In the late nineteenth century, when US history as a profession was in its infancy, historians were predominantly wealthy, white, Protestant males from the Northeast. To give legitimacy and credibility to this emerging field of scholarship, its early practitioners modeled the discipline of history on the quantitative practices of scientific research, which meant gathering large amounts of data and tracking variations over time. Historians discouraged subjective thinking and instead encouraged a sterile, objective, truth-seeking approach. This attitude created a foundational state of the field based on their privileged realities. But as women, people of color, and people from under-resourced backgrounds began to enter the field as colleagues, they brought with them different lived experiences and perspectives that informed new historical narratives.
These new narratives disrupted the status quo which centered white males as the primary historical actors in American history. They upset power dynamics, gave voice to the silenced, and offered space to the marginalized. Through their teaching and writing, these historians advocated for respect, dignity, and inclusion in historical records that had previously excluded them. They took a stand that their stories mattered too. This could not have been possible without drawing upon their own experiences, backgrounds, and contexts. American history thus pivoted away from narratives emphasizing white, Euro-American elites, to, by the mid-20th century, accounts reflecting the experiences of workers, women, racial and ethnic non-whites, and many others. In doing so, they revealed that historical objectivity was a fallacy. People alive in their own times and places shape and are shaped by the world around them.
In 2002, the National Park Service published its Long-Range Interpretive Plan for Boston National Historical Park, where I work as a seasonal ranger. The plan called for new research on the colonial slave trade and the lives of people of color in colonial Boston. Rangers began to refocus their attention on the legacy of Peter Faneuil, the building’s namesake and benefactor. Faneuil was a wealthy Boston merchant complicit in the Atlantic slave trade, and rangers brought these details to light. This new interpretation complicated the established historical narrative of Faneuil Hall as a bastion of American patriotism and freedom by exposing a major contradiction: that the so-called “Cradle of Liberty” was built with funds derived in part from the institution of slavery. Born of this effort was a local movement to rename Faneuil Hall, given Faneuil’s own connections to slavery. The movement sparked a spirited public debate and the city installed an exhibit about the history of slavery in Boston in the basement and first floor.