Claire Strom has written about Pete Daniel’s Curating the American Past: A Memoir of a Quarter Century at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in the Journal of Southern History’s Book Notes.
“As is well known, Pete is an outstanding storyteller, and this book is no exception. Chronicling his professional career, the book moves from colleges to archives to farms to racetracks, as Pete’s collecting and researching life unfolds…. The book also offers a serious commentary on the long-standing question of how historians can make their work relevant to the general public. For scholars at universities, the answers to this question often revolve around producing more public-facing scholarship and the challenges of evaluating such work for promotion and tenure. For Pete and other scholars in the museum field, reaching the public is easy. More difficult are the shackles placed on curators by administrators and donors who often desire simple, triumphant narratives, as opposed to the complicated, messy histories that reflect all nations’ pasts. Pete’s memoir details his indefatigable efforts to collect the histories of average Americans and to tell difficult stories that would truly educate visitors to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. He also narrates the growing opposition he unfortunately encountered from inept administrators and the uber-wealthy seeking to brand exhibits, not only with their names, but also with their limited and parochial understanding of American history.”
A former curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and an award-winning historian of the American South, Pete Daniel was the first full-time public historian to serve as president of the Organization of American Historians. He co-curated Rock ’n’ Soul: Social Crossroads and Official Images: New Deal Photography, among several other major exhibitions. His books include Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s and Dispossession: Discrimination against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights.