Agenda

9:00 – 9:30 AM

Registration & Continental Breakfast

9:00 – 4:00 PM

Mass History Commons
A place to exchange ideas and conversation, and to showcase your organization, projects, and products.

9:30 – 9:45 AM

Welcome

9:45 – 10:45 AM

Keynote Address
Why Myths Persist — And How History Can Compete
Ray Raphael
Author, Founding Myths: Stories that Hide Our Patriotic Past and Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How to Get It Right

10:45 – 11:00 AM

Break

11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Whose Freedom is it Anyway? The Freedom Trail® as Concept and Conceit
Millions of tourists and school children learn our founding narrative through the Freedom Trail® each year. For many it’s the only thing they learn about the American Revolution. Should we make it better? How? Join a roundtable discussion of outstanding and thoughtful historians, as they start a dialogue that may eventually renew the way we see historic Boston and the creation of our nation.

Christine Baron, Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Education, Boston University
Marty Blatt, Chief of Cultural Resources/Historian, Boston National Historical Park/Boston African American National Historic Site
Karilyn Crockett, Yale University
Nathaniel Sheidley, Historian and Director of Public History, The Bostonian Society
Inez Wolins, Chief of Interpretation & Education, Boston National Historical Park/Boston African American National Historic Site

Revealing the Past by Reading the Landscape
Guests at our historic sites are often surprised to learn that this forest used to be a cultivated field, or this road used to be a canal, or this stately mansion was originally a modest, four-room home. Often, what you see is not what you get: our landscapes and structures have changed more in the distant and recent past than we think. How can we help our visitors use their imaginations, read the clues hidden in plain sight, and envision a very different past use for a seemingly well understood spot? Learn how to use this challenge to teach about the past landscape and how and why it has changed. Encourage people to successfully imagine a very different world, and experience the exciting results first-hand in the optional (and free) Blackstone Canal Horse and Wagon Tour at the end of the day!

Elizabeth Bacon, Founding Director, This is MYCity!
Ryan Cochran, Intern, Connect Historic Boston, Boston Transportation Department
Alex Gicas, Promotional and Training Administrator, Worcester’s Blackstone Canal Horse and Wagon Tours
DongHwa Kwak, Intern, The Boston Harbor Association
Francesca Savani, Tour Guide, Worcester’s Blackstone Canal Horse and Wagon Tours
Addy Smith-Reiman, Connect Historic Boston, Boston Transportation Department

Skills Workshop: Using Technology to Create Innovative Tours
Tours are a wonderful way to introduce a new level of interpretation. Mobile technology allows the telling of multiple narratives. Learn how to use the latest technology to create innovative tours of all varieties.

Rob Pyles, CEO and Co-Founder, TourSphere

12:15 – 1:15 PM

Lunch Buffet (vegetarian option available)

12:15-1:15 PM

THE ASK (Mass History Commons)

• Wonder whether your project is suitable for a grant proposal?
• Need an intern?
• Thinking about going back to school?

Pleun Bouricius, Mass Humanities
Jane Becker, UMass Boston Public History and Archive
Hayley Wood, Mass Humanities
Marla Miller, UMass Amherst Public History Program

Sign up in the morning for a speed date and use your lunch hour to talk with the people who know the answers to your questions!

12:45-1:00 PM

Bay State Legacy Award
Ray Raphael

Mass History Award
The Royall House and Slave Quarters

1:00 – 4:00 PM

Skills Workshop: Reading Objects for Their True Value
Greater than perceived monetary or artistic value, the stories our collections have to tell are priceless. Participants are guided through a series of hands-on object lessons to introduce them to the literacy of understanding and analyzing an artifact’s multiple meanings, to start to learn to read them just as you learned to read text as children. See the full potential of your collection; learn to use your objects to tell the stories you want to tell.

Rainey Tisdale, Independent Curator / Museum Consultant

MA SHRAB Preservation Workshop: Living to Fight Another Day: Basic Stabilization Techniques for Digital Materials
Constraints on time and resources often make it difficult to live up to the best practices for digital preservation. For some file types, there are no archival formats. Rather than throwing up our hands in despair, what are some practical steps that can be taken to “keep the bits alive” until the time, resources, and technology catch up to our needs? Whether digital files are already flooding through your doors or you are just starting to consider letting them in, this workshop will provide practical advice on how to start your institution on the road to long-term, stable digital preservation of common digital files including word processing documents, spreadsheets, and digital images. (Note: More complex formats like audio, video, and databases will not be covered.)

Veronica Martzahl, Records Archivist, Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University

1:15-2:30 PM

Taking Steps to Ensure Successful Site Reinterpretation
The motivations for re-interpreting a historic space, site, or story can be many. Perhaps recent research has provided new information to share about your site. Maybe current cultural trends have caused you to view your story in a new way. Or maybe visitors just don’t seem interested any longer in what you have to share! Whether you are in the middle of a reinterpretation project or thinking of embarking on one, you are welcome at this session. We’ll share examples of both major and minor reinterpretation episodes from the files of the Emily Dickinson Museum, then walk you through some of the basic steps of interpretation projects. We’ll also discuss do’s and don’ts to make your project as successful as it can be. Participants are asked to have a project in mind when they come to the session so that they can participate more fully in discussion.

Cindy Dickinson, Director of Interpretation and Programming, Emily Dickinson Museum
Jane Wald, Executive Director, Emily Dickinson Museum

Working with Revered Figures: Having Your Myth and Busting It, Too
This session will explore the benefits and/or perils of being associated with one famous person (whether on the global, national, or local scale). How can you work with this “limitation” to improve your organization?

J.L. Bell, Independent Researcher Nina Zannieri, Executive Director, The Paul Revere Memorial Association

It Never Happened Here but It Made a Good Story: Juggling Pilgrims and Puritans, Indians, and Witches
Public historians from Plymouth and Salem talk about their work taking on popular history mythology: embrace or reject? What better story to tell? When is just correcting the misconception not good enough?

Emily Murphy, Park Historian, Salem Maritime National Historic Site Richard Pickering, Deputy Director, Plimoth Plantation

2:30-2:45 PM

Break

2:45-4:00 PM

 “You Say You Want a Revolution…”
Was it started in one shot – heard around the world – or not? This session will use two case studies to examine how Revolutionary events can be re-interpreted to allow for a more inclusive examination of history that is relevant to more visitors and participants.

Susan Bennett, Executive Director, Lexington Historical Society
Nancy Cole, Education Director, Martha’s Vineyard Museum
Alison Falotico, Manager of Interpretation and Public Programs, Lexington Historical Society

Mission and Identity: Redefining One without Losing the Other
Find out how two organizations have successfully redefined their missions without losing the vital history that lay behind their creation.

Katherine Kane, Executive Director, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center
Tom Lincoln, Executive Director, The Royall House and Slave Quarters

“The truth shall make you free”: Building Community Participation by Taking on Difficult Issues
Explore how to get your community to accept/understand/even welcome difficult history/changes to the story.

Allison Carter, Education Programs Manager, Historic Newton
Jim Freeman, Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Melissa Westlake, Curator of Education, Historic Newton

5:00-6:00 PM

TOUR: Worcester’s Blackstone Canal Horse and Wagon Tours
Join trained interpreters for a riveting journey through Worcester’s Canal District as they tell the farm to factory story of the Industrial Revolution and the immigrants that made it happen.
Canal Museum, Green Island, Worcester