NCPH Working Groups List

Below is a list of all NCPH conference Working Groups over time. Clicking on the overview links for the year’s Working Groups will take you to a page where you can find more detailed information about each group and (in some cases) a link to participants’ case statements and pre-conference discussions.

2018 – LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

2017 – INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • The Economics and Ethics of Internships at the Center of Public History Education (Discussion)
  • Moving Beyond the National: New Perspectives on International and Transnational Public Histories
  • Meeting in the Middle: Community Engagement in a Digital World
  • Mediating the Early American Past for Today’s Public[s] (Discussion)
  • Public History Education and Environmental Sustainability
  • Let Them Hear It: Exploring Public History’s Role in Saving Radio Heritage
  • Establishing History Communication as its Own Field of Study
  • Sports on Campus: Sporting Traditions as Public History and Memory

2016 – BALTIMORE, MARYLAND (Joint with SHFG)

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • Making Public History Accessible: Exploring Best Practices for Disability Access (Discussion)
  • Museums and Civic Discourse: Past, Present & Emerging Futures (Discussion)
  • Standing up for History in the War on the Humanities
  • Interpreting the History of Race Riots and Racialized Mass Violence in the Context of “Black Lives Matter”
  • Campus History as Public History (Discussion)
  • Public History and the Potential of Sports History Museums
  • Building Capacity to Challenge the Exclusive Past (Discussion)
  • Contemporary Collecting to Correct the Exclusive Past

2015 – NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • After the Administrative History: What Next?
  • Public History as Digital History as Public History
  • Free, Separate, Uncertain: Can Public History Play?
  • History on the Edge of Nowhere
  • On the Edge of 2016:  Commemorating the Past and Shaping the Future of Federal Preservation Activities
  • Pedagogy in Public: Academic Programs and Community Partners
  • Religion, Historic Sites, and Museums
  • Teaching Public History through International Collaborations
  • Who speaks for us? Government Historians and the NCPH

2014 – MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • Beyond Saving: Achieving Sustainability in Historic Preservation
  • Consulting Alliances: Obstacles and Opportunities
  • Innovative Reuse in the Post-Industrial City
  • GenNext: Are Public History Programs Sustainable?
  • Public History in China
  • Sustaining Digital Public History: Workflows for the Future
  • Toward a History of Civic Engagement and the Progressive Impulse in Public History

2013 – OTTAWA, ONTARIO

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • The Challenge of Interpreting Climate Change at Historic Sites with a Conflicted Audience
  • Exhibiting Local Enterprise: Developing Online Exhibits
  • Teaching Public History
  • Public Historians and the Local Food Movement
  • Teaching Digital History and New Media
  • Best Practices for Establishing a Public History Program

2012 – MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN (JOINT WITH OAH)

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • A Fresh Look at Measures of Success in Public History Work
  • Biography and Museums
  • Civil War Sesquicentennial
  • Graphs, Maps, and Trees:  Imagining the Future of Public Interfaces to Cultural Heritage Collections
  • How Much Is a Piece of the “True Road” Worth? Evaluating Historic Roadway and Preservation Values
  • Imagined Places, Actual Spaces: Physical Manifestations of Romanticized Pasts
  • Imagining New Careers in History
  • Public History and Sustainability
  • Public History Online: Using the Web to Collaborate and Share
  • Reconstructing the New Deal: Towards a National Inventory of New Deal Art and Public Works
  • What It’s Worth: Valuing and Pricing the Work of Historical Consultants

2011 – PENSACOLA, FLORIDA

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • The Choices We Make: Public Historians Role in the Commemorations of the Sesquicentennial of the American the Civil War
  • Public History and Gentrification: A Contentious Relationship
  • Using “Centers” to Teach Public History and Engage Community Partners

2010 – PORTLAND, OREGON (JOINT WITH ASEH)

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • Consultants Working Group
  • Employment/Experience Opportunities for Recent Graduates and New Professionals
  • Environmental Sites of Conscience: Exploring Issues to Inspire Visitor Action at Environmental History Sites
  • How Do We Get There? Racial and Ethnic Diversity within the Public History Profession: Continuing the Discussion
  • International Council on Public History? Bringing Global Public History Closer?
  • Interns to the Rescue! Public History-University Partnerships in Financial Crisis
  • Jump Start Your Digital Project in Public History: Planning Sessions
  • Preparing the Professional Historian: Connecting Academic Training with the Changing Marketplace

2009 – PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

  • Group overviews, facilitators, and questions
  • Public History as Work
  • How Do We Get There? Racial and Ethnic Diversity within the Public History Profession
  • Bearing the Standard: Public Historians Role in the Commemorations of the Sesquicentennial of the American the Civil War
  • Where is the History in Historic Districts?
  • The Public Value of History
  • Historical Truths and Reconciliation: Interpreting Indigenous Histories
  • So You’re Teaching in a Public History Program: A Working Group
  • Digital Experiments, Collaboration, and Interactivity
  • Historical Truths and Reconciliation: The Interpretation of African American and Enslaved Peoples