Wineburg’s article resonated with me because of our shared experiences and frustrations in educating young people. In relation to digital humanities, Wineburg highlights a significant point on the disconnect between what historians do, bring the past to life, by “thinking historically”, vs what young people think historians do, “just memorize facts and stuff”. This disconnect raises important epistemological issues regarding how historical knowledge is generated and transmitted, as well as practical questions about how public historians can play a role in both processes.

In this digital age, these concerns intensify as younger generations, our future citizens and leaders, and perhaps historians, increasingly rely on digitally generated content, content that is often not interrogated and accepted as fact. Training the next wave of citizens starts now by teaching young people the process of “learning historically”. As Wineburg makes clear, this process reveals how historians think and how they achieve transparency in their work, thereby continuing to expand knowledge and solve the mysteries of historical records.

Additionally, this issue emphasizes the need for public historians to consider the public as the audience when designing future public history projects. Brennan et al.’s Building Histories on the Mall: A Guide to Creating a Digital Public History Project addresses these concerns using Brennan’s Histories of the Mall exhibit as a case study. Brennan et al.’s blue print speaks to the importance of designing projects that start with “sources and questions” that would guide the documents’ interpretation” Additionally, Brennan’s project speaks to the significance of using intentionality in designing digital public history projects so the projects are engaging, interactional, and make the past come to life so the public can even be inspired to do their own inquiry into the exhibit topic.

These two articles offer future public historians, like those of us in this class, food for thought and a blueprint for consideration. One of the questions that I have been considering, and I am sure I’m not alone, is how to methodically design my project with Wineburg’s concerns for making history come alive and Brennan’s level of intentionality in project design, so the public digs deeper and asks more questions.