MARTIN H. BLATT
11 VALENTINE STREET
CAMBRIDGE, MA 02139
PHONE-617-272-0953
Current. Professor of the Practice of History and Director, Public History Program,
Northeastern University.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE WORK EXPERIENCE
1996-2014. Chief of Cultural Resources/Historian, Boston National Historical Park.
Responsible for management of Division of Cultural Resources and implementation of varied
projects. Supervise professional staff and manage Division budget plus project funds. Provide
technical assistance on cultural resource management/historical issues to Freedom Trail sites,
Museum of African American History, Freedom Trail Foundation, Massachusetts Humanities,
and others.
SPECIAL PROJECTS:
 Principal organizer of commemorative program on history of Middle Passage in Boston.
 Organized “Freedom Rising – The Emancipation Proclamation and African American
Service in the Civil War,” including historical pageant, “Roots of Liberty – The Haitian
Revolution and the American Civil War” (2013). Awarded for this project the 2013
National Park Service Appleman-Judd-Lewis Cultural Resources Management Award.
 Organized Park Break in conjunction with George Wright Society (2012)
 Organized park program, “Abolitionism in Black and White: The Anti-Slavery
Community of Boston and Cambridge” (2009)
 Managed development, fabrication, and installation of Charlestown Navy Yard Visitor
Center (project completed in 2008).
 Managed development, fabrication, and installation of Battle of Bunker Hill Museum
(project completed in 2007).
 Organized park program, “Patriots of Color at the Battle of Bunker Hill.” (2003)
 Managed production of study, Patriots of Color – African Americans and Native
Americans at Battle Road and Bunker Hill (study completed in 2002)
 Managed fabrication and installation of permanent exhibit at Old South Meeting House,
“Voices of Protest,” (project completed in 2000)
 Managed production of park handbook, Boston and the American Revolution (published
in 1998)
 Organized park program, “Changing Meanings of Freedom: The 225th Anniversary of
the American Revolution.” (2000)
 Organized the park program, “Hope and Glory: The Centennial Celebration of the
Monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment.” (1997)
1990-1996. Chief of Professional Services/Historian, Lowell National Historical Park.
Responsible for management of Division of Professional Services and implementation of varied
projects. Supervised professional staff and managed Division budget plus project funds.
SPECIAL PROJECTS:
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MARTIN H. BLATT
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Managed the production of the audio-visual programs for one of the principal museums
of the National Park system, the Boott Cotton Mills Museum (museum opened in 1991)
Managed production of the park handbook, Lowell – The Story of an Industrial City
(published in 1992)
Organized park program, “The Meaning of Slavery in the North” (1993)
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE REGIONAL AND NATIONAL ACTIVITY
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Principal organizer, with Louis Hutchins, of traveling exhibit with Gulag Museum of
Perm, Russia, “Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom.”
Exhibit opened at Ellis Island, 2006, and traveled to Boston National Historical Park,
Martin Luther King, Jr, National Historic Site, Manzanar National Historic Site, and
Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site.
Served as reviewer for draft Historic Resource Study on the Statue of Liberty, 2005.
Served on committee to organize national gathering of National Park Service historians at
2005 annual meeting of Organization of American Historians.
Organized national gathering of National Park Service historians at 2004 annual meeting
of Organization of American Historians
Participated in Organization of American Historian site visit to Independence National
Historical Park, 2004
Participated in National Park Service task force to revise Liberty Bell Center exhibit,
Independence National Historical Park, 2002.
Organized first National Park Service workshop on civic engagement, New York, 2001.
Represented the National Park Service Northeast Region at the biannual working meeting
of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience, Bellagio, Italy,
2001.
Member of National Park System Advisory Board Humanities Review Committee, which
produced “Humanities and the National Parks: Adapting to Change,” 1994-1996.
Member of Women’s History Education Initiative Taskforce, National Park Service,
1994-1995.
Member of National Park Service special taskforce which produced, “Revision of the
National Park Service’s Thematic Framework,” 1993-1994.
Principal organizer of National Park Service National Historic Landmark Labor History
Theme Study
EDUCATION
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Boston University, American and New England Studies Program. Ph.D. in American
Studies. 1977-1983.
