The anniversary of my first day in book publishing (August 5, 1985) is a good day to observe that the LCRM project has brought me in contact with some of the most inspiring authors I have met in my twenty-four years of scholarly publishing. They are scholar-activists who want their scholarship “to live and work in the world” (quoting Bob Korstad, whose book on the North Carolina Fund, coauthored with Jim Leloudis, will be published by UNC Press in Spring 2010 ). They are interested in recognizing, recording, and revealing hidden histories as told and interpreted by the people who lived them. They believe that not only are these histories valuable in themselves and must not be lost, but also that there is much that society can learn from them.
I have also met some inspiring librarians whose work is focused on making voices seen and heard that have lived in practical obscurity for a long time in archives and attics.
My colleague at UNC Press, acquiring editor Mark Simpson-Vos, says that I have been “bitten by the public history bug”!