The National Council on Public History was established in 1979 as the professional organization of a growing movement advocating and practicing collaborative and interdisciplinary historical scholarship outside the boundaries of academia.

With its emphasis on community engagement and activism, the term "public history" united people who were already practicing historical work outside of the classroom, including archivists, museum professionals, government historians and policy-makers, preservationists, oral historians, historical consultants, and more.

[1] The organization was co-founded by historian Philip L. Cantelon and the formation of NCPH can be traced back to a 1978 public history conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

The steering committee met in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 1979, where they voted to create the National Council on Public History.

In partnership with the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara NCPH publishes a quarterly journal, The Public Historian.