Goddard-Cambridge Graduate School. M.A. in Political Science.
Tufts University. B.A. in Political Science.
BOOK
Free Love and Anarchism: The Biography of Ezra Heywood (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1989).
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MARTIN H. BLATT
EDITED BOOKS
Editor (with Thomas Brown and Donald Yacovone): Hope and Glory: Essays on the Legacy of
the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001). Collection
of essays.
Editor (with David Roediger): The Meaning of Slavery in the North (New York: Garland
Publishing, 1998). Collection of essays.
Editor (with Martha Norkunas): Work, Recreation, and Culture: Essays in American Labor
History (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996).
Editor and Introduction: The Collected Works of Ezra Heywood (Weston, MA: M & S Press,
1985).
EDITED SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUES
Editor and Introduction: Roundtable: Ken Burns’s “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,”
The Public Historian, Vol. 33, Number 2, May 2011.
Editor and Introduction: Special issue on Boston’s public history, The Public Historian, Vol.
25, No. 2, Spring 2003
Editor and Introduction: Special issue on the National Park Service and civic engagement,
The George Wright Forum, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2002.
Editor and Introduction: Special Issue on labor history, Organization of American Historians
Magazine of History, Volume 11, Number 2, Winter 1997.
PUBLISHED ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
The George Wright Forum, “From Civil War to Civil Rights,” Vol. 31, No. 1, 2014.
The Public Historian, “Holocaust Remembrance and Germany,” Fall 2012, Vol. 34, No. 4.
The Public Historian, “Holocaust Remembrance and Heidelberg,” Vol. 24, No.4, Fall 2002.
“Glory: Hollywood History, Popular Culture, and the 54th Massachusetts” in Hope and Glory.
2001.
Entry on Ezra Heywood in American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998).
Legacy – The Journal of the National Association for Interpretation, “Hope and Glory: The
Centennial Celebration of the Monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the Fifty-fourth
Massachusetts Regiment,” Fall 1997.
Cultural Resource Management, “The Meaning of Slavery in the North: Interpreting Historical
Ties Between the Industrial North and the Slave South,” Volume 19, Number 2, 1996.
Entry on “Public History” in Peter Stearns, editor, The Encyclopedia of Social History (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1993)
Cultural Resource Management, “Learning about Labor History: The Botto House National
Historic Landmark,” Volume 16, Number 5, 1993.
Cultural Resource Management, “America’s Labor History: The Lowell Story,” Volume 15,
Number 5, 1992.
REVIEWS
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MARTIN H. BLATT
Journal of American History, Review of exhibit and educational play, “The Price of Freedom:
Anthony Burns and the Fugitive Slave Act,” Vol. 91, No. 1, June 2004. Reprinted in History
News (publication of American Association of State and Local History), Summer 2004.
Journal of American History, Review of website, “The Dramas of Haymarket,” Vol. 88, No. 3,
December 2001.
The Public Historian, Review of Edward Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create
America’s Holocaust Museum, Volume 18, Number 2, Spring 1996.
Essex Institute Historical Collections, Review of David Goldberg, A Tale of Three Cities: Labor
Organization and Protest in Paterson, Passaic, and Lawrence, 1916-1921, Volume 127, Number
3, July 1991.
The Public Historian, Review of exhibit, “Diamonds are Forever: Artists and Writers on
Baseball,” Volume 13, Number 1, Winter 1991.
SELECTED PAPERS PRESENTED AND SYMPOSIA
Brandeis University, “Rethinking the Age of Revolution,” John Sawyer Seminar on the
Comparative Study of Culture, presenter, May, 2014.
Organization of American Historians, annual conference. “The National Park Service (NPS)
and Reconstruction,” panel of NPS historians, 2014.
National Council on Public History, annual conference. Presidential Address: “Holocaust
Memory and Germany,” 2012.
American Association for State and Local History, annual conference. Session chair:
“Secession and the Confederacy: Issues for Local History Sites,” 2011.
American Historical Association, annual conference. Paper: “The National Park Service and
the Gulag Traveling Exhibit,” January 2007.
Organization of American Historians, annual conference. Chair and commentator, session:
“Interpreting Historical Sites as a Way of Promoting Civic Dialogue about Social Justice,” April
2003.
