Can History Make You Healthy?��Using Historical Narratives to Understand Community Resources and Needs

Dr. Jennifer Brier, PhD with research support from Caesar Thompson

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

Introducing History Moves: Still Surviving

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Introducing History Moves: Open Thresholds

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Public History for Citizen Scientists

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THINKING HISTORICALLY

The 5 Cs

• Thinking historically doesn’t just mean knowing when things happened in the past or even what order they happened in.
• Thinking historically is a way of analyzing and understanding the past and something everyone can do
• For the purposes of this project, we will focus on this article written by a group of professional historians

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THINK HISTORICALLY?

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Keep in mind how these concepts could be integrated into your community-based work as Citizen Scientists. Please feel free to read the whole article after this lesson if you are interested in learning more about the value of historical thinking.

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Change over time – The Story of Chicago in Maps��What does “Change over time” mean to you?

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Context – American Anthem ”Dancing in the Street”

• What does it mean to say that context matters when thinking about history?
• A space for storytelling as part of history.
• Popular Culture Example:

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What made Chicago one of the most segregated cities in the United States?

Contingency

Causality

Complexity

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Causality:��What happens when we examine multiple causes, or causality, of events and/or problems?��What happens if we don’t all agree?��Where does that leave us?�

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Contingency:��Contingency as opposed to inevitability, or things are just meant to be one way or another.��Reframing the question “What made Chicago one of the most segregated cities in the United States?” one might say Chicago’s racial segregation was not an inevitable or natural outcome of having a population that had large numbers of Black and white residents. It was contingent upon local and federal policies and the decisions of individual bank lenders, employers, and homeowners.

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Complexity:��What does it mean when you say something is complicated as opposed to easy or simple? Often this can best be seen in both/and thinking as opposed to either/or.��What happens when we ask people who live in majority Black or Brown neighborhoods what it is like and how they think the neighborhoods came to be? We will hear stories about the real harm of disinvestment and also about how neighborhoods have come together to do what the city doesn’t.

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5 Minute Break!

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What is Oral History?

• What is the value of telling our own stories?
• Why should we counter prevailing narratives?

What can Oral History do for us?

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Want to know more about Oral History?��Start here – Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

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Some important Oral History tools and techniques:��Interviewing.��Obtaining consent.��Active listening.��Controlling the interview.��Encouraging the narrator to move beyond the everyday.

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Helen Matthews Lewis on community job creation and saving our own lives.

Video clips from Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism

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