Public Documents and Public History: An Interview with Anna K. Nelson

Abstract

Anna K. Nelson is one of the leading members of the second generation of public historians, those women and men who have consolidated the early efforts of the pioneers of the field. A diplomatic historian by training, she has written about American foreign relations during the Mexican-American War and also during the Cold War. Alongside her traditional work as an academic historian, she has become an important expert in public documents: their preservation, access, and management. She was involved in nearly every aspect of the public history movement during the 1970s and 1980s, including serving for two years on the State Department's Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, representing the Organization of American Historians (OAH). She has been granted a number of awards for her work, including the Society for History in the Federal Government's Franklin Delano Roosevelt Prize for the Advancement of Historical Study of the Federal Government. Her achievements were nationally recognized when she received a presidential appointment to the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board.

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