AASLH’s Advocacy and Leadership Initiatives

As a professional association for history practitioners and institutions throughout the country, AASLH takes on a major role providing leadership and advocacy for the history field. By building coalitions around key issues, developing and monitoring best practices for the field, and advocating on behalf of the history community with public officials at the national level, AASLH strives to advance the field and to better position history as a critical component of American life. AASLH helps ensure that the field is continually looking towards the future.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and National Park Service (NPS) provide essential funding and leadership to history organizations across the country. In their first few months in power, the Trump administration has taken a number of actions to shut down these agencies, cancel grants, and severely cut back or eliminate staff.

On the top of this section, you’ll find information on actions to take if your grant as been cancelled. Next, find actions you can take to advocate for these agencies. Below these actions are updates AASLH has provided the field. The most recent update is listed first.

If Your Grant Has Been Cancelled

If your grant with IMLS has been cancelled, our partners at AAM encourage you to take the following steps:

  • Please review Procedures for Requesting a Review of Suspension or Termination beginning on p. 20.
  • Email the appeal to Director Sonderling at [email protected] with copy to [email protected] and IMLS General Counsel at [email protected].
  • Also use the eGMS system to file your termination appeal as it is the official record for the government.
  • AAM has been told that it’s unclear if organizations will be reimbursed for expenses accrued prior to the date of termination. Thus, it is very important to submit all expenses accrued for federal grants prior to the date on the termination letter.

Advocate for IMLS and NEH

Fill out our survey to let us know how your organization has been impacted by federal and state actions. All responses will be kept strictly confidential unless you give us permission to share them. See responses that we’ve been given permission to share.

Write and call your members of Congress.

Write and call your state-level elected officials and ask them to advocate for IMLS and NEH with your members of Congress.

Encourage your museum’s Board, supporters, and members to write and call their members of Congress.

Ask your Representatives and Senators to join the Congressional Museum Caucus to build long-term support for museums.

Invite Congress to your organization. Members of Congress will be in their home districts for two weeks on April 13 – 27 and periodically home for extended weekends. Take the opportunity to invite your members of Congress to your organization, schedule a meeting with them in their district offices, or attend public forums that your members of Congress might be hosting.

Share your story with local media. More than 2,000 stories have already been shared, demonstrating the media’s interest in this topic. Local news stories are a powerful way to demonstrate the importance of IMLS funding and your institution to your community.

Updates

April 24

On April 17, AASLH President and CEO John Dichtl submitted a declaration in the lawsuit brought by the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) against the Trump administration for dismantling the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Declarations are formal written statements that provide factual information relevant to the legal issues before a court. Dichtl’s declaration includes details about harm caused to history organizations nationwide by IMLS’s cancelled grants. It also includes information about two major AASLH projects negatively impacted by efforts to eliminate IMLS.

In addition to the ALA and AFSCME lawsuit, attorneys general in 21 states have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s actions against IMLS.

AASLH and other museum and history associations continue to explore additional legal avenues in support IMLS, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Park Service. These options could include joining an existing lawsuit as a co-plaintiff, filing a separate suit, and/or filing an amicus brief with a court entertaining one of the existing suits (these are briefs submitted from non-parties with vested interests in a lawsuit’s outcome). We will continue to analyze the most effective strategies for defending the history community.

Any legal action would consume significant time and financial resources. You can support AASLH by becoming a member or making a donation to the Annual Fund.

April 2

After effectively shutting down the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) this week, the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency is now targeting the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The administration is threatening to reduce staff, cut the agency’s grant programs, and rescind grants that have already been awarded.

Yesterday, our partners at the National Humanities Alliance issued a statement about this situation, which AASLH has signed.

Each year, NEH provides critical support to history organizations for public programs, exhibits, infrastructure, scholarship, and more. Last year, 12 AASLH members received the Save America’s Treasures grant program, a joint initiative of the National Park Service, IMLS, and NEH. An additional 11 AASLH members were among 478 projects across the country that received $63.7 million in funding in 2024. Support from the NEH has also made AASLH resources possible, such as the 2022 National Census of History Organizations and Making History at 250 field guide.

Our field has had success in preserving NEH funding recently. Just last summer, advocacy helped to reject an amendment to a Department of Interior appropriations bill that would have cut NEH funding by $57 million. There is support for the NEH on both sides of the aisle, and it’s time to call on that support again.

