Editor’s note: This is the twelfth entry in a series on how historians—especially contingent historians and those employed outside of tenure-track academia—do the work of history. If you know of someone we should interview, or would like to be interviewed yourself, send an email with the subject line HOW I DO HISTORY to pitches@contingentmag.org.
Hayley Noble (@HayleyMNoble on Twitter) is a public and military historian. Here’s how she does history.
What’s your current position?
I am a research and programs specialist at the Old Idaho Penitentiary Historic Site (Old Pen), a division of the Idaho State Historical Society. I started in January 2019 as a part-time visitor services representative doing more public facing things like front desk shifts and giving guided tours. Then in August 2019 I transitioned into the position I’m currently in. Prior to employment, I completed a semester-long internship during grad school that culminated in some panels that are now on display at the site. So collectively I’ve interned and worked at the Old Pen for two and half years.
I also do freelance work on the side, such as researching for public programming like exhibits, genealogy, oral histories, as well as web content and management. Plus writing different short pieces for sites like the NCPH History@Work blog, the Clio and the Contemporary history blog, and book reviews for the Journal of Military History.
Tell our readers what a typical day and week of work is like for you. For starters, is there such a thing as a typical day for you?
Typically, I am in my office and researching for whatever project I’m currently working on. No day is ever the same though, as I also fill in when we need front desk or gift shop assistance, set up for site rentals and events, visit the Idaho State Archives, help pick gift shop merchandise, do guest spots on the site’s podcast, Behind Gray Walls, help with social media content, and whatever else needs doing. We only have three other full-time staff members so we all do a little bit of everything. With the pandemic going on, we were closed in 2020 from mid-March to mid-June, and were fortunate to open fairly quickly compared to other states. When we did re-open, masks and online appointments were required, plus limiting site admission. Additionally, we normally go all out for Halloween and fall events, so those had to be replanned with restrictions in place. The hope is that this fall we can resume the Halloween madness.
The remains of the Old Idaho Penitentiary’s dining hall. It was destroyed in a 1973 riot.
What exactly is a historical society and what does it do?
The Idaho State Historical Society (ISHS) is a state agency made up of the State Museum, State Archives and Record Center, State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), and historic sites, like the Old Idaho Penitentiary, all located in Boise, except for a few other smaller sites throughout the state. Our mission is simple: preserve and promote Idaho’s history. As you can see, ISHS has a lot of institutions and we complete all kinds of work. The Museum and Old Idaho Penitentiary are open for public tours, and we also host school groups and special events.
You have our attention: tell us why we should visit the Old Idaho Penitentiary.
The Old Idaho Penitentiary is a fascinating place because it functioned as the Idaho Territorial Prison from 1872 until Idaho gained statehood in 1890. It’s one of the few territorial prisons left, and is one of the largest sites available for the public to tour.1 In 1890, it became the Idaho State Penitentiary until the prison closed in 1973. The next year it was listed on the National Register for Historic Places and opened as a museum, so the prison has been around a long time, and it has functioned as a museum for nearly five decades.
Visiting a historic prison is really interesting because you can learn a lot from a society’s crimes at any given time. In the early days of the Penitentiary there were crimes like stealing horses, selling liquor to an Indian, Mormon persecution with cohabitation laws, and robbing the US mail, with occupations listed as miners, farmers, and laborers. Then with era-defining events like Prohibition and the Great Depression there were liquor crimes and money-based crimes like forgery and burglary. The 1950s saw a steep rise in women committing crimes as women were less likely to tolerate spousal abuse. And a constant theme is that people of color were disproportionately imprisoned compared to census data. So you can learn quite a bit about a community when you start analyzing crime and prisoners.
Currently, most of the cell houses are open to tour, along with death row and the gallows, all with interpretation and historic photos showing what the prison was like when operational. The newest exhibit, installed last September, details the seven riots and disturbances that occurred from 1910 to 1973. Some of the buildings are still damaged from those riots, so it’s a really vital addition to explain what happened, why the buildings are damaged, and how the riots ultimately led to the closure of the facility. In that exhibit we also discuss prisoner conditions and the evolution of prisoner treatment while incarcerated.
