Freeman Tilden

PERSONAL STATEMENT AND GOALS

            While the time I spent in the UNK Master of Arts program was brief, it was not a contiguous, unbroken stream from beginning to end. Life’s demands intervened at several different points, but as I reflect upon the last five years, I realize that evaluating life, school, growth, and the associated changes are all matters of interpretation.

            There are moments that we interpret in real time and others that we can judge more wholly only after reflection. This is knowledge that I did not have when I began my studies at UNK. I had just finished my undergraduate work at Boston University’s online program, but still saw my life and career trajectories as unrelated, standalone entities—episodes that would occasionally cross over into one another’s paths, but still distinguishable as paths unto themselves.

            I had never known about schools of historiography. I had never heard the term. As I dipped a toe into the world of graduate school with History 801 (America Interpreted), I learned that events in history, movements, and even persons are not viewed from a single lens. Of course there was one’s own point of view to consider, but from where does one gather his or her worldview? A priori knowledge wanders into one’s consciousness without announcing itself, but nonetheless, there it is serving as an influence to us and informing our worldview. Epistemologically, we have been affected by Frederick Jackson Turner and Freeman Tilden and Martha Norkunas and Taya Miles without the benefit of knowing their names. It was this program that brought their names to me and revealed why I think the way I do.

            Additionally, giving name to my opinions was particularly empowering. For example, my scattered and conflicted thoughts on American Exceptionalism are brought into sharper focus by knowing the direction of historical thinking and tracing a logical (or at least recognizable) evolution in both academic and public sentiment. Learning and following the historiographical threads has at once emboldened me and made me more skeptical and cautious about my own interpretations. Had I gained nothing else from my time at UNK, I could still confidently state that I have become a better reader—a better consumer—of information. I do not have to fully buy into Beard’s interpretation of the American constitution to subscribe to parts of it. In fact, it’s the piecemeal approach to informing myself that I found most appealing about my UNK education.

            As I begin my transition into an as-yet-unknown career with purpose and direction, I draw upon my own experiences (as disconnected as they might seem) to guide me and move me forward. Regardless of my influences, my current surroundings, or the many variables that come into play in my life, I realize that I am the common thread. I am both the interpreter and the interpreted. With this knowledge, I intend to keep my eyes open to the possibilities that public history has to offer. I do not know specifically where I will wind up with regard to my career, but the education that I have gained at UNK has given me the tools and the knowledge of how to use those tools to bring the wonderfully subjective world of history to a great number of people.