Expertise

Public History, Material Culture, Memory, US Cultural History

Seth C. Bruggeman is an Associate Professor of History at Temple University where he also directs the Center for Public History.  A graduate of the College of William & Mary’s PhD program in American Studies, Bruggeman studies the role of memory in public life, and particularly how Americans have used objects—in museums, monuments, historic, sites, and other commemorative spaces—to exert control over how we understand the past. His courses concern American cultural history, material culture, memory, and public history.  

Website

Selected Publications

• Ed., Commemoration: The American Association for State and Local History Guide (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017)
• Ed., Born in the USA: Birth and Commemoration in American Public Memory (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012)
• Here, George Washington Was Born: Memory, Material Culture, and the Public History of a National Monument (University of Georgia Press, 2008).

Courses Taught

• Managing History: Introduction to Public History
• Studies in American Material Culture
• History of the National Park Service
• Imperiled Promise: An Introduction to Heritage Interpretation in the National Park Service
• American Memory and Commemoration; Museums and American Culture
• Tourism in America; American Revolutions
• Reading Culture
• Cold War Culture
• US History I and II; Fieldwork in History (internship)