This essay examines the labor, passion, and precarity of freelance historical performers—independent contractors who portray figures such as Abraham Lincoln or Harriet Tubman for schools, libraries, and civic groups. Drawing on oral histories and fieldwork at an Abraham Lincoln Presenters’ Conference, it explores how these “presenters” navigate purpose, instability, and inequity within the cultural freelance economy. Their experiences reveal how freelance historical performance constitutes real public history labor deserving recognition, equity, and professional solidarity.
Since the opening of the Capitol Visitor Center in 2008, visitor guides have led over two million visitors on tours of the US Capitol building each year. Guide experiences on tours are examined here using six original interviews and twelve survey responses conducted by the author in 2021 and 2022. The discussions are contextualized within the legacies and realities of tour guiding in the US Capitol building, including securitization, employment structures, and tourism. The analysis reveals tensions that arise between mass tourism, public history best practices, and the Capitol as an institution. These tensions unfold both on the large scale between the employee and the institution and within the interpersonal scale of the tour group. Although the scale of Capitol touring is exceptional, its status as a contested site of history is not. The inquiry serves as a preliminary study that can apply to further studies about federal history employment, Washington tourism, and public history labor with polarized publics.
In July 2023, staff at President Lincoln’s Cottage voted unanimously to unionize, joining the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) as Local #63. The Cottage is the first unionized cultural heritage institution, and the first museum-only union local, in the District of Columbia. Bargaining took place between November 2023 and December 2024, with the first collective agreement taking effect on January 1, 2025. In this article, the authors—both current staff involved in the unionization process—discuss the circumstances that contributed to a low-conflict unionization and bargaining process. In sharing their experience, the authors hope that other cultural institutions may find inspiration or motivation for their own workplace organizing.
