Nicole Belolan is guest editor at Contingent from January-June 2024. Here’s her contingent story.
The author and her mom Camille on Long Island circa 1989
Thinking about ways to start this essay, I kept asking myself, “what is my contingent story?” I reflected on my history of writing about objects, everyday life, and disability history; publishing in a broad range of publications; encouraging writers in all realms of public history; advocating for sustainable and accessible history; and working in public history roles and spaces but also academia. Contingent is what I have always been.
Yet my contingent story might have a longer history than I realized. As I thought more about this question, my mind kept wondering back to my mom. This may surprise some people who knew her since my mom did not identify as a historian. In fact, she professed to hate history. When she said she hated history, I think she meant she found it boring because to her and many other people, “history” meant dates and names even though she and my dad (who actually did love history) took me to dozens of museums (many of which I know she enjoyed) as a kid and adult and perhaps even more antique stores and flea markets (my first museums). My mom enjoyed learning people’s stories—including missives I sent her about the material culture I study, like gout carriages, crutches, and close stools—and accessing them through things, customs, and ritual.
But she wasn’t just a consumer of history. I think my mom was a historian in her own right. For several years, she was the food editor and writer for our local newspaper, writing the so-called “first draft of history” on local foodways covering everything from mushroom hunters to emu farmers. During her career, she wrote for and served as an editor for a few other publications, and she was a teacher in a variety of settings. She loved learning things from people who were very different from her and telling anyone who would listen her stories—in some cases, many years later—about visiting new places and people in the course of researching her articles.
Despite the parallels between her work and mine, I didn’t expect her writing, editing, and teaching legacy to weigh so heavily on me. But the first time I sat down to provide feedback on a student’s writing after my mom died in November, she immediately came to my mind. How many times had I relied on her keen editorial eye to improve my own writing? Who did I have to thank for correcting my past participles at home in everyday speech? Who read my history publications (those I had edited and supported as well as written) even if they leaned left when she leaned right? Who modeled innovative teaching, inside and outside traditional classrooms, with limited resources? And how did I manage to absorb all of this and not really think about it until now?
My mom had degrees in English and teaching and was herself a contingent writer and teacher for many years. Though just like she may not have thought of herself as a historian, I’m not sure she would have thought of herself as contingent. I’ll never really know. But I hope she would have been proud of me for being here.