Last week the AHA announced its new report (with the OAH and NCPH) on how public history should factor in to tenure and promotion proceedings, and this week Inside Higher Ed takes note. In other news, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville gets set to digitize newspapers and California Newsreel announces this month’s free film preview. We then link to two articles on museums: one from Wired on the American Museum of Natural History, and the other from American Association of Museums. We also cover articles on a 1976 image from South Africa, teeth and history, and preserving Hinchliffe Stadium. Finally, a new online collection of letters, Victorian “yellowbacks,” the New York Public Library’s menu collection, and just for fun a comic for history educators.

News

• Tenure Beyond the Monograph
  Inside Higher Ed weighs in on the recent report on recognizing public history for tenure and promotion from the Organization of American Historians (OAH), National Council on Public History (NCPH), and the AHA.
• U. of Tennessee Wins Grant to Digitize Newspapers
  University of Tennessee at Knoxville will spend the next two years digitizing 100,000 pages from Tennessee newspapers thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• Free Preview of Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness
  Each month California Newsreel offers free previews of films for educators who may wish to use them in the classroom. This month the free preview is of Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, winner of the AHA’s 2009 John E. O’Connor Film Award.

Museums

• Not for Public Display: Backstage at the American Museum of Natural History
  Get a behind-the-scenes look at the museum within the American Museum of Natural History, that is all of the artifacts not on display for the general public. Explore everything from the frozen tissue laboratory, to the exhibit workshop, to the fossil-preparation lab.
• Building the Future of Museums on a Better Base of Knowledge
  The interesting post from the American Association of Museums’ Center for Future of Museums that looks for “how museums can build a better base of knowledge to support [their] planning as a field.”

Articles

• The image that changed the course of South Africa’s history
  It was 34 years ago, Wednesday, June 16, 1976, that South African students peacefully protested the apartheid education system, but the protest went terribly awry as police opened fire, leaving 23 dead. A CNN video clip of Antoinette Sithole documents her memories of the deadly protest and the consequent killing of her 12-year-old brother, Hector Pieterson.
• How the study of teeth is revealing our history
  British archaeologists have discovered new scientific techniques to study historic teeth and bones, uncovering “a pattern where small groups or individuals traveled frequently across cultural and geographical divides. This is about residence and mobility, not ethnicity. Nonetheless, it seems that, in modern terms, Europe was always a multicultural place.”
• Negro Leagues stadium battling neglect
  This ESPN article describes the battle to preserve Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey, one of a few remaining Negro League ballparks.  The National Trust put it on their 11 Most Endangered List earlier this year.  Here’s a web site for an organization trying to preserve the stadium.

Artifacts of the Past

• Spanning More than a Century, Letters Shed Light on Physicians’ Lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley
  The National Library of Medicine has announced a new online collection, “Physicians’ Lives in the Shenandoah Valley,” presenting letters from 1786-1907.
• Victorian Pleasure Reading
  The Lazy Scholar explores some Victorian “yellowbacks” he found through Emory University’s DiscoverE Database.
• Menus of old
  Blogger Jason Kottke takes a look at an 1892 menu and customer bill of rights from the Menu Collection of the New York Public Library.

For Fun

• Pearls Before Swine: Larry Returns to Fourth Grade
  While your grading is probably all done for the summer, we thought you might still get a kick out of this Pearls Before Swine comic.

Contributors:  David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, and Robert B. Townsend.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.