It will take a unified, proactive effort over the next weeks and months to preserve federal funding for history and maintain the public’s access to full and accurate tellings of our nation’s past. We can draw inspiration from movements from our nation’s past and realize that this is our opportunity to make history.

April 1

Yesterday, the Trump administration put the entire staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on administrative leave. The staff was told not to come into the office for at least 90 days and no longer has access to IMLS email accounts.

An IMLS employee told Artnet yesterday that there are 891 open awards to museums with $180 million in federal funds that the Trump administration plans to cancel. IMLS has effectively been shut down.

The American Association for State and Local History is in conversation with the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and other museum associations about legal options to challenge this action.

We’ve heard from history organizations around the country that cuts to IMLS funding would significantly harm their ability to operate and serve their communities. If your organization is impacted by the IMLS shut down, please let us know. In addition, if your legally promised grant is delayed or cancelled, contact your members of Congress immediately.

In the meantime, our field needs to continue to rally together to preserve IMLS. AAM reports that more than 50,000 calls and emails have been sent to Congress through their advocacy platform.

March 26

Representatives Dina Titus and Suzanne Bonamici are circulating a letter for other members of the House of Representatives to sign, asking the Trump administration to reconsider the executive order that guts the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Please call your members of the House of Representatives to ask them to sign the letter. The deadline for members of Congress to sign the letter is end of day Friday, March 28 so calling will be the best option given the short turnaround time.

Our partners at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), have created a draft script you may use. Type in your address to display your House member’s phone number.

Museum Associations Send Letter to Acting IMLS Director
AASLH, along with AAM, Association of Art Museum Directors, American Public Gardens Association, Association of Children’s Museums, Association of Science and Technology Centers, Association of African American Museums, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and the Association of Science Museum Directors have sent a letter to Acting Director of IMLS Keith Sonderling.

The letter highlights the importance of museums to our economy, educational infrastructure, and communities as well as the critical support IMLS provides for the field. The letter also asks Sonderling to meet with the leaders of these nine associations and alliances.

U.S. Senators Send Letter
Today, a bipartisan group of senators—Jack Reed, Kirsten Gillibrand, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski—sent a letter to Sonderling. These senators are the co-authors of the last act that reauthorized IMLS. The letter urges Sonderling to continue IMLS’s mission to engage with and support libraries and museums, as Congress intended when it created the agency. Read the letter.

March 24

Last week was another busy week of federal challenges to museums and history organizations.

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the eight other national museum associations, including AASLH, along with the regional and state museum associations, have been collaborating to rally responses from museums and related organizations across the country to defend the work of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). AAM reported 35,000 letters to Members of Congress had been sent through their online system last week.

Keith Sonderling was sworn in as the new Acting Director of IMLS on Thursday, March 20. The American Library Association (ALA) sent him a letter warning him not to cut library programs required by federal law. (ALA also published this helpful FAQ about the Executive Order targeting IMLS.) The national museum associations are seeking a meeting with the new acting director. Allies on Capitol Hill encourage continued public engagement with Congressional offices and messages of support about the value of museums and the leadership of IMLS.

It is also important for state and local organizations to contact state officials, who are among the best proponents of federal support for agencies like IMLS. State leaders, aware of the critical significance of federal funding to museums and libraries in their state, can make the case directly to their Congressional counterparts.

Meanwhile, advocacy organizations are analyzing the Impoundment Act and how it might affect the administration’s efforts to dismantle or downsize agencies such as IMLS. Museum associations will draw on this work for their advocacy efforts and will track the legal challenges made to prevent the blocking of mandated services at other agencies.

AASLH continues to support AAM’s lead in creating a bipartisan Congressional Museum Caucus. We encourage everyone in the museum community to ask their Representative and Senators to join the newly formed caucus led by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH). This will be important in the long-term strategy of building relationships to support museums.

AASLH participates in all of these efforts while also using the 250th anniversary of the United States as crucial means of gathering support for museums and other history organizations. This anniversary presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to share the whole history of our nation and make progress in becoming a more perfect union. It also offers a chance to transform and strengthen the history field, preparing it to thrive for decades to come.

The upcoming 250th anniversary also reminds us of important principles our country was founded on: representative democracy, the separation of powers, and the principle of government by law. As we continue to advocate for IMLS, we also advocate for our democracy. As our elected representatives, we must expect that Congress will continue to respond to the 96% of Americans who support funding for museums and to the tens of thousands of letters they have received in support of IMLS. We must also expect that the president will respect and follow the laws that govern IMLS, including the distribution of funds Congress has allocated to it.

