collecting seed pods, pine cones, flowers, leaves. She loves doing research on the web so she can write simple levels. On an adult level, I am a member of the POTUS Book Club at the Mercantile Library. This is a seven-year project to read a recent biography of each president in order. This year we have read Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and I am now reading The Worst President Ever on James Buchanan. I have also jumped ahead to read both the Chernow biography of Grant and Robert White's American Ulysses. Chernow is the designated book, but I prefer the "short,” 650-page White biography. I have been working on my next book. My mother saved my father's 648 World War II letters and two diaries. In civilian life he was a lawyer (YMCA Law School/ Chase) who worked in the S&L business. He was drafted, sent to Officer Candidate School and was a white officer over an all-black Quartermaster company in the European Theater. The company was led by a Jewish Captain and ended the war helping to liberate Dachau. I have completed all the letters and diaries. Have begun the secondary research, and had planned a trip to the National Archives to recover the company records (he wrote a 14-page company history). The book will be entitled Dearest Margie. That project is now on hold with all of my energy absorbed with homeschooling. * Your career has covered many aspects of public history. Did you ever regret not going down the traditional route of college history professor? I was fortunate that I taught high school for four years before going to graduate school (College of William and Mary--late 18th and early 19th American religious experience). Because of that experience, I knew that there was life beyond the academy. Over the years, I have taught at XU, MSJ, and in the School of Planning at UC. I enjoyed each of those experiences, but have always liked informal adult education more fulfilling. Using multiple media--TV reporter/producer, book author, newspaper columnist, magazine journalist, museum exhibit curator, etc. has been challenging and rewarding. Each outlet has its own expectations and rhythms and learning to write for each has been a real experience. As a public historian, I have not pigeonholed myself as a specialist, but responded to what people (clients) needed. That took me into areas I would never have gone if I had been a early American historian--mini-museum on the history of the Cincinnati Waterworks; exhibit on the 1937 Ohio River Flood; legal brief on the history of underground electrical conduit; documentary of the history of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati; book on the history of Otterbein University (never was a student or faculty member), seven television shows with Charles Kuralt, etc. That is not to mention being a museum administrator at the Cincinnati Museum Center and President of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. And through that work, because of the way that I approach history, I was not pigeonholed as someone who only dealt with the past. I have gotten to be a political reporter and talk show host for both TV (Local 12 Newsmakers for 22 years) and WVXU Cincinnati Edition. * Do you agree with the observation: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"? Although not knowing history can be a terrible handicap, I do not see history as cyclical. The COVID 19 pandemic is not the 1918 flu and human understanding of science and biology is fundamentally different. * Have we ever lived through anything quite like this coronavirus pandemic? No. * Do you anticipate the coronavirus will have any lasting impact on the public culture of our region? Yes, though I am not sure the exact shape. The experience of working remotely through digital connections has the potential of accelerating trends that were already emerging. I cannot imagine liberal arts education that is not personal and face-to-face. Information is not education. Interacting with professors and other students is what was most important to shaping my stance towards life.
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AuthorMatthew Smith, PhD (History). Public Programs at Miami University Regionals. Historian of Appalachia, the Ohio Valley, & the early American republic. Archives
February 2024
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