Full Program for Empowering our Communities

8:30 - 9:00    BREAKFAST WITH THE MASS HISTORY ALLIANCE
Ballroom       Moderator: Pleun Bouricius, President MHA
               With Jon Green, Eric Peterson, Mike Potaski, and Earl Taylor.Enjoy your 
               breakfast with the board and committees of the Mass History Alliance 
               in an open conversation about current topics. Here’s your chance to 
               put in your two cents and find out about getting on the board. 
               Topics: advocacy, the new website, the upcoming board election,
               next year's conference. All are welcome.

MAKE YOUR CASE, MAKE A DIFFERENCE: 
Advocacy Tools and Tricks for the Small, Busy, and Passionate

“Politics” feels big, and controlled by special interests with lots of money. But advocacy is about more than who you know and what things cost; at its heart, advocacy is about sharing the causes we love, educating our fellow citizens and our elected officials, and participating in the process of democracy, from the local level all the way to Capitol Hill. Join NEMA’s advocacy duo, Dan Yaeger and Meg Winikates, for an interactive session to find out how you and your organization (whether you’re one person wearing all the hats or several people wearing several hats!) can build a case for public support and form stronger relationships with your town, state, and federal representatives.

ENGAGING COMMUNITIES WITH PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH
The 1919 Police Strike and Lawrence World War I Memory Projects

Learn how communities are engaging residents in their local history through crowd-fueled research and innovative technology. Presenters will share their research models, training MOOC software, and other technology to help others create community-based research projects. The 1919 Boston Police Strike Project documents and preserves the stories of the more than 1,100 police officers who were involved in this highly influential labor strike which had lasting effects in the City of Boston and across the United States. Project team members will provide an overview of the history, structure, and current status of the project; speak to how they have recruited, trained, and retained volunteers; discuss challenges and successes; and examine how this project may serve as a model for other crowd-fueled local history projects. Through his passion and creativity, Marc Laplante tells the stories, and brings to life, the 35 Lawrence residents who received official recognition with a bridge, park, pool, street corner or buildings for their deaths in World War I.

EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES THROUGH ORAL HISTORIES THAT LEAD TO EXHIBITS

Wistariahurst (with its project Black Holyoke) and the Worcester Historical Museum (with its project LGBTQ + Worcester – For the Record) are using oral histories and discovery days to build documentation of communities whose histories have previously been neglected in their collections. Exhibits coming out of such work then educate the public about these histories and build momentum for additional oral histories and more donations of artifacts. The results are new collections that better represent the histories of everyone in the region, stronger communities who are empowered because their stories are being told, and new partnerships that build the audience for the historical museums. Rather than focusing on the content of these projects, this panel explores the nuts and bolts process of doing this kind of work, including the benefits, surprises, obstacles, and challenges.

GRANT OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION

Learn about a variety of grant opportunities for your organization. Mass Humanities will provide an overview of humanities-based project grants and the less-competitive discussion grants and local history grants. The Cultural Investment Portfolio at the Mass Cultural Council will discuss opportunities for receiving operating support and advisory services in a less competitive funding environment. The Local Cultural Council Program at MCC will cover the funding options at the Local Cultural Councils in towns and cities across the state and the technical assistance and on-the-ground facilitation that is also offered by the LCC Program. The Community Preservation Coalition will cover the funding opportunities available through the Community Preservation Act for the acquisition, preservation, rehabilitation, and restoration of historic resources. And finally, the Greater Worcester Community Foundation will discuss what GWCF and other Community Foundations across the Commonwealth look for in grant applications, providing guidance and tips about how to prepare a successful application.

YOUR DIGITIZATION STRATEGIC PLAN:
Issues, Opportunities, and Practical Solutions

Are you considering taking on a digitization project, but aren’t sure where to start? Do you have questions about how to create, manage, and provide access to digital content…all on a budget and with limited staff time? This session will answer these questions by focusing on strategies for planning and project management and will provide a framework for rethinking your local history program, since digitization will necessarily change how the public interacts with your collections. Topics covered will include assessing your collections and institutional space, deciding what and what not to digitize, how to track down in-state resources that can assist you with your projects, and finding the right tools for you.

