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.

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)

Updated: October 3, 2012: Handout materials from the conference are now included in this post.

Updated: September 29, 2012: I'll also be attending (but not exhibiting) at the New England Museum Association (NEMA) annual conference November 7 - 9, 2012 in Burlington, Vermont.

We'll be exhibiting at the annual conference of the American Association for State and Local History in Salt Lake City.  The conference starts Wednesday, October 3 and the exhibit hall is open Thursday (9 a.m. - 5 p.m.) and Friday (9 a.m. - 4 p.m.).  We'll be in booth #3, near the AASLH booth and Arcadia Publishing.                             

Updated: August 19, 2012: The new section has three case studies, information on grants to support maritime heritage tourism, and details on a free multi-part webinar series on heritage tourism that begins September 20.

A new section, Resources for Organizations, contains the case studies that appeared in previous posts, and it will be the home of all future case studies as well as other resources for history-related organizations of all types and sizes.

The link to the section is in the footer.

Meeting with the members of the Kentucky Historical Society on August 3 introduced The History List to another state historical historical society and another region of the country.  Executive Director Kent Whitworth kindly arranged a meeting with his staff, including Jody Blankenship, Director of Education, and Sally Warfield (left) and Chelsea Compton (right), responsible for online and marketing efforts respectively.

The conversation underscored some of the same points that have come up in discussions with organizations in other regions:

• The difficulty of maintaining ongoing communication with many of the smaller local historical societies as volunteer leaders come and go and membership ebbs and flows.
• The interest in providing a tool to local societies that would enable them to publicize their events to a broader audience with little additional effort and no additional cost.
• The challenge in incorporating a useful events calendar into an institution's site; integrating ticket sales into the calendar; and creating a platform that would publicize the events from the many local organizations without burdening staff with entering all of the events throughout the state.

We will support their new site in any way we can, possibly through our calendar widgets, and look forward to an opportunity to work with local historical societies and other local history organizations in Kentucky interested in adding their organization and events to The History List.  (This is a helpful one-pager that any organization can use to add their organization and events.  An earlier post provided an introduction to our standard embeddable widgets that are built into every listing.  There is no cost to list an organization or event, or to use these widgets.)

The meeting took place in the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, which currently has a large installation entitled, "Civil War: My Brother, My Enemy."  The Center is the headquarters of the Society and is part of the Kentucky Historical Society Campus in downtown Frankfort.  The Old State Capitol (included in the pictures below) and the Kentucky Military History Museum at the State Arsenal are also part of the campus.  The 167,000-square-foot, $29-million Center for Kentucky History opened in April 1999.  The Kentucky Historical Society was founded in 1836.

Updated: August 10, 2012: A shorter version of this appears as a case study in the new Resources for organizations section.

The Vermont History Expo 2012 took place this last weekend in Tunbridge, Vermont, bringing together more than 150 historical societies and related organizations for a two-day event expected to draw 4,000 - 6,000 attendees.

Because of the interest shown in this event by several people in other states, I took pictures of every aspect of the event, including the print materials and signs.  In the 400+ photos below you'll also see pictures of nearly every booth and display.  (Tip: To view a larger image, click on "Link" on the right below each photo.)

The history behind the Vermont History Expo

The Expo, which now takes place every two years, began in the year 2000 and is organized today by staff and a small group of volunteers, with the financial support of several sponsors.  During the two days I learned about the history of the Expo from Addie Minott, a long-time volunteer with her local historical society who, as a board member of the Vermont Historical Society, was one of the driving forces behind the first Expo, and from Tess Taylor, Director of Education and Public Programming at the Vermont Historical Society, and Mark Hudson, Executive Director of the Society.

The idea for the Expo came from an initiative by three counties in 1999 who all agreed to open on the same Saturday.  The next year the Expo was born as a state-wide event with 85 of the state's then 90 historical societies participating.   The Expo continued yearly until 2008, when it switched to every other year.  An annual theme was added in 2005.  These have included "Women in Vermont History," "Travel and Transportation," "Back to the Land," "Industry and Innovation," and this year's theme, "Vermont in the Civil War." 