National Council on Public History, annual conference. Paper: “The National Park Service
and Civic Engagement,” and Session Chair, “The National Park Service and 9/11,” April 2003.
Organization of American Historians, annual conference. Session Chair, “Social Conscience
and History in the National Park Service,” and “Shared Authority and Major Donors:
Stakeholders in History Museums,” April 2002.
Organization of American Historians, annual conference. Chair and commentator, session:
“Hidden Histories: Revisionist Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Feminism,” March 2000.
National Council on Public History, annual conference. Paper: “Hope and Glory: The
Centennial Celebration of the Monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the Fifty-fourth
Massachusetts Regiment,” April 1998.
Old South Meeting House, chair of program, “Antebellum Boston: Abolitionism and
Cooperation Between the Two Races, 1820-1865,” April, 1998.
Cleveland State University: The People’s Voice – Public History in Cleveland, conference.
Keynote address: “Lessons from Lowell,” April 1996.
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MARTIN H. BLATT
National Council on Public History, annual conference. Chair and commentator, session:
“Parks, Scholarship, and the Public: Connecting Research to Education and Resource
Management,” April, 1996.
National Association for Interpretation, annual conference. Paper: “The Meaning of Slavery
in the North: Interpreting the Historical Ties Between the Industrial North and the Slave South,”
November, 1995.
Organization of American Historians, annual conference. Paper: “Presenting Industrial
History and Industrial Heritage in an Era of Deindustrialization,” April, 1995.
Society for the History of Technology, annual conference. Paper: “Lowell National Historical
Park and Industrial History: The Boott Cotton Mills Museum,” October 1994.
Pennsylvania Humanities Council: Reconceptualizing Industrial History, workshop. Keynote
lecture: “Lowell National Historical Park: An Inclusionary View of Industrial History,”
September, 1994.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: Lessons of Work – New Approaches to the Study
of Occupational Culture, conference. Paper: “Labor Landmarks,” September, 1994.
Smithsonian Institution: Railroad Heritage Preservation – Toward A National Policy,
workshop. Papers: “Industrial Historic Preservation and Interpretation: The Experience at
Lowell and the National Park Service Labor History Theme Study” and “Problems in Industrial
Historic Preservation,” May, 1994.
Museum of Afro American History, seminar. Chair of program, “Making A Living: The
History of Black Occupational Life in Antebellum New England,” February, 1994.
American Studies Association, annual conference. Paper: “Heritage Corridors, Industrial and
Labor History, and the National Park Service,” November, 1993.
National Council on Public History, annual conference. Paper: “The National Park Service
and Labor History: The National Historic Landmark Theme Study on American Labor History,”
April, 1993.
New England Museum Association, annual conference. Chair and commentator, session:
“Social History and Historical Markers,” October, 1991.
National Council on Public History, annual conference. Paper: “The Massachusetts History
Workshop,” May, 1983.
Organization of American Historians, annual conference. Paper: “The Massachusetts History
Workshop,” April, 1982.
AFFILIATIONS
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Central Square Theater, Board President, Current.
American Antiquarian Society, Member. Current.
The Lincoln Prize at Gettysburg College, Member of Advisory Council. Current.
President. National Council on Public History, 2010-2012.
Program Committee Co-chair, 2006 joint annual meeting of Organization of American
Historians and National Council on Public History
Executive Board, Organization of American Historians. 2003-2006.
Local Resources Committee, 2004 annual meeting of Organization of American
Historians.
Editorial Board, The Public Historian. 2000-2003.
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MARTIN H. BLATT
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Program Committee, 2000 joint annual meeting of Organization of American Historians
and National Council on Public History
Board of Directors, National Council on Public History. 1997-2000.
Nominating Board, Organization of American Historians. 1997-1999. (Chair, 1999)
Steering Committee, Women in the Massachusetts State House project. 1996-1999.
Local Arrangements Committee, National Council on Public History 1999 annual
meeting.
Nominating Committee, National Council on Public History. 1993-1995 (Chair, 1995).
Board of Directors, Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities. 1989-1995 (Executive
Committee member, 1991-1995).
MEMBERSHIPS
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American Historical Association
National Council on Public History
Organization of American Historians
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