“Why? Obscure Histories has been around since 2014. Why do you want to make it a Non-Profit now?” I was on the phone with my Uncle Don, a pragmatist and asker of always-good (and sometimes too-good) questions.
I knew that whatever I replied, the answer better not be, I don’t know.
“I dunno,” I sighed. “Truthfully, I don’t like feeling mercenary about doing OH just to make a buck, you know?” He did know, and thankfully agreed with me: that solid information about historical matters should be accessible to find and read, without paywall or a cacophony of advertisements.
I had thought about making Obscure Histories a Non-Profit from the start, when OH was just a tangle of incongruous posts accompanied by weird, not-so-well-produced videos. In all honesty, I had thought the overall weirdness added to its charm — the initial intention was for OH to be a place for middle-schoolers to go and not be bored by history. But really, some of the early pieces (especially videos) were just weird.
And it felt weird to ask people to help support it, especially if appeared like that “support” was just for me. However, it also felt premature to move OH to a non-profit status because frankly, that’s a big leap and a bigger commitment. I wasn’t sure I really wanted this to be the only thing I did. That was eight years ago, though.
Back then, I couldn’t justify trying to monetize it by all the usual (unscrupulous and unseemly) methods, but it had also become a very expensive hobby. And so, after a great run of 30+ posts, including many by terrific authors and historians, Obscure Histories went on hiatus at the start of 2015 when I got a jobby-job and couldn’t do both. I feel insanely lucky that people wanted to write for OH, and their outstanding contributions are still the backbone of the website today. That 2015 job gave way to a prestigious one that lasted a year and literally gave me clinical PTSD. And so, when one can’t leave one’s house but still wants to work, what does one do? Freelancing. (I’m not one to brag, but I was working remotely before it became a thing.)
TWIST OF FATE
My work as a freelance video producer and writer eventually led to a job supporting the 2021 launch of an initiative at the Smithsonian Institution, Our Shared Future: Reckoning With Our Racial Past. It was exhilarating to be a part of it. The SI’s work concerning Race and Racism in America is gobsmackingly important and it was an honor to play a small part alongside the Smithsonian Institution, the arbiter of “proper public history” for generations.
However, the Smithsonian is also a government institution, in addition to being an educational institution. In these kinds of institutions, there are always multiple layers of intellectual gatekeeping at play. When compounded, they can become paralyzing.
The people at the Smithsonian are brilliant, and passionate, and driven by a higher purpose. It was a privilege to be able to work with them to launch the initiative. This process also made clear that there are many roads to public dissemination of useful information, and institutions like the Smithsonian are often limited in what they can produce by complicated gatekeeping factors.
After the Smithsonian job closed at the end of 2021, I was inspired to restart Obscure Histories, folding in the lessons I’d learned. The stories I discovered while doing research for the initiative, as well as those told by my co-workers, showed me that my early conception of Obscure Histories was profoundly limited in scope. For instance, one co-worker shared their knowledge of Matthew Henson, a Black explorer who likely reached the North Pole before Robert Perry. Henson had inspired my co-worker to become a world traveler. This seemed like an important OH story to tell, with perhaps the ability to inspire others as it had my co-worker.
It also became clear that not only were stories about traditionally marginalized people (i.e., Black people, Hispanic People, Indigenous People, LGBTQ people, women) not given as much spotlight in the public historical record, some of these stories were purposefully hidden and obscured to the benefit of those in power. For instance, it was shocking to learn that as the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre was observed in 2021, many in the U.S. were hearing about it for the first time — even those who lived in Tulsa. Information about this tragic event was intentionally buried, meant to be obscured forever. As a topic, this really felt like a call to OH Action. Were there other race massacres that have been hidden in the historical record? Of course there were.
So, with a renewed focus on (perhaps intentionally) obscured histories, the need to have materials be “marketable” or “generate clicks” felt icky. I then realized that this kind of intellectual gatekeeping that focused on monetary production could be just as harmful as being beholden to politicians worried about “CRT”, or other potentially limiting considerations when trying to reach different audiences. Maybe it was time to rethink becoming a non-profit.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF GATEKEEPING
Gatekeeping, whether by government, educational institutions, paywalls, journal access, language complexity, or other barriers to information distribution, often create the conditions of an epistemic feedback loop, curbing what stories to tell and how to tell them, which then limits accessibility and reach. This also means that some people are only talking to one another, reinforcing intellectual content, egos, bias, and systemic structures. This is, of course, a gross generalization. But one that is frighteningly common, even in academia.
So, to answer Uncle Don, I wanted to do good history for the right reasons, and to feel good about what I was doing. I wanted to be unabashedly and goofily earnest about how great I thought this idea was, because I think it’s great:
To provide a public collection of accessible, well-researched historical information about people, places, things and ideas that have been traditionally overlooked in the historical record.
This is to say that something can be “traditionally overlooked” for only one or two generations for there to be an impact; these gatekeeping cycles move quickly enough to bury awareness about some things that were once common knowledge in just a few years, depending on who is making those decisions. Just look at media cycles today.
And this is a conversation that more historians are having. Amanda B. Monitz from the Smithsonian recently published a post to the American Historical Association “Perspectives on History” blog. In her post, Where are the Women?, Monitz argues:
Women are missing from our history textbooks and public memory—and not necessarily because their stories haven’t been told. Sometimes it’s because of how their stories were preserved and told in the past. Understanding decisions earlier generations made that hinder our ability to find women’s stories can make it easier for us to rediscover and tell them today.
Monitz tells us that stories about women at the turn of the 20th century who did not “fit the agenda” of the (white, male, Christian) editors were simply… not told. This agenda largely favored the stories of women who — to these editors — led exemplary “Christian” lives (within a specific “Christian” rubric, presumably). If they were not deemed “exemplary,” then their stories were not passed down or retold. They faded out of the public consciousness, despite their many accomplishments.
Of course, given this, we can also ask, Where are the Black stories? or the Asian stories? or the Indigenous stories? Where is the “Bin of the Uncomfortable Ideas,” scuttled away because some editor, scholar, or government official thought they didn’t “fit the agenda”?
Gatekeepers of knowledge have responsibilities that last long past their time. It’s the purpose of Obscure Histories to be a public, free, and accessible place for these lost stories, with the hope that these people, places, and ideas can inspire words and actions now and in the years to come. In so doing, these stories can fill in the blanks of our history to create a richer tapestry, with more nuance and understanding.
That’s “Why.” Because public history deserves to have input from the public on topics that ought be covered. Because often the best keepers of public history are found in the public. And because public history should be — ultimately — accountable to the public.
In future posts, I will have more to add about becoming a Non-Profit. It’s been a process! I will happily detail my “non-profit journey” here for everyone to laugh at.
I should close by saying that there were many important topics covered in my call with my Uncle Don, a retired minister and former non-profit leader. In addition to learning about Non-Profit Business Plans, Articles of Incorporation, and By-Laws, we also talked about other imperatives, such as “expanding your board to include people other than your parents,” and “math is super important.”
Music in the audio: Hachimantia Snow - Remastered, by Maarten Schellekens