WEEK IV

Recipe for Engaging the Public

Engaging the public is the most important yet unpredictable aspect of Public History, far beyond research, artifact acquisition, and label writing. 

For Historians, exhibits are infinitely interesting simply for their historical content. However, much of the public is not interested in history for history’s sake, and finds it rather boring. Enter the necessity for audience engagement techniques. I discussed the difference between learning and doing history in a previous post, but how can visitors be convinced to ‘do’ history when that history is uncomfortable, frightening, and difficult? 

Engaging with difficult material places emotional burdens on visitors, so institutions must convince visitors that engagement will be worth their strife.

WWII is a difficult topic which has been so romanticized over time that the horror has melted away to reveal heroic characters and glorious victories. In reality, most soldiers weathered very few heroic and glorious situations in the 1940s. I am lucky to be part of one of the last generations to hear these direct accounts from surviving soldiers. 

June 2016, my family and I boarded the Battleship USS Iowa in the Port of Los Angeles. I was entertained imagining the glory of war as I walked through the ship, identifying guns I would expertly aim at the enemy, a bunk I would occupy while writing letters to my lover back in the States, and the galley where I would eat marine sized portions of chow. In the galley though, I met not a plate of rehydrated potatoes, but WWII veteran Bob DeSpain.

DeSpain shared a sobering story of his Naval career spent aboard the USS Hoel, a similar ship to the Iowa, though without the same luck of surviving the war. DeSpain fought in the battles of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, and Samar, during which the Hoel was sunk by Japanese destroyers. Of 339 aboard, DeSpain was one of 86 to survive a three day float in the Pacific awaiting rescue. Bob DeSpain passed away in 2017, and I am blessed to carry his story.

My change in perspective before and after meeting Mr. DeSpain highlights the difference between entertaining and engaging history. My passion lies in military history and I easily become caught up in romantic notions of war and heroism, i.e. military history as entertainment. Though movies, books, and exhibits present awful accounts of mutilation, death and violence, I cannot help but find a sense of quixotic attractiveness. Engaging stories of military history however, inspire gratitude to soldiers who endured the decidedly unromantic parts of war so I can experience it in the detached comfort of a theater or library. Before Mr. DeSpain, I was aboard the Iowa to be entertained and fulfill my peculiar craving to be a WWII soldier. After Mr. DeSpain’s story, I found that the ship was filled with ghosts whose stories of true bravery I had previously ignored.

As veterans like Mr. DeSpain pass, it is critical that museums keep their stories alive so future visitors can engage with difficult topics beyond a sense of entertainment. I do my part by sharing Bob DeSpain’s story.