Debra E. Bernhardt: Activist, Archivist, Historian

Debra Bernhardt--activist, archivist, and historian--was a special and constant friend of the Radical History Review. Over a decade ago when the journal moved to the Tamiment Institute Library at New York University, Debra embraced it as part of her own political project. Space in the city is always at a premium, and Debra found and protected our splendid corner even as new projects and records demanded room. We will miss her wisdom, companionship, solidarity, and support. May Day was an appropriate date for Debra Bernhardt's memorial meeting. Indeed, she had insisted that it be a "meeting" and not be a "service." Also in keeping with her wishes, the program photograph of her described her simply as "Activist, Archivist, Historian." Debra understood the three identities were integrally linked, but it was the third, historian, about which she was most insecure. In fact, she was, I think, quite proud to be among the first graduates of the NYU Program in Public History, though she shared the status anxieties of too many public historians who felt belittled by their academic brethren.

There was some basis for such feelings. I recall, for instance, how one troglodyte in the graduate school faculty initially recommended her dissertation be given an arts' degree, worrying that it would not be possible to accept a dissertation in which a core element consisted of radio programs that could not be microfilmed like other dissertations. Fortunately, saner voices prevailed. In any case, Debra's scholarly production was, indeed, a world apart from her academic colleagues. But it was never below it--rather it was in the tradition of the best, fully engaged public history.

Fortunately, it was recognized as such before she died. For the extraordinary quality and character of her work, the New York Labor History Association awarded her its highest accolade, the John Commerford Award in 1995. And a month after she died, the National Council on Public History posthumously gave Debra its highest award as well, the Robert Kelley Award for a distinguished career in public history. Debra learned of the award a few days before she died.

These awards recognized Debra's considerable accomplishments as a public historian. For her undergraduate thesis at the University of Michigan on Iron Run, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula, she conducted 150 oral histories in the iron mining community. In what was always a lovely coincidence for Debra, the thesis was supervised by Marilyn Young, who herself joined NYU shortly after Debra came to New York in 1979. Seeing her role as bringing the fruits of her research--the archive she had created--back to the community, Debra subsequently wrote a play, Black Rock and Roses, based on the material.

After receiving her master's degree in history and archival management from Wayne State University, Debra worked as a field archivist for the Ohio Labor History Project, out of which came Working Women's Roots: An Oral History Primer, a book for which Debra was the principal editor. "New Yorkers at Work: Oral Histories of Life, Labor, and Industry," the eight-part radio series funded by the New York Council for the Humanities, aired on WNYC and then National Public Radio in 1981, ranks as one of her major scholarly accomplishments. With study guides, the series was subsequently introduced into public school classrooms across the state of New York. Debra's 1988 doctoral dissertation subsequently built on the radio series and study guides. Including a substantial reflection on the historiography of work and labor in New York and on the production process of the series, the dissertation would prove to be one of the first in a considerable line of distinguished doctorates in public history at the university.

Debra's career was filled with countless projects, large and small, that brought labor history to life and into the public sphere--from the promotion of labor history month in New York State to re-creations of the first May Day parade on Union...