2025 AASLH Annual Conference | Cincinnati, Ohio | September 10-13, 2025
The American Experiment | In Partnership with Ohio Local History Alliance
Session Proposals Due December 13
The 2025 AASLH Annual Conference, in partnership with Ohio Local History Alliance, will take place as the history field makes the final preparations to kickoff off the 250th commemoration of the founding of the United States. The 2025 conference theme, inspired by AASLH’s Making History at 250: The Field Guide for Semiquincentennial, is an opportunity to broadly explore one of the guide’s themes, The American Experiment. For many in the American colonies in 1776, independence from Britain represented a “leap into the dark” into an unknown future. The leaders of the founding era did not have all the answers. Though their innovations of representative democracy and rights-based constitutionalism were transformative, they knew the nation was a revolutionary experiment. Like many experiments, the United States has had many fits, starts, shortcomings, and outright failures. Indigenous dispossession and chattel slavery, Jim Crow and segregation, systemic racism, and many others. Yet, with each failure, Americans have challenged the status quo; driving new forms of experimentation to bring the United States closer to its lofty goal of a “more perfect union.”
The 1776 revolutionary experiment benefited mostly white males with property. In the years since, unheard voices emerged for the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence. Women, Black Americans, Indigenous Peoples, people with disabilities, and immigrants have contributed their voices, lived experiences, and diverse perspectives to The American Experiment. As we approach America 250, we history practitioners can help the public at large explore the origins of our civic institutions, think critically about how they’ve changed, and how they will actively shape our nation for the next 250 years.
The role of history organizations as vibrant hubs of civic and community conversation is more important than ever. How might we partner with our communities to understand and address the pressing issues of today and the future? How can we empower our audiences to consider the effects of The American Experiment and engage in civic participation? What “leaps into the dark” are we taking now, and what can we learn from our own experiments and share with each other to advance our field?
The concept of experimentation does not presume success. We hope that conference attendees will further embrace the theme of experimentation to talk about our own leaps in the dark even if they were unsuccessful. While it is always great to hear about our successes, we also learn a great deal from our failures. Let us be brave and highlight our spectacular failures in ways that advance our learning and our knowledge in a way that advances the field.
It is fitting that the 2025 AASLH Annual Conference is in Cincinnati. The city was founded in 1788, but the Shawnee, Miami, and other indigenous people inhabited the land along what is now the Ohio River long before white men settled the area now known as southern Ohio. The city is named for the Society of the Cincinnati, which commemorated Roman general Cincinnatus as a hero of republican citizenship who gave back his military authority to retire peacefully. An outpost of the Northwest Territory after the forced removal of indigenous tribes, Cincinnati grew quickly from frontier town to “Paris of the West.” It boomed in the 19th century, fueled by westward expansion, bustling river traffic, and waves of new immigrants. By 1850, Cincinnati was the sixth largest city in the United States. The Ohio River, dividing free Ohio and slave-holding Kentucky, was a significant border for many freedom-seekers, even as it was also a conduit for the internal slave trade. Cincinnati became a destination for Black individuals escaping enslavement and a locus for the Underground Railroad and Abolitionist movement.
Later in the city’s history, railroads supplanted boats, and Cincinnati became a hub of reinvention. Today, Cincinnati’s colorful neighborhoods and thriving arts scene benefit from a resilient economy. In addition to the first professional baseball team and Skyline Chili, the city is home to Kroger, Procter & Gamble, Kenner Toys, Bicycle playing cards, and King Records. The city teems with museums, theaters, and public art—from the Taft Museum of Art and Cincinnati Museum Center in Union Terminal to the Harriet Beecher Stowe House and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. The city’s proud brewing history, once decimated by Prohibition, has come roaring back, and craft brews and farm-to-table cuisine fill beautiful historic buildings city-wide. The inscription of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, eight nearby monumental mound sites, to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2023 is bringing international attention to this vibrant region.
One constant among all this change is that Cincinnati has always been a borderland at the nexus of east and west, north and south, free and enslaved, red and blue. This mix of influences has helped Cincinnati keep constantly experimenting and evolving and makes it a place where people of difference can encounter each other and work together to create change. Cincinnati is, in all ways, a city that defines, contributes to, and reflects The American Experiment.
We are excited for you to join us in Cincinnati as we encourage discussion about our democracy and civic institutions and how they can help strengthen understanding, inspire action, and reveal ways that all of us can participate in and shape the ongoing American experiment.
