In the heart of Lincoln country during his bicentennial years, hear from one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture in the Civil War era, Harold Holzer.

Harold Holzer gave a rousing and engaging speach this morning on President Lincoln. By contrasting and comparing Lincoln’s presidency and Barack Obama’s he clearly  showed how  ”lessons of the past enspirit the future.” This last statement is something we all strive for or should, to show how we as interpretors of the past are relevant [...]

Last evening’s opening night event on the central canal was not only a chance to connect with friends and colleagues socially but an opportunity to get the latest buzz on some of the most pressing issues in the field today. I heard many people discussing the state of the economy and  the tough issues and choices [...]

I attended the all day workshop yesterday about creating online exhibits.  Lee Grinstead was fabulous and gave us plenty of good and bad examples to help us model our own online exhibits.  It was a good thing that Mike Frohlich, Multi Media Developer from the North Dakota Historical Society,  was there to help all of [...]

Bob Beatty, Vice President for Programs at AASLH, welcomes participants to the first-ever AASLH Online Conference.

In this audio message, AASLH President and CEO Terry Davis welcomes participants to the organization’s first online conference. To address the need of tighter budgets and limited travel, the first-ever Online AASLH Conference is your chance to get a condensed version of the AASLH and AIM Annual Meeting experience without the travel cost.

Highlights of every AASLH conference are the discussions between sessions and at the end of the day. Last night, running conversation topics seemed to be the economy and succession planning. As the economy has taken a turn in our least favorite direction, a number of long time museum professionals are opting out for early retirement. [...]

Just a quick reflection…Sitting at a table in the fabulous Eiteljorg Museum in downtown Indianapolis at the first evening event of the annual meeting, I was reminded again of why I like coming to AASLH every year. I was surrounded by old friends and new friends and everyone was talking history. Other conferences [...]

Hi everyone. I am Lillian Choy, Assistant Public Programs Manager at the Homestead Museum, located near Los Angeles. Like Ken, I had the opportunity to be on this year’s program committee, and am looking forward to an invigorating, thought-provoking time in Indianapolis. In thinking about the theme, “Making History a 21st Century Enterprise,” my hope [...]

After the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, the group boarded the bus to the Carnegie Museum of Montgomery County, housed in a former Carnegie library.  The Carnegie features exhibits complement history with science in places, and the highlight for most of the group was the medical exhibit installed by the science classes of the [...]

The ideas are flying here in Crawfordsville!  A small contingent from the conference have come by bus to tour the four different historic museums within this small city.  The first stop was the Rotary Jail Museum – the last working rotary jail in the country.  Not only is the site a cool one with its [...]

It’s T minus 8 hours until the official start of the conference, and I must confess I’m having a hard time going to bed.  From meeting new people to deciding which sessions to attend to the after-hours social events, the possibilities are exciting and a bit exhausting.  My very first conference experience was in Indy [...]

The recent news about how Hawaii is officially commemorating the 50th anniversary of its statehood got me to thinking about the history field’s role in this discussion. (For background, see recent pieces at http://kgmb9.com/main/content/view/20257/40/; http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8384198 and an earlier article on the state’s decision to go with a commemoration vs. a celebration http://statehoodhawaii.org/wp/index.php/2009/03/16/honolulu-advertiser-statehood-series/.)
Two years ago, at the [...]

Conference week is here!  Only a couple more days until we all meet to solve each other problems over late-night beer, as another blogger put it.  I will spend the next two days wrapping up as much work as I can on the homefront before the “meeting of the minds”.   I don’t have far to go, but I’m [...]

Hi Everyone – I have written the History Bytes column in History News for the past five or six years. We started it to foster discussion in the history community about the Internet, to help encourage history folks to think critically about their websites and to highlight projects we think feature excellence.  I’m thrilled that over the [...]