March 17

The Trump administration is threatening deep cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an agency that provides essential funding and leadership to history organizations across the country. With more than 21,000 history museums, historical societies, and related organizations in the United States, IMLS plays a vital role in preserving our nation’s heritage, expanding access to history, and supporting the educational and economic contributions of our institutions.

The president’s executive order directs IMLS to eliminate non-statutory programs and reduce personnel to the bare minimum. If these cuts proceed, they could effectively dismantle IMLS, putting funding for history organizations at risk. On the eve of the nation’s 250th anniversary, we should be investing in the agencies that support the preservation and sharing of our nation’s story, not weakening them.

Why This Matters

IMLS provides critical grants that help history museums:

  • Preserve and care for historical collections
  • Expand public access to history through digital resources
  • Fund educational programs that engage students and lifelong learners
  • Strengthen communities by supporting local history organizations

IMLS funding makes history accessible to millions of Americans. It is a Congressionally authorized agency that has received bipartisan support for years. Now, more than ever, we must remind Congress that history organizations matter.

Speak up today—help protect IMLS and the future of history organizations across the country.

Updated April 24, 2025. Links are active when posted but may become inactive.

The Trump administration has issued executive orders which have led to censorship or changes in how history is presented and interpreted in the federal government. You can participate in initiatives that seek to preserve resources that date before President Trump took office and to track changes as they are being made.

Early Republic Tracker: The Journal of the Early Republic has launched a new feature to track changes in federal interpretations of American history. Anyone who notices a change to a website, museum, physical site, etc., in response to the Trump administration’s mandates can share how U.S. history is being reinterpreted.

The Stewardship Archive: The George Wright Society proactively captured more than 3 terabytes of publicly available information from seven federal agencies from December 12, 2024, through January 19, 2025, including the National Park Service. The Society will index and share the information to preserve it, especially as the Trump administration seeks to remove it from public access.

In early 2021, state legislatures and local school boards across the United States began enacting laws and policies to severely restrict the teaching in history classrooms of certain subjects, such as race and sex, which some activists claimed were too “divisive.” By July 2021, a rising number of gag orders on teachers were being echoed by book bans directed at schools and local libraries. Initially, such efforts targeted K-12 educators and their students. But the wave of censorship spread to state colleges and universities and had implications for museums and historic sites that provide educational resources for students and teachers.

AASLH and other national organizations have characterized these restrictive state and local policies as outright censorship, attempts to prevent our young people from learning about the full scope of American history. Our position is that we move forward together as a society by learning from the mistakes and successes of the past, not by erasing or ignoring what is uncomfortable or inconvenient.

AASLH Resources

Issue Brief: Educational Censorship in America: Provides a short overview of efforts to censor history and restrict the freedom to learn in classrooms across the country.

Action Guide for History Censorship: Offers a framework for planning how your organization can respond to attempts to censor history education.

Other Resources

Having Better Disagreements: Four ways to make your counterpart feel heard and keep the conversation going.

Learn from History: AASLH is an inaugural member of this coalition focused on facilitating broad-based, effective communication to oppose the censorship of history education.

More in Common’s report: Defusing the History Wars: Finding Common Ground in Teaching America’s National Story and brief video summary

PEN America reports

National Coalition for History resource page: AASLH is a lead member of NCH, which has compiled a summary of the “divisive concepts” issue and multiple resource sites of use to historians and history educators.

AHA’s Teaching History with Integrity: Provides resources and support for history educators facing intensifying controversies about the teaching of the American past.

NCSS’s The Freedom to Teach: The National Council for the Social Studies has a statement on “School districts, the most active battlefield in the American culture wars today.”

As we approach the U.S. “Semiquincentennial” anniversary in 2026, AASLH is providing key leadership for the history community as we all prepare for this once-in-a-generation opportunity. We are monitoring national, regional, and state commemoration plans as they develop, serving as a clearinghouse of information for history organizations and practitioners at the local, state, and national levels. We are publishing resources to help guide commemoration planning, like webinars, blog posts, and other publications. In addition, we are in communication with other national initiatives, including the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, to help ensure that the values and goals of the history community are represented well in national commemoration efforts. We have also organized a national coordinating committee, facilitating communication and collaboration among major organizations, institutions, and agencies. Finally, we are outlining major goals and themes for the anniversary that can help align the work of a diverse and dynamic field over the next several years.

