We ended our first year with "Make this holiday historic!," a campaign to raise awareness of the many wonderful historic sites, museums, and organizations across the country.  The goal, ultimately, is to draw new attendees, fans, volunteers, members, and donors.

In a country in which more than $450 billion is spent at retail during the holidays and more than 30 million people attend the movies, shouldn't we make more people aware of the great events--and shopping--available at the tens of thousands of historic sites and history-related organizations across the country?

Open to any history-related organization or historic site, the "Make this holiday historic!" campaign consisted of . . .

• An icon next to every holiday event listed on The History List
• An interactive calendar (archived here) that featured 33 events during the month of December (through January 1)
• Web and newsletter badges for all of the organizations that participated
• An app on Facebook
• Daily posts to Facebook and Twitter

We announced the list of featured events in late December.  Thanks to the organizations that participated and the individuals who supported and shared information about the campaign through their blog and Facebook posts, shares, and "Likes," and their Tweets.

As noted in the recap below, we plan to do a campaign in 2013 and have made it eve easier for organizations.  In fact, they can enter their December 2013 holiday events now and tag them for inclusion in the 2013 campaign. 

Over the holidays, I had an opportunity to meet with executives at two of Iowa's historic gems, Salisbury House (top) and Living History Farms (below), to discuss participating on The History List and get feedback on what we have planned for 2013.

Earlier in the month, Tara Richards, Marketing and Program Director at Brucemore, an historic home in Cedar Rapids that is Iowa's only National Trust Historic Site, added her organization and events to The History List and became the first Iowa institution to participate.  (Brucemore's holiday event was also featured as part of our "Make this holiday historic! campaign.  Check out December 11.)  

With my trip to Des Moines over the holidays, I wanted to build a critical mass of Iowa institutions.  

During my meetings, these institutions came up:

• The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque
• The Grout Museum District in Waterloo, including the Grout Museum of History and Science, The Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum, and the Rensselaer Russell House Museum
• The Sioux City Museum and Historical Association
• The State Historical Museum in Des Moines and the State Historical Society of Iowa
• Terrace Hill in Des Moines

Who else should be on that list?

Let us know and we'll reach out to them, as we do everyone who is recommended to us.  (Of course, anyone can list their organization and events now.  No invitation needed.)

Thanks to Leo Landis, the education director and curator at Salisbury House and Katie Wengert, director of marketing and community relations, and to Ruth Haus, president of Living History Farms, for the interest and good suggestions.

We ended 2012, our first year, with 244 organizations listed and are looking forward to continuing to grow and expand in 2013.

The reenactment took place on December 16, 2012 and started at Old South Meeting House and proceeded to the dock to watch the Boston Tea Party on a replica of the Beaver, one of the three tea ships.

In December we launched "Make this holiday historic!" in order to raise awareness of the hundreds and hundreds of historic sites, museums, and organizations across the country and draw new attendees, fans, volunteers, members, and donors.  Many of the events featured on the interactive calendar had a holiday theme, while others, most notably the Boston Tea Party and Washington's Crossing reenactments, were featured because they were important turning points in our nation's history.  (Here's the complete list of the 33 featured events.)

In addition to well-known sites and events, and events from organizations near you, you can learn about historic events that are less well-known, such as the Charleston Tea Party in 1774.

Adding your events and exhibits, well-known and less-so, is easy and can be done by anyone who is signed in, including staff, interns, and volunteers.  There is no fee to list.  Here's how to get started.

In late November we launched a campaign to raise awareness of historic sites and events and the organizations that make them possible.  We called it "Make this holiday historic!" and invited organizations to add their events to The History List.  We also did our own research to identify and add events. 

Participating in the campaign

When organizations entered their events, they appeared on The History List, and those events with a holiday connection included a red holiday icon.  Organizations could also add their choice of nine badges to their own sites, blogs, and newsletters. 

We've been adding events all month and just finished selecting the final ones that take us through January 1, 2013 and finish this year's interactive calendar.  (All events, regardless of whether or not they were featured, appear on The History List.)  And we've been Tweeting out daily selections, posting to our Facebook page, and even created a special Facebook app.

We've had great interest and participation, and Engaging Places, a blog focused on the management of historic sites from Max van Balgooy, included a nice post that described the campaign and the way in which historic sites could take advantage of it.

How the selections were made

Because the goal was to raise awareness broadly, we chose a wide variety of events, all with a tie to history, including historic sites, museums, and organizations:

• From Maine to California
• Organizations ranging in age from 20 years old to 200+ years old
• Private and public, from small, local organizations to statewide or spanning several states
• From expensive to free to pay-what-you-can
• For kids and families, or just adults
• From the momentous and world-changing to the delightful and trivial
• Including the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War
• Loud and boisterous to quiet and contemplative
• Outdoors and indoors, from walks to lectures to concerts to celebrations
• Castles and forts, ranches, houses, and mansions
• Well-known and centuries old, to just a few years old and just getting established
• One-time-only to every day of the month

The goal wasn't necessarily to pick the "best of" a particular type of event or the best event in the country taking place that day, but to highlight a wide variety in order to raise awareness of the many great historic sites, museums, and organizations across the country and draw new attendees, fans, volunteers, members, and donors.