REIMAGINING ANNIVERSARIES FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Anniversaries commemorate, remember people and groups previously discounted and overlooked, and also revisit how we enshrine important transitions in our time. Many major Massachusetts and national anniversaries are coming up, and they present opportunities to engage the public — focus public history and create engaging programming — but are often also surrounded by interpretive challenges and pitfalls. Four presenters will discuss their town, World War I, and women’s suffrage anniversary projects. Learn how their committees and groups have created and are working on designing anniversary programs that bring people together by mixing celebration with recognition of erasure, and seize opportunities to make history with and for the public in the twenty-first century.

12:45 BAYSTATE LEGACY AWARD and MASS HUMANITIES MASS HISTORY COMMENDATION

Enjoy a richly varied “Create Your Own Sandwich” lunch buffet with cold cuts, cheeses, salads, and assorted breads and rolls. Gluten free items available.

The Bay State Legacy Award goes to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the interpretation and presentation of Massachusetts history. For many years, the Bay State Historical League presented the John F. Ayer Award in recognition of an individual’s contributions to the interpretation and presentation of Massachusetts history. After 101 years of service, the BSHL dissolved on January 1, 2005, at which time the Massachusetts History Conference planning committee decided to continue this recognition of an individual’s contribution to Massachusetts history by inaugurating the Bay State Legacy Award.

Mass Humanities’ Massachusetts History Commendation is presented annually to recent grantee who has made a significant impact on the interpretation of Massachusetts history in the past few years year through a program, exhibit, or website.

When you are done with lunch, pay a visit to the Mass History Commons!

WORKING WITH NATIVE AMERICAN ARTIFACTS IN COLLECTIONS

The workshop will explore land-use history, the use of archaeology, and the study of material culture to learn more about the history of First People, as well as laws (past and present), practices, and issues regarding Native American collections. The workshop will include a hands-on artifact exercise for participants, as well as bibliographies and online resources for reading and research about Native American history and material culture.

COLLECTING ORAL HISTORIES TO UPLIFT COMMUNITY VOICES

This panel and discussion will explore how oral history can empower communities by providing a platform for a story to be told, shared and archived. The panelists will discuss two projects: Neighborhood Voices is an oral history project of Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative with 16 intergenerational interviews that elevate the history of the families that moved to the neighborhood in the decades following WWII and rebuilt the community across diverse racial, ethnic and linguistic identities; and the Boston Marathon Bombing Digital Archive, WBUR Oral History project, which conducted 37 oral histories of bombing survivors and those affected by the aftermath through a larger city-wide and university sponsored archive. The panelists will discuss oral history as it relates to community building, rebuilding and healing, the challenges and implicit biases that come with entering a community as an outsider to record its history, and the tradition of knowledge as co-created, shared, relational and evolving in the oral history field.

COORDINATING COLLABORATION:
Bringing Local Primary Source Education to the Boston Public Schools Curricula

Join this session to learn about a collaboration between the Boston Public Schools and the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections that brought high school students into the archives to do primary source research. This collaboration started when Boston Public Schools educators Chris Madson and Katherine Petta created a curriculum to study Boston’s history of school desegregation and the history of activism in Boston which included students performing archival research to incorporate in a biography of a selected activist in Boston. In this session we’ll detail how the partnership was created, the process of bringing the program into the curriculum, and the specific considerations of engaging students in primary source research. We’ll then break participants into groups to work collaboratively on visioning exercises centered around how cultural heritage institutions in Massachusetts could collaborate successfully with local schools using experiential and hands-on techniques using the BPS model as a guide.

HISTORY UNSEEN

How do you engage the past in places where its imprint is not easily visible? How do you reflect history in landscapes where evidence of the past has disappeared or been erased? How is history documented in areas undergoing change? Join us as we explore these questions through two case studies: Tufts University’s African American Trail Project, which maps public history sites throughout the greater Boston area related to African descended people since the 17th century, and “Union Square at Work,” which documents people, businesses and organizations at work in Somerville, a project conducted as the city was beginning a major redevelopment.