The site is also home to the J. Curtis Memorial Exhibit, donated to the state at the time of his death.2 It’s a vast private weapons collection on display that is a little out of place at the prison. But as a military historian, I love that it’s here.
Hayley volunteered at Zoo Boise in 2013. Here she is next to Jabari the giraffe.
Tell us about your undergraduate and graduate school experiences. Was history your main area of study?
I went to Boise State University for both my BA and MA. As an undergrad, I loved history, art, and anthropology so I had a difficult time picking a major. I ended up majoring in History, with minors in Anthropology, Art History, and Dance. I love looking at the past through art, material culture, and writing, so all three of those appealed to me. I received my BA in History in 2013, and my Master of Applied Historical Research (Public History) in 2019.
Hayley’s thesis exhibit, Women in Combat: The Soviet Example, restaged in the J. Curtis Earl Memorial exhibit at the Old Idaho Penitentiary.
What were your research interests in graduate school?
During my MA, my research focuses were centered on World War II. For a long time I have been interested in individual combat experiences and tactical histories rather than operational and strategic histories. With that in mind, I was initially going to study combat art and have that be the basis of my thesis. But I kept reading and pulled towards the Soviet women in combat on the eastern front. I switched topics and instead of combat art, I focused on the Soviet women working as snipers, tankers, medics, machine gunners, and pilots at the front lines. So I wrote my thesis on those women, discussing their example for current American integration of combat units, and public history theory. Since I did opt for the Public History emphasis, I was also required to complete a project.
For the project I created an exhibit, Women in Combat: The Soviet Example, featuring Soviet women in combat and argued for their example in current military affairs. It was on display in the Boise State Library for almost 2 months. A large part of the exhibit was simply informing the public about the Soviet Union’s use of women, which many people still do not know, arguing that normalizing women in war in history benefits those that have issues seeing women in war today. Along with the exhibit, I made a website and social media accounts to help spread the word about these Soviet women and women in military history in general.3 I continue to update those social media accounts, still trying to spread the knowledge. I was able to restage the exhibit in the J. Curtis Earl Memorial exhibit here at the Old Pen to give it an extra life rather than have it sit in my garage.
Soviet sniper Roza Shanina with an unknown spotter. Hayley’s research has examined soldiers such as Shanina.
You’re a scholar of military history. For those interested in the field and wanting to learn more about, what are some must-read books and articles? Who are some military historians that have inspired you?
The best book I can recommend is The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich. Others include Avenging Angels and Defending the Motherland by Lyuba Vinogradova, and anything from Reina Pennington and Kazimiera J. Cottam. Another suggestion I can make is that memoirs are some of the most valuable books for military history. I love having the view from the ground up of ordinary combatants, not clouded by officers and unnecessary politics.
What is something people don’t know or appreciate about working in a historical society?
I suppose the biggest surprise for me was that as a state agency, things are a lot more political than I had imagined. As representatives of the government we are beholden to the legislature, the governor, and taxpayers, so at the Old Pen, there are times that we cannot be as outspoken as we would like, because we know the pushback that would come. I wrote a longer piece about this for the Clio and the Contemporary History blog that explains this issue a little more. A private prison museum, like Eastern State Penitentiary, has a lot more freedom in topics and programs they can pursue, compared to us.4
What do you find to be the most rewarding part of working at your historical society?
I’m naturally an introvert and not a people-person at all, so my choice to go into public history was a little confusing. But the thing about working in public history is that you get to share what you’re really passionate about and that makes it worth it. I’d say 75% of visitors to the Old Pen are generally interested, but that other 25% of people are the ones who are really engaged and ask great questions when I give tours. Or when you overhear visitors looking at one of the exhibits and they totally connect the past and present and understand precisely the message we are trying to convey or ponder a different point of view. Sharing my enthusiasm with visitors and knowing they completely understood or thought about another perspective makes it all worth it, even if those interactions can be draining.
Disturbing Justice exhibit at the Old Idaho Penitentiary, detailing the 7 riots and disturbances through comic book art and panels.
Tell us about some of the writing and projects you have developed and launched at the Idaho Historical Society?