And while every event had a clear tie to history, some, notably the Boston Tea Party and Washington's Crossing reenactments, didn't have a holiday theme per se, but took place during December.

The list for 2012

Note: To view the details on any of these, go to that date on the calendar and click on the Details link in that square.

December 1: Indiana Author Fair (Indianapolis)

December 2: “Reporting the Revolutionary War” author lecture (Boston)

December 3: Hayes Train Special Display (Fremont, OH)

December 4: Fantasyland with Santa (Roanoke, WV)

December 5: A Victorian Christmas (St. Paul)

December 6: Historic Libations annual party (San Francisco)

December 7: Holiday Whiskey Tasting (York, ME)

December 8: A Civil War Christmas (Frankfort, KY)

December 9: Russian Holiday Dinner (Eagle, WI)

December 10: Christmas Eve at the Byers-Evans House (Denver)

December 11: Brucemore Holiday Mansion Tours (Cedar Rapids, IA)

December 12: Holiday Decorations at the Pawnee Bill Ranch (Pawnee, OK)

December 13: Wisconsin Historical Museum Society Annual Sale (Madison)

December 14: Christmas by Candlelight (Sturbridge, MA)

December 15: Christmas Candlelight Grand Masquerade (New Bern, NC)

December 16: Boston Tea Party reenactment (Boston) - 77 photos

December 17: Guided Holiday House Tours (Portsmouth, NH)

December 18: The Sound of Christmas concert (San Antonio)

December 19: Riverfront Holiday House (Fort Myers)

December 20: Christmas by Candlelight (Old Salem, NC)

December 21: “At Christmas be mery” (Historic Jamestowne, VA)

December 22: The Castle by Candlelight (Youngstown, NY)

December 23: Christmas at the Newport Mansions (Newport, RI)

 

 

 

 

December 24: Holiday Lights at Clifton Mill (Clifton, OH)

December 25: Washington’s Christmas Crossing reenactment (Washington Crossing, PA)

December 26: “A Toy Shop Window” (Freeport, NJ)

December 27: Holiday Lantern Tour Newport (Newport, RI)

December 28: “It’s a Wonderful Life” screening with an introduction (New York)

December 29: Commemoration of USS Constitution vs. HMS Java (Boston)

December 30: Holidays at the Heard (Phoenix)

December 31: First Night at Otis House (Boston)

December 31 / January 1: Freedom’s Eve (Washington)

January 1: 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation (Boston)

The year ahead

The History List, which launched in early 2012, is a national platform connecting history-related organizations and events across the country with individuals and families looking for something interesting to do or who are planning trips to another region or across the country.

There's no cost to list, it's copy-and-paste simple, and anyone--staff, interns, volunteers, and fans--can enter or edit.  Getting started is easy. 

The History List has grown to become a complete calendar system for history organizations.  Find out how other history organizations use all the features of The History List to manage their event calendar on their own site, promote their events nationally, and make automatically-updated calendars available to partner sites and blogs: The History List Calendar System for History Organizations.

There are many new features and programs in the works.  Subscribe to our newsletter for updates and follow us on Twitter.

Thanks to all of the organizations who participate in creating this resource for all of us to use.  If you have questions or suggestions, or if you'd like help  getting started, let us know.

Updated: April 27, 2013: The video of the sessions (in two parts) was added to this post.  Hats off to Dr. Jane Becker for arranging for this high-quality video taping so that everyone can hear the discussion that took place in November.  (The delay in posting the video was due to a months-long review by NPS staff in Washington.)

Updated: November 8, 2012: A blog post discussing the afternoon's discussion from Dr. Melinda Marie Jetté on the History@Work blog from the National Council on Public History.

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This afternoon in Boston at the University of Massachusetts, National Park Service Rangers and other staff along with members of the university's history program and other interested individuals met to discuss history and interpretation in the parks. 

Speakers included James Green, History Department, UMass Boston; Cassius Cash (pictured above giving welcoming remarks), Boston National Historical Park; Jane Becker, History Department, UMass Boston; Frank Barrows, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park; Christopher Gwinn, Gettysburg National Military Park; Louis Hutchins, formerly Northeast Region, NPS; Lu Ann Jones, Park History Program, NPS; Barbara Pollarine, Northeast Region, NPS; Christine Arato, NPS War of 1812 Bicentennial Commemoration; Rolf Diamant, formerly Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park; Eric Hanson-Plass, Boston National Historical Park; Antoinette Jackson, Ethnography Program, Southeast Region, NPS; Kerry Olson, Lowell National Historical Park; and Marty Blatt, Boston National Historical Park.

Organized by Dr. Jane Becker in the university's history program and others in the history department as well as in the National Park Service, "Critical Conversations: The State of History in the National Park Service" follows from the report Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the National Park Service (below), issued last year from the Organization of American Historians under a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service. 

As explained in the report's introduction:

This report urges NPS to recommit to history as one of its core purposes and invest in building a top-flight program of historical research and interpretation that will foster consistently effective and integrated historic preservation and robust, place-based visitor engagement with history. The more central history can be to NPS’s missions and activities, the more relevant and responsive NPS can be to the needs of American society in the twenty-first century.

Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the National Park Service (2011)