Public History Q&A: How to Share the Past with the Community

Many people do not notice the differences between “traditional” history and public history. This month we present a Q&A session with MJ Vega on how public projects get done and some of the challenges involved with bringing the past alive for a modern audience. Prior to starting graduate school at Washington State University, MJ created and now maintains a website dedicated to the public history of his high school football team. This is the brief story of how that project happened.

Q: What got you interested in doing this kind of project? Why the history of this particular high school team? 

A: I was born and raised in Monroe, WA, so it’s something I already have some familiarity with. When I was growing up in the 2000s, I would always hear about the team, so I just assumed we had always been bad, because no one had said anything to the contrary. But when I started going to Monroe High, the program started to turn around. I still didn’t follow the team much, but in my senior year in 2012, we won a share of the conference title, and it was the first time we had done so since 1991. I remember I’d hear students saying how it was the first time in 19 years we were conference champs. Needless to say, I didn’t know what to believe, and there was no narrative on the history of the team, so there wasn’t an easy way of knowing for sure. When I got back home after I graduated from WSU, I had a chance to do a project for the Monroe Historical Society as part of my internship. I thought, “Why not be the guy who actually writes this history?” 

Q: How did you go about researching all the information on the team? 

A: The Monroe Historical Society has a pretty good collection of yearbooks from the high school, so I was able to discover that the first season of football was in 1911, and I just worked my way from there. Some coaches from the 1990s made a little scrapbook which documented the team from the ‘50s on, so that was a good launching pad for me. I noticed there were inaccuracies in their scores, and neither that scrapbook nor the yearbooks stated where games were played, so I decided the best way of getting the most reliable scores and knowing which games were home and away was to find them one by one in the local newspaper (The Monroe Monitor) archives. Needless to say, that took a while, but it was worth it.

Source: Monroe Historical Society

Q: Was that difficult? 

A: It wasn’t difficult so much as it was just really tedious at times. The newspaper has changed a lot over time, and sometimes the published information could be very descriptive with games, and sometimes it was not. Often, the paper wouldn’t mention an outcome of a game, so I’d have to use materials like the yearbooks or other newspapers to make up for it. Most of the time, it was simple, but there were a few years, especially in the first couple of decades, where I had to do some sleuthing with multiple sources at the same time.

Source: The Monroe Monitor

Q: You did a lot of work with scores, but your site has a lot more content than just records. What made you branch out to interviews and include the oral histories?

A: I’m a stat head, so I love websites like Sports Reference and Winsipedia, where it’s just scores, but just having numbers only says so much. I thought I should have more of a historical narrative. I have a passion for oral interviews, so I got into contact with former players to ask them about their experiences and how the game was different back when they were playing. Eventually, I got the idea to include current players at the high school, too, so I could compare how it is today to the past. It was fun to talk to both new and old players: I heard interesting stories about how the town and the game used to be, and I gave current players a little platform where they could talk about the game and maybe become a little more confident.

Q: You also have a lot of pictures of the team. How did you come across those?

A: They all come from different sources. The older photos are from the Monroe Historical Society, old newspapers, and yearbooks, while the newer ones came from local photographers and the school district. Pictures give life to history, and it’s fascinating to see how the game has changed, visually, with jerseys and logos, for example. It was especially rewarding when someone had a relative who played for the team back in the ‘30s, and they see them in an old team photo. 

Source: Monroe Historical Society

Q: What’s the reception been like for the public history site? 

A: It’s been pretty great, and it’s really made all the work worth it. People love finding old photos or scores from their high school days, and I can tell it gives the town a sense of pride to know a little part of the history of Monroe. 

Q: How has creating this site helped you become a better historian?

A: As a public history graduate student, it was invaluable to me. I got firsthand experience doing things I like—sports and digital history. I made sure to organize the site to make it as user-friendly as possible as well as making the site look attractive. Public history is about connecting the people with their past. It’s really fun when you get to be creative and getting a positive reception when it’s all said and done.

Q: What are some of your future plans for the site and in general?

A: Aside from updating the site after every game with new scores, I’m planning on doing another round of interviews with more alumni and current players. The first round of interviews with current players went really well, so it’s something I’d like to keep doing each season. I want to try my hand at video editing and eventually making a documentary series on the history of the team. Long term after graduation from the Masters program, I’d enjoy working in a museum or doing something involving sports history or oral interviews. I have a lot of fun doing both, and they garner a good amount of attention from the public.

About the historian: MJ Vega is a first-year Masters student studying public history under Orlan Svingen. Born and raised in Washington, MJ graduated from Washington State University in 2018 with a B.A. in history. He returned to WSU in 2019, where he studies the experiences of Japanese Americans in the Palouse region during World War II and the role regional colleges played for those affected by internment. MJ also enjoys listening to music, going to local coffee shops, and exploring the Palouse.