To learn more about AASLH and the 250th Anniversary, click here.

Each year, the American Alliance of Museums organizes Museums Advocacy Day, a two-day event in late February that brings hundreds of museum professionals from around the country to Washington, DC to advocate on behalf of the field to national legislators.

AASLH helps sponsor AAM’s Museums Advocacy Day, our council meets in concert with Advocacy Day so that council members and staff may participate in the two-day event. We also use the timing and Washington location of Advocacy Day each year to focus attention on planning for the U.S. Semiquincentennial.

AASLH cooperates with AAM on other important advocacy issues as they arise.

AASLH is a leading member of the National Coalition for History (NCH) and holds a seat on the NCH Board of Directors. NCH is a consortium of over 50 organizations advocating on behalf of federal legislation and regulatory issues affecting historians, archivists, teachers, researchers, and other stakeholders. Priorities include federal funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Archives and Records Administration, including the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the National Parks Service, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress; the declassification of and public access to federal records; and strengthening of history education.

The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) monitors and takes action on a range of federal funding and policies issues that affect work in the humanities. AASLH works with the alliance to share important humanities advocacy messages with our members.

Launched in February 2019, National Inventory of Humanities Organizations (NIHO) is a searchable online database encompassing 45,700 not-for-profit, for-profit, and government entities engaged in humanities scholarship and/or in bringing humanities knowledge or skills to various audiences. Of these, more than 13,000 public history organizations are represented.

AASLH plays an ongoing advisory role in NIHO. The Humanities Indicators project, which is part of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, created and maintains NIHO. If you know of an organization that is missing from the database, you may nominate it for inclusion using a form on the NIHO site.

https://niho.knack.com/niho#overview/

Each December, AASLH convenes the leaders of state-level history organizations around the country for a two-day retreat. We also facilitate virtual meetings of this group at other times during the year through Zoom. The State Historical Administrators group represents the diversity of state organizations, encompassing both public and private institutions with varying sizes and missions. But they share a common scope of responsibilities, and this meeting offers their leaders an opportunity to discuss the challenges facing their institutions and the field, share ideas and questions, and develop creative and collaborative solutions. By bringing together the leaders of these organizations, AASLH provides a venue in which state-level history organizations can think broadly about the future of the field. Founded in 1968 as the State Historical Administrators Council, this group has been meeting annually since its first convening in 1969 in Chicago.

Questions: contact dichtl[at]aaslh .org.

Future Meetings

  • 2023: Tacoma, Washington
  • 2024: St. Paul, Minnesota
  • 2025: Washington, D.C.

Past Meetings

  • 2022: Richmond, Virginia
  • 2021: Denver, Colorado
  • 2020: Online
  • 2019: Montgomery, Alabama
  • 2018: Boise, Idaho
  • 2017: Indianapolis, Indiana
  • 2016: Savannah, Georgia
  • 2015: San Francisco, California
  • 2014: Nashville, Tennessee
  • 2013: Santa Fe, New Mexico
  • 2012: Denver, Colorado
  • 2011: Boston, Massachusetts
  • 2010: Portland, Oregon
  • 2009: Wilmington, Delaware
  • 2008: Washington, D.C.
  • 2007: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
  • 2006: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 2005: Austin, Texas
  • 2004: Charleston, South Carolina
  • 2003: Reno, Nevada
  • 2002: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
  • 2001: Boise, Idaho
  • 2000: Frankfort, Kentucky
  • 1999: Tacoma, Washington
    . . .
  • 1969: Chicago, Illinois
  • 1968: Kansas City, Missouri (as “State History Administrators Council”)

AASLH was a key partner in the History Relevance initiative, a volunteer group of history professionals across the United States that was active from 2012-2021. Its original goal to raise the profile of history in the national dialogue ultimately changed into the goal to help history organizations across the history field to think intentionally about how to make their history products more relevant to their audiences. The initiative developed the “Value of History” statement, which nearly 400 history organizations around the nation have endorsed. The initiative also helped inspire a third project, “Reframing History,” an evidence-based strategic communications toolkit to help history professionals more effectively discuss what history is, how it’s interpreted, and why it matters to society. Learn more about the project at: AASLH.org/research.

You can download the “Value of History” statement, along with a list of endorsers, here.