Public History
Collaborating with community partners, students, and faculty from across the Portland State University, I have been a part of several public history and digital history projects in Portland, Oregon.
Site Interpretation
Inspired by the 2020 Black Lives Matter vigils and marches that began in Peninsula Park honoring George Floyd, the Friends of Peninsula Park reached out to Portland State University’s History Department hoping that our students could help them tell a richer history of how the park became a home to so many communities over the twentieth century. Students in Catherine McNeur’s 2022 public history lab course used their archival research to create a digital zine.
Canopy Story
This crowd-sourcing digital history project allows Portlanders to tell stories about the trees that matter most to them. Created in collaboration with Prof. Vivek Shandas of Portland State University's Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab, with support from the US Forest Service and Portland State's Institute for Sustainable Solutions, Catherine McNeur's students in the Heritage Tree Public History Lab have contributed histories of trees throughout the city that revealed how Portland's trees are tied to stories about families, communities, and the impact of urban growth.
Many of my public history projects at Portland State have involved the city's heritage trees. One of my former students, Dave Hedberg partnered with Northwest Film Center and a number of filmmakers to create a series of films about the city’s trees. In this video, Hedberg interviews both me and Prof. Vivek Shandas of Portland State about how trees become a home for human stories and hierarchies.
Heritage Trees
Partnering with urban foresters from Portland Parks and Recreation, students in my Heritage Tree Public History Labs have created a range of projects from geocaching and podcasts to trading cards that tell the history of Portland through its trees.
Learn more about Portland’s Heritage Trees
“Heritage Trees of Portland” in the Oregon Encyclopedia
Podcasts
Partnering with KBOO Community Radio (90.7 FM), students in Catherine McNeur's 2016 Public History Lab class on history podcasts learned how to pitch ideas, research historical subjects, write scripts and blog entries, and record and edit podcasts. The class ultimately created a podcast series "This Week Back Then" that aired on KBOO's evening news hour each Monday night from January through June 2017. Students analyzed comparable history podcasts and talked with notable podcasters and producers via video conferences from across the country.