American Association for State and Local Historians Meeting in Buffalo, NY September 14-17, 2022
What is the AASLH Annual MeetingThe AASLH Annual Meeting is an in-person experience that engages and connects history professionals and volunteers and inspires them in their work. We encourage every attendee’s full participation in the sessions, workshops, tours, and discussions. Each session type is categorized so that attendees can see the level of participation it involves. Before you propose a session, think carefully about how it will engage your audience.
We hope the Annual Meeting becomes a transformative moment for all, a chance to go deep, to reenergize, to build professional relationships, and to focus on a sense of place and history in the host city. In formal and informal spaces, participants will work through challenging discussions and learn new practices. While there will be an emphasis on communal events to build shared experience, we will offer multiple opportunities for personalized learning, in tours, workshops, and sessions. Consider these goals when creating your session.
We hope the Annual Meeting becomes a transformative moment for all, a chance to go deep, to reenergize, to build professional relationships, and to focus on a sense of place and history in the host city. In formal and informal spaces, participants will work through challenging discussions and learn new practices. While there will be an emphasis on communal events to build shared experience, we will offer multiple opportunities for personalized learning, in tours, workshops, and sessions. Consider these goals when creating your session.
Theme for 2022: Right Here, Right Now: The Power of Place
From Plymouth Rock to Ellis Island to Wounded Knee, history is powerfully embedded in our sense of place. Place offers a powerful lens through which we can view the past, challenging us to think beyond our modern cityscapes to consider the full history of the space we now call the United States.
As AASLH gathers in Buffalo, NY in 2022, we have an opportunity to reflect on the spaces we occupy and the stories they tell. As holders of history, we have a responsibility to ensure that full stories are being shared with our audiences and that those histories represent the diversity and complicated narratives of the space we occupy now, highlight and investigate the spaces of the past, and set standards for interpreting the concept of place for future generations to come. The conference theme is drawn from
“Power of Place,” one of the five themes that AASLH has identified for the 250th anniversary of the United States and laid out in its Making
History at 250: The Field Guide for the Semiquincentennial.
Our conference theme, Right Here, Right Now: The Power of Place, suggests many questions. What place is important to you? To your community? Do you see these stories reflected in your museums, historic sites, and the local cultural sector? Who decides what places are saved or interpreted and what ends up being worth saving? Answers to these questions trace back to who is at the table when discussing memorializing an event in history or a place in time, who holds authority in decision making processes, structures of power that often go unseen or unaddressed.
Our host city, Buffalo, is a perfect location for exploring the importance of place. Buffalo was at one point the “Gateway to the West.” But we also need to consider the impact on the Indigenous communities facing a continuing societal upheaval that began centuries before and intensified during the Revolution. As the bicentennial of the Erie Canal approaches in 2025, we must consider the environmental, economic, and sociological impact it had on the development of a nation still in its adolescence. Consider the mighty Niagara Falls. What do we see? An environmental marvel? A resource to be exploited? A diverse community living amidst one of the most prominent tourist attractions in the world? How much of our perspective is determined by who tells the history of these places?
Viewing our conversations for the 2022 Annual Meeting through the lens of power of place allows us to consider the spaces and places we’ve collectively built, while acknowledging those we’ve had a hand in reimaging over time. We ask you to embrace this year’s theme, Right Here, Right Now as an invitation to pause and meditate on what placemaking really means to you and to the communities you serve and ultimately to interrogate how you may be a tool in this development process. Let’s gather in Buffalo and reexamine ideas about our natural and built environments and to reorient when and where we find our country’s history.
2022 Program Co-Chairs
Sarah Jencks, Director of Interpretation, Ford’s Theatre Society
Jennifer Ortiz, Director, Utah Division of State History
From Plymouth Rock to Ellis Island to Wounded Knee, history is powerfully embedded in our sense of place. Place offers a powerful lens through which we can view the past, challenging us to think beyond our modern cityscapes to consider the full history of the space we now call the United States.
As AASLH gathers in Buffalo, NY in 2022, we have an opportunity to reflect on the spaces we occupy and the stories they tell. As holders of history, we have a responsibility to ensure that full stories are being shared with our audiences and that those histories represent the diversity and complicated narratives of the space we occupy now, highlight and investigate the spaces of the past, and set standards for interpreting the concept of place for future generations to come. The conference theme is drawn from
“Power of Place,” one of the five themes that AASLH has identified for the 250th anniversary of the United States and laid out in its Making
History at 250: The Field Guide for the Semiquincentennial.
Our conference theme, Right Here, Right Now: The Power of Place, suggests many questions. What place is important to you? To your community? Do you see these stories reflected in your museums, historic sites, and the local cultural sector? Who decides what places are saved or interpreted and what ends up being worth saving? Answers to these questions trace back to who is at the table when discussing memorializing an event in history or a place in time, who holds authority in decision making processes, structures of power that often go unseen or unaddressed.
Our host city, Buffalo, is a perfect location for exploring the importance of place. Buffalo was at one point the “Gateway to the West.” But we also need to consider the impact on the Indigenous communities facing a continuing societal upheaval that began centuries before and intensified during the Revolution. As the bicentennial of the Erie Canal approaches in 2025, we must consider the environmental, economic, and sociological impact it had on the development of a nation still in its adolescence. Consider the mighty Niagara Falls. What do we see? An environmental marvel? A resource to be exploited? A diverse community living amidst one of the most prominent tourist attractions in the world? How much of our perspective is determined by who tells the history of these places?
Viewing our conversations for the 2022 Annual Meeting through the lens of power of place allows us to consider the spaces and places we’ve collectively built, while acknowledging those we’ve had a hand in reimaging over time. We ask you to embrace this year’s theme, Right Here, Right Now as an invitation to pause and meditate on what placemaking really means to you and to the communities you serve and ultimately to interrogate how you may be a tool in this development process. Let’s gather in Buffalo and reexamine ideas about our natural and built environments and to reorient when and where we find our country’s history.
2022 Program Co-Chairs
Sarah Jencks, Director of Interpretation, Ford’s Theatre Society
Jennifer Ortiz, Director, Utah Division of State History
