PUBLIC HISTORY NEWS Volume 39 | Number 3 | June 2019 ANNUAL MEETING WRAP-UP MEGHAN HILLMAN / [email protected] the message was clear: we came to Hartford to reckoning for NCPH’s small full-time staff, all From March 27-30, 2019, NCPH joined over push ourselves. We came to work. three of whom are women: how do we meet 950 public historians in Hartford, Connecticut the needs of nearly a thousand conference for our annual meeting. This was our biggest attendees while also taking care of ourselves? stand-alone conference to date. We attribute the high attendance to the East Coast location, but also to the particularly strong theme of “Repair Work,” the growing prominence of the public history field, and the robust promotion and support of the conference locally by the Local Arrangements Committee. This theme, “Repair Work,” called on public Elon Cook presents to a packed house for session 36, You Can’t Handle historians to consider the work we have done the Truth! at the 2019 conference. and the work we have yet to accomplish NCPH President Marla Miller thanks 2019 Local Arrangements Committee Chairs Elizabeth Shapiro and Leah Glaser and 2019 Program to repair ourselves, our networks, and our NCPH’s own necessary work is not Committee Chairs Seth Bruggeman and Cathy Stanton. Photo by Melody communities. As it was explicitly designed to comfortable, seamless, or anywhere near Hunter-Pillion. do, the theme prompted conversations about finished. As you can read about in the piece 2019 brought a few organizational changes to inclusion and intersectionality, accessibility, written by members of the NCPH Board on the conference which grew out of a 2018 On activism, and self-care, yielding a great many page 4, the Hartford conference made it clear the Fly session hosted by NCPH’s Diversity and sessions on these topics. My sense is that most that NCPH as an organization must do more Inclusion Task Force. That session, “Sexual of us who organize conferences feel ambivalent to provide support, training, and guidance to Harassment and Gender Discrimination about the nature of “the theme” (see, for those at risk for sexual harassment or gender in Public History,” yielded a series of example, the American Historical Association’s discrimination in the workplace. There remain recommended first steps for making our decision not to have a theme for its 2020 ongoing organizational challenges about annual meeting more inclusive and welcoming. annual meeting). However, I emerged from managing the growth of the annual meeting We put three of these recommendations into this conference cycle with a renewed belief while ensuring it retains the character of an practice in Hartford: all attendees were invited that a timely theme, passionately and clearly NCPH conference and remains accessible to share their pronouns with a sticker affixed to articulated, can play a powerful role in sharing to those who are so often excluded from their badge or person (NCPH provided stickers a program committee’s priorities and result in professional development opportunities. And to facilitate); two of the four sets of restrooms sessions that tackle those priorities. This year, on a personal level, it was also a moment of on our floor of the Connecticut Convention CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 PRESIDENT’S COMMENTS: ARTISANAL PUBLIC HISTORY? MARLA MILLER / beautiful jewelry; and Julie Davis, Ashley “Craftsmanship is about telling a story with your [email protected] Bouknight, Cathy Stanton, Shirley Wajda, and hands,” as Alain Hayes explains in the digital pages Some of you know that I’m many others share my love of fiber arts. There of The Craftsmanship Initiative.1 Sometimes a fairly avid knitter. I feel are many more “makers” across the NCPH craftwork is part of public history practice itself: most relaxed when I have community. the meticulously researched faux food that Ashley needles in hand, and never Bouknight creates with papier mâché, plaster, seem to tire of looking at new I am also a historian of craft in the early American clay, and acrylic paint is as artful as it is powerful patterns, new yarns—all promises past. When I’m not engaged in my practice as a as an interpretive device. Other times this affinity of creativity, public historian and public history educator, I finds expression as public historians explore productivity, and research and write about gender and artisanal skill historical meanings of craft. In Massachusetts, th quiet contemplation in 18 -century New England (and, increasingly, Old Sturbridge Village is an iconic example of yet to come. And as a how that work is remembered in museums and that work; interpreters there, as they demonstrate crafter in the NCPH historic sites). And so I find myself thinking more 19th-century craftwork, help visitors understand community, I