Creating Connections: A Conference for History Organizations in Southeastern PA - Oct. 18

Please join us for Creating Connections, a conference for small to mid-sized history organizations in Southeastern PA, cosponsored by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia.

This event will introduce the History Affiliates Program, which is currently in its planning phase. The program is being developed to support communication, cooperation and capacity building in Southeastern PA history organizations. The conference is also an opportunity for history organizations in Southeastern Pennsylvania to convene to discuss the many shared and pressing challenges confronting us and to consider how the History Affiliates Program might be developed to address some of these challenges.

The morning will feature an introduction to some free and low-cost resources for nonprofits, a chance to network with peer organizations, and a presentation on effective collaboration among history organizations by Andrew Masich, President and CEO of the Senator John Heinz History Center.  

In the afternoon, representatives of the Pennsylvania Homefront Civil War Digital Archives Project will discuss their collections survey and how your organization might participate. The project, which is a collaborative effort of the Richards Civil War Era Center, the Pennsylvania State University Libraries, Senator John Heinz History Center, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, will create a website designed to be a resource station for the vast and diverse collections of Civil War archival material around the state. They are offering to catalogue unprocessed archival collections from 1851-1877, including creating electronic records, facilitating scholarly access to your archives and possibly providing preservation assistance. Any organization with archival collections dating from 1851-1877 is invited to attend to find out more information.