Welcome

Hello, my name is Bill Lynskey, an M.A. student at Temple University and a public historian. I became a public historian about six years ago before I even knew of the existence of a discipline called public history. After working for years as a journalist and editor, and after being laid off from said profession several recessions ago, I began volunteering first with the National Park Service in Philadelphia at Independence National Historical Park (home of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell) and then with the Mid-Atlantic Region of the National Archives. When I found a paid, staff position within the education and public programs department of the new National Constitution Center six years ago, I began to develop a serious intellectual interest in constitutional and legal history. To date, two of my articles detailing First Amendment battles that took place in Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century have been published in a scholarly journal. My intent is to make otherwise dry and arcane legal history interesting and accessible to a much wider audience while also fulfilling the educational mission of the museum. Of course, my interest is not limited to constitutional history. Philadelphia, where I've lived all my life, has a rich nineteenth and twentieth century urban history that may not be as familiar to the lay public as the city's earlier eighteenth-century Revolutionary Era history. I am currently enrolled in the graduate history course entitled, Managing History: An Introduction to Public History. Through my coursework and visits to the city's many museums and collecting institutions, I intend to use this blog to discuss public history and literature and explore the city's less remembered past.