am and more lately about intersections across those longstanding local, regional, and global exchanges in good company. seemingly disparate arenas—about makers as of goods and skills. Meanwhile, Michigan State Seth Bruggeman is a public historians, and public historians as makers. University’s summer 2017 exhibit on craftivism, skilled woodworker; Knitting the Resistance: Crafting Political Protest from There is an easy affinity between public silversmith Joan the 2017 Women’s Marches, curated by Michigan Marla Miller is NCPH president and an historians and the maker movement. After all, avid knitter. Photo courtesy of author. Zenzen makes CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 PATRONS & PARTNERS The support of the following, each a leader in the field and committed to membership at the Patron or Partner level, makes the work of the National Council on Public History possible. PATRONS PARTNERS History™ Kristin Ahlberg North Carolina State University, Dept. of History IUPUI, Dept. of History Arthur A. Wishart Library, Algoma University of California, Santa Barbara, Dept. of History University Oklahoma State University, Dept. of History Rutgers University – Camden, Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities Baldwin Wallace University, Dept. of History Rincon Tribal Museum American Association for State and Local History California State University at Chico, Riverside Church Archives American University, Dept. of History Dept. of History The American West Center, University of Utah Rutgers University – Newark, Canadian Museum of Immigration Graduate Program in American Arizona State University at Pier 21 Studies Bill Bryans Carleton University, Dept. of History Shippensburg University, Dept. of History California State University, San Bernardino, Dept. of History The CHAPS Program at The Central Connecticut State University, Dept. of History University of Texas – Rio Grande St. John’s University, Dept. of History Valley Chicago History Museum Stephen F. Austin State University, Historical Research Associates, Inc. The Civil War Institute at Gettysburg Dept. of History College John Nicholas Brown Center, Brown University University at Albany, SUNY, Dept. of Florida State University, Dept. of History Know History History University of California at Riverside, Loyola University, Dept. of History Frontier Culture Museum Dept. of History Middle Tennessee State University, Dept. of History Georgia State University, Heritage University of Massachusetts Boston, New Mexico State University, Dept. of History Preservation Program Dept. of History New York University, Dept. of History Girl Scouts of the USA University of North Carolina at Nicodemus NHS and Brown v. Board of Education NHS, National Park Service Charlotte, Dept. of History The Hermitage Omeka University of North Carolina at IEEE History Center at Stevens Greensboro, Dept. of History Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Institute of Technology University of Northern Iowa, Dept. The Rockefeller Archive Center Indiana University of Pennsylvania, of History Texas State University – San Marcos, Dept. of History Dept. of History University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, University of Central Florida, Dept. of History Kentucky Historical Society Dept. of History University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Dept. of History Sharon Leon University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dept. of History Meijer Heritage Center Dept. of History University of Nevada Las Vegas, Dept. of History Minnesota Historical Society West Virginia University, Dept. of University of North Alabama History Dept. & Muscle Shoals National Heritage Missouri Historical Society History Area National Library of Medicine of the Western Michigan University, Dept. University of Richmond, School of Professional & Continuing Studies National Institutes of Health of History University of South Carolina, Dept. of History The National Parks of Boston Gerald Zahavi University of West Georgia, Dept. of History Naval Undersea Museum Wells Fargo, History Dept. Robert Weyeneth THANK YOU! HISTORY supports the NCPH for promoting the value and signifi cance of history every day. ©2010 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All rights reserved. 1292. All rights reserved. LLC. Networks, ©2010 A&E Television 2 PUBLIC HISTORY NEWS 10-1292_HIST_Corp_ad_FIN.indd 1 11/4/10 4:49 PM THE NATIONAL COUNCIL MANY THANKS TO OUR 2019 NCPH ANNUAL ON PUBLIC HISTORY MEETING SPONSORS! NCPH inspires public engagement with the past and serves the needs of practitioners in putting history to work GUARANTORS OF THE CONFERENCE Greenhouse Studios, University of Connecticut in the world by building community among historians, expanding professional skills and tools, fostering critical Central