In 2020 we published a book Numbered: Inside Idaho’s Prison for Women, 1887-1968 and installed a new exhibit, Disturbing Justice, so both of those took a number of hours to research and complete. The book was a ton of work, both with writing and editing, plus finding photos and good visuals. Then we had a section featuring every woman incarcerated, so triple checking their information was an enormous task. Then the exhibit, Disturbing Justice, opened in September exploring the seven riots and disturbances at the site. The fun thing was that we worked with an artist to make comic book illustrations for each riot, in addition to interpretive panels, photos, and a timeline. There was a lot of work coordinating with the artist and combing through all the newspaper articles. It was fun and the exhibit turned out great.
Now I’m working on a few smaller exhibits for the J. Curtis Earl Memorial space to get more women and people of color into the exhibit, looking at debunking the “lone, white cowboy” mythology of the West. I’ve also been working with undergraduate students at Boise State’s Gaming and Interactive Media Department developing virtual reality and augmented reality experiences to enhance people’s visit to the site. I was in charge of researching and managing the students. So there’s always a multitude of on-going projects.
You’re a public historian. For someone who is not familiar with the field of public history, how would you describe the field and what does public history mean to you?
Essentially, I describe a public historian as anyone working outside the academic scope. Museum people, archivists, genealogists, historic site interpreters, history podcasters—they’re all public historians. The definition is in the name: bringing history to the public.
A scenic overview shows the main part of the Libarna Archaeological site. The roads and buildings were believed to be a marketplace, with the amphitheater in the back of the photo.
What advice would you share with someone wanting to work someday in a historical society?
I’m very fortunate to have completed an internship with the organization prior to working there. That opportunity gave me insight into the culture of the agency and what my eventual co-workers were like. So I can’t stress enough the opportunities of an internship or volunteering to get to know the institution.
Additionally, take advantage of opportunities outside of your “normal” area of emphasis. During grad school I was part of the Libarna Urban Landscapes Project field school which worked on surveying the Roman city, Libarna, in northern Italy in 2018. Romans and archaeology were not, and still aren’t, my area of study, but I am so glad I took the opportunity to work on that project. Now I can say that I have experience at an archaeological site, using ground-penetrating radar to survey the Roman city of Libarna, and contribute to on-going scholarship. Not to mention, I got to stay in Italy for about 6 weeks.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about what historians do and how they work?
I think most people’s view of historians is very narrow. They’re either a professor, writing a book, or working in a male-dominated museum. The field is more diverse than that and needs to continue pursuing diversity at all institutions. I think studying history opens you up to a lot more possibilities. You have the skills to think critically and analytically, write well, interpret different events, make persuasive arguments, and see value in the humanities. These skills are transferable and open up many opportunities when you work hard and demonstrate them. Additionally, I really despise the comment that history is only memorizing events and dates. It’s so much more than that, and so much more relevant than people realize.
Visiting the USS Arizona Memorial in 2019
If money, time, and distance were not issues, what’s a dream place you’d love to visit or work?
There is a whole list of places I’d love to work. In 2019 I finally got to visit Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and that was absolutely amazing. I’ve also been fortunate to visit the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and that was phenomenal. I would totally be a historian at either place. I’d also love to go overseas, especially if I had the language skills to research in archives in France, Germany, and Russia, as well as visit all the notable battle sites and concentration camps. Additionally, I’m really interested in going to Germany to see for myself how they’ve reckoned with the Nazi past, concerning architecture, monuments, and memorialization, in places like Munich and Berlin. Then compare it to Russia’s treatment of the “Great Patriotic War.” I’ve read about it, but want to experience the cultures surrounding World War II in the present.
Hayley in 2018 at a Roman amphitheater in Verona
- The others are Yuma Territorial Prison, Wyoming Territorial Prison, and the Old Montana Prison at Deer Lodge.
- J. Curtis Earl was a world famous arms dealer from the 1970s until his death in 2000. In that time he amassed one of the largest private weapons collections in the world. Prior to his passing, he chose to donate the collection to the Idaho State Historical Society, due to family strife and his wish to leave a legacy. Part of the agreement was that the collection would stay together and that ISHS would build a special exhibit to display his collection.
- Can be found on Instagram and on Facebook.
- See Hayley’s Clio and the Contemporary essay “History on the Government’s Dime.”