This paper explores the meaning of “public history” using Michael Frisch’s concept of a “shared authority” (A Shared Authority, 1990) through a case study of the reviews of two edited and published oral histories, Outside the Magic Circle: The Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr (ed. Hollinger F. Barnard, 1985) and All is Never Said: The Narrative of Odette Harper Hines (ed. Judith Rollins, 1995). The result is that although history can be produced by historians with the public and about the public, public history cannot be truly an authoritative history (making explicit connections between facts, narrative, and the purpose of that narrative for the present) without conveying to the public an accurate perception of where the authority for the creation of history rests.