One of the important results from that first Expo to the present day is that more communities have started or revitalized their local historical societies, such that today there are 197 societies in Vermont.

Connecting with organizations across Vermont

Mark Hudson expressed his interest in letting the state society's member organizations know about The History List as a no cost tool for publicizing their organizations, sites, and events.  (Dennis Fiori, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and Carol Knauff, Assistant Director of Development for Communications at the Society, came on board early on and have been very supportive, including participating in the beta and providing helpful feedback.)

Also during the Expo, conversations with . . . 

•  Peter Gilbert, Executive Director of the Vermont Humanities Council, underscored the value of The History List as well as  other outreach efforts designed to connect people to our history.  One recent program from the Vermont Humanities Council is the "Civil War Book of Days: 150 Years Ago—This Week in the Civil War," a weekly e-mail newsletter with content drawn from letters, poetry, speeches, news reports, and more.

• Kate Bradley, who  recently joined the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation in Plymouth Notch as the Director of Engagement and Special Collections, reminded me about the special events coming up this Fourth of July.  Coolidge was born on the the Fourth in 1872, and Kate is going to be adding those special events and the Foundation's slate of lectures to The History List.

• Brooke Paige, who has for each of the last several years done a deep dive into some aspect of Vermont business and industry and mounted a major exhibit on that topic at the Expo, all at his expense.  This year's subject: The "common cracker" in Vermont.  See the photos above for several of his display this year.

• Phebe Meyers, an intern with Vital Communities, who was in the "Vermont History Detectives" tent.  Pictures of the tent, the materials, and some of the "Vermont History Detectives" signs in booths, are in the pictures above.

Similar events in other states

Several people replied to a post in a LinkedIn group asking if anyone knew of other states or regions with something similar:

• Jessica Rivas of the Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles: "In Los Angeles, we do a much smaller scale event called L.A. Heritage Day for all museums, historical societies, etc. in the greater Los Angeles area. While the event continues to get larger and integrate more things each year we are a long way off from something on the scale of your event. I hope we get there soon this event sounds great!"

• Kay Demlow: "In Oregon we have the Oregon Heritage Commission, supported by our SHPO, which is part of Parks and Recreation. They provide a regular list serve, which announces events, job openings, achievements and other news from any of the heritage constituents. These include city, county and other historical societies, local landmarks boards and commissions, preservationists, planners, and many more. Once a year they host the Oregon Heritage Conference, which brings us all together for three days of workshops, tours and speakers. It's in a different town every year, so we get to see success stories and hear about issues from other regions around the state. It's a great service to all of us!"

• Brenda Baratto: "We have the annual Landmark Conference in South Carolina. It's put on by the Confederation of South Carolina Local Historical Societies. Just had this year's in April in North Augusta. What a wonderful way to learn about the local communities, their history and their historical projects and to network and meet colleagues."

• John Robinson: "In Pennsylvania we have the Pennsylvania Federation of Museums and Historical Organizations, which holds regular conferences. "Pennsylvania’s cultural community is rich and diverse. Museums, galleries, zoos, science centers, visitor centers, historic sites, monuments, parks, libraries, archives, and educational institutions contribute to a new economy of ideas in the Commonwealth. We invite you to join together with us to share best practices in advocacy, economic and community development, education, and cultural tourism."
  
  "In addition, under the Federation's umbrella is another group. "APACHS, the Alliance for Pennsylvania County Historical Societies, is a network of the Commonwealth’s sixty-seven official county historical societies. Despite a broad range of size and scope of services, county historical societies share common goals and face similar challenges. APACHS creates opportunities to learn from one another, build rapport among colleagues, and provide mutual support. Meetings are held at various locations throughout the year as well as at the statewide museum conference."

Added June 23:

• Martha B. Katz-Hyman: "New Jersey has the New Jersey State History Fair each year in May at Washington Crossing State Park. I've been, and it's a great gathering of local and state historical societies, living history presentations, and demonstrations of all kinds."

• Vince Murray: "The Arizona History Convention has been active for over fifty years."

If your are connected to any of these as an organizer, volunteer, or participant, or if you know of another similiar event, please add it to The History List and add a comment below so that others learn about it.