What roles do race, racism, and power play in the production of history? How can we better understand the diversity and complexity of American experiences? What kinds of histories and legacies are hidden in the public spaces we think we know so well, like the National Mall in Washington DC and its contested memorial landscape or Sproul Plaza and the Free Speech Movement on UC Berkeley’s campus? Students in Dr. Catherine Covey’s Summer 2022 course, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Public History in Public Space” (HUM 133AC / ENVDES 113AC / AMERSTD 110AC), explored these questions by thinking critically about diverse yet significant moments that have defined U.S. history and American cultural landscapes.
The course was offered as part of Future Histories Lab, a project of the UC Berkeley Global Urban Humanities Initiative that trains students in interdisciplinary methods; it was also part of the American Cultures program.
Students in the course visited campus archives and participated in two field trips, including San Francisco’s oldest surviving structure, Misión San Francisco de Asís, and the 20th-century Mission Dolores Basilica. The landmark’s curator, archaeologist Andrew Galvan, guided the group through the architecture and grounds as they discussed hidden histories of Spanish colonization in California, the genocide and erasure of Native American people and their culture, and some of the contemporary issues at this site. Through this experience, students were encouraged to think critically about the complexity of history, preservation, conservation, and heritage at historical sites and connect this to current UC Berkeley conversations about repatriation and native land.
Students also toured Coit Tower and learned about the art deco building and its American Social Realism style, which was the pilot project of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in the 1930s. Tour Director Davy Crockett illuminated the subtle ways artists produced the “American Scene” and incorporated symbols of revolution and dissent into the federally-funded frescoes. Students were then encouraged to contrast this verbally transmitted information with how the building and its signage, as a space of public history, portrayed (or did not portray) this narrative.
At the culmination of the course, students presented monument proposals and other means of making hidden histories on UC Berkeley’s campus more prominent. Employing archival research and site assessments, students proposed commemorations of UC Berkeley’s Public Art, Julia Morgan and Campus Architecture, World War II Campus Buildings, and Built Environments: Lost and/or Forgotten Buildings (e.g. North Hall).
