Since 1989 I have been studying the history of working people in the Naugatuck Valley of western Connecticut. This work started with the Brass Workers History Project which produced the participatory community history Brass Valley: The Story of Working People’s Lives and Struggles in an American Industrial Region and the documentary movie Brass Valley and led to a series of other participatory history projects in the Naugatuck Valley and elsewhere. My “history from below” work seeks to embody what historical theorist Michael Frisch has called “shared authority” between history professionals and the communities they study and address.[1]
[1] Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990).