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Comparative Public History:
The United States and the United Kingdom
Summer Field Course
Since 1990 the Public History Program at the University of South
Carolina has offered an international summer program in comparative
practices in the fields of archives, museums, and historic
preservation. The purpose of the course is two-fold: to give students
an understanding of the international professional dimension of each of
these three fields and to provide an opportunity to see how the work of
these fields is inter-related. The three-credit course gives students a
chance to compare procedures and theory in these fields between the
United States and Great Britain through a series of meetings with
professionals in England as well as hands on work in a case study
situation. For several years the course has been based at an
historic seventeenth-century Jacobean country house. Kiplin Hall, the site for the first four
weeks of the summer course, is located in North Yorkshire, half way
between York and Durham, near the county seat of Northallerton and the
historic fortified medieval city of Richmond.
Originally built in 1625 by George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore
and founder of the colony of Maryland, the Hall was extensively
renovated in the nineteenth century. Since 1971, it has been
administered by a private trust as an historic site. An additional
fifth week of the course is spent in London meeting with professional
staff from national offices of the Public Record Office, the National
Trust and English Heritage, as well as at London area museums and
archives. At Kiplin, students and course faculty led by Dr. Constance B. Schulz
live in renovated quarters that are part of the original brick
outbuildings of Kiplin Hall. Projects in which
students have participated at Kiplin Hall include archival processing
of family papers, a catalogue and needs assessment of the large
library, an inventory of decorative arts in the Hall, and research into
local North Yorkshire records to document aspects of the property's
development. Some course activities take place in nearby York, where
staff at the Yorkshire Museum, the York Minister Archives and
Educational Departments, the York Archaeological Trust, and the York
Castle Museum have provided behind-the-scenes tours and lectures. Other
course sites have included Leeds and Middlesbrough, industrial midlands
cities, where students learned about the inter-relatedness of city
planning, preservation of factory buildings, museum and park
development. Staff from the British Library, the British Museum, the
regional and national offices of the British National Trust, the Public
Records Office, and the Historic House Association, have also
contributed to the program through lectures, demonstrations, and site
visits.
 For information contact Dr. Constance B. Schulz
Public
History Home Page | Department of History
Home Page | University of
South Carolina
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