MA STATE HISTORIC RECORDS ADVISORY BOARD GRANTS AND PROGRAMS:
Archival Fellowships, Roving Archivist, Regrants, and more **

Find out more about the grants and programs sponsored by the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board including the new Archival Field Fellowships, the Roving Archivist Program, and Veterans’ History grants. The field fellowship, an exciting opportunity for emerging archivists and small historical organizations alike, allows repositories to get professional assistance in processing collections while giving up-and-coming archivists essential practical experience and mentorship. The session will outline the fellowship details and how to apply as well as provide information on other SHRAB programs.

EXPLORE THE MASS HISTORY COMMONS 
Afternoon Snack

Open all day, the Mass History Commons is the conference’s premier opportunity for networking and sharing what we have to offer. This s the place where you will find advice from the Roving Archivist, books by presenters, representatives from various projects and programs available to historical organizations. Everyone who is registered has the opportunity to exhibit or table here. Register for table space, bring your materials here, and meet your colleagues. The afternoon snack to keep us going will be served in the Commons.

Skills To Go:
CLEANING UP HISTORY’S MESSES:Good Dirt vs. Bad Dirt

Historic clothing and textiles are among the most fragile items in any collection. Because of their history of use, they can also be among the dirtiest. This session will discuss how to characterize and address “good dirt,” historically relevant staining and particulate matter, and “bad dirt,” foreign particulate matter, in museum collections. Instructions will be provided for several cleaning techniques, including testing and cleaning accretions and soot, that any collections care specialist can learn to perform. Participants will practice safely cleaning objects from the Museum Textile Services study collection.

Skills To Go:
CRAFTING PHASE BOXES**

Help improve access to important archival collections at your repositories. Learn to create custom enclosures, also known as phase boxes, for items in manuscript collections. This is a unique, hands-on opportunity to learn a skill and be exposed to interesting, historic materials from University Archives and Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston. The types of materials and resulting enclosures will vary greatly in size, age, and format. Training will be provided to participants, and no prior experience is needed. UASC will provide a limited* amount of books in need of enclosures. Instructions will be provided so you may create the enclosures at your institution.

History To Go:
UN-ERASING THE HISTORY OF NATIVE AMERICANS IN MASSACHUSETTS

For generations, New Englanders have been falsely educated about Native Americans, so much so that changing the canon will be the greatest challenge of this generation of historians and probably the next as well. In town after town, local histories of the 19th century dismiss Indians, if they are mentioned at all, as a great mystery—the disappeared. Except for every town’s “Last Indian”, First Peoples were effectively erased from both memory and landscape. Today, understanding the phenomenon of “Erasure” gives us the clues we need for reversing the process. This presentation focuses on the sources, tools, and collaborations we can cultivate to improve our stories and bring new ones—the stories we were not told—into the light.

Skills To Go
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS IN ACTION:Identifying Risks, Prioritizing Responses **

Recent fires at Notre-Dame and the Museu Nacional (Brazil) are powerful reminders of the destruction fire can take on cultural heritage collections. Fire suppression can mitigate fire risk, but what about other risks like flooding, mold, theft, or handling damage? Where do we draw the line of what is a collections “Emergency?” Are leaky pipes, humid rooms, or lack of security potential “Emergencies?” Recent trends in preservation consider smaller-scale potential “emergencies”, including handling issues, water leaks, unstable environments, mold, and more. Join the MBLC’s new Preservation Specialist to learn how you can use the MBLC’s new Self-Assessment worksheet to mitigate risk to your collection.

8:30-10:45

MORNING and ALL DAY ACTIVITIES

9:30-10:45

Ballroom

WELCOME and KEYNOTE ADDRESS

4th floor

Suite B/C

MORNING BREAKOUT SESSIONS

11:00-12:15

Room 401

Room 320

4th floor

Suite A

Room 402/403

Room 408/409

12:15-1:30

Ballroom

Lunch and Awards

1:30-4:00

4th floor

Suite A

WORKSHOP

1:30-2:45

AFTERNOON BREAKOUT SESSIONS

Room 401

Room 402/403

4th floor

Suite B/C

Room 408/409

2:45-3:00

AFTERNOON BREAK

3:00-4:00

Room 401

TO GO SESSIONS

Ballroom

Room 320

Room 402/3

4th floor

Suite B/C

Room 408/9

** Eligible for SHRAB afternoon walk-in