Session Proposals Due December 13
Review the information below, which will be required when you submit your session proposal.
Requirements
Each session must have an organizer responsible for finding session presenters and coordinating logistics. All organizers must be affiliated with an institutional member or be an AASLH individual member. Topics for sessions should fit at least one of the categories listed below. Proposals must be submitted through AASLH’s online submission system, which will be available soon. For more information, contact Bethany Hawkins at [email protected] or by phone at 615-320-3203.
Presenter Information: AASLH requires that the Session Chair serve as the session organizer responsible for logistics, requests for materials and equipment, communication with participants and AASLH staff, and leading the session itself. Session chairs must be affiliated with an institutional member or hold an individual membership in AASLH. To involve as many people as possible in the meeting, no one can chair more than one session or participate in more than two. The committee also strongly discourages sessions where all presenters are from the same site. It is also suggested that you include an end-user as part of your session. If you need assistance finding presenters that bring diversity in institution, geography, perspectives, or race, please contact the AASLH staff or the 2025 Program Chair, Aaron Noble, at [email protected]. Note: You will need to create a username and password for the Cadmium Education Harvester site, which will be available soon. This is separate from your membership login at aaslh.org.
Session Title: Be creative and memorable.
What will your session DO and how does it connect to the theme “The American Experiment”? Describe in three to five sentences what you want to accomplish in your session (i.e. teach a new skill, inspire different thinking, help people learn from your mistakes, etc.) and how it connects to the conference theme.
Session Description (50 words or less): If your session is accepted, this will be used in the Annual Conference program. Make your description vivid and compelling. Please do not use bullet points.
Abstract (250 words or less): Describe the goals of your session, specifically describing its content and expected outcomes for attendees. Highlight the central issues the proposal addresses, why they are significant to the work of state and local history, and how the content supports the theme. Be as clear and concise as possible.
What are the takeaways for attendees in your session? (150 words or less) List up to three. These should be concrete ideas that can be put in bullet points.
How would you tag your session? (Choose two max. These may be used to create program tracks for the meeting.)
Nuts and Bolts (how to)
250th Anniversary
Collections/Exhibitions (which includes librarians and archivists)
Education/Interpretation (includes public programming)
Emerging Professionals
Operations (finance, fundraising, marketing, administration, HR)
Small Museums
Emerging Research
What is the format for your session (check one)? We encourage you to choose the most engaging format appropriate for your topic. Please read definitions before selecting.
Definitions for Formats:
- Charette (120 minutes) – A charette is collaborative session in which a group comes together to draft a solution to a particular problem or expand on an idea. This session should be designed as a working session that creates an output. The organizer decides the topic, but the participants supply most of the discussion. This session requires a strong facilitator.
- Conversation Provocation (75 minutes) – Audience members engage in discussion/debate. One facilitator poses a predetermined question and encourages attendees to participate. The facilitator manages the discussion as a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage.
- Experiential (75 minutes, onsite only) – Do a program – don’t just talk about it. Immerse your colleagues in a playful (or dark) experience exploring your topic. Attendees should spend time doing something, not just talking.
- Idea Studio (75 minutes) – Informed and inspired by a prompt or topic area, attendees work together interactively to develop new ideas and creative solutions for their sites, in their communities, or in the field at large.
- Lightning Round (75 minutes) – A strong moderator puts together a session around a particular theme. Then, they recruit speakers who can teach something specific to the audience in ten minutes or less. An ideal Lightning Round session would have 10 minutes for introduction, 50 minutes for five presentations, and 15 minutes for Q&A. An example of this session type could be what are five things you have learned over your career that you wish you knew when you started?
- Nuts and Bolts (75 minutes) – This session type focuses on a particular skill that is needed in the history profession. For example, it could be creating a collections management plan, developing a mission-driven budgeting process, or creating an education program for autistic children. It should be specific enough that attendees leave with a practical skill, but flexible enough that any size museum can adapt it for their needs. It is not designed to be a “show and tell,” but a “show and how to.”
- Roundtable (75 minutes) – One chair and up to three panelists examine complex historical or professional issues in discussion before an audience. These should go beyond “show and tell” presentations and instead be information-rich, emphasize practical takeaways, and include discussion of the complexity of the issues. Panelists should provide contrasting perspectives, represent a diversity of identities, and draw from varied institutions (in budget, mission, location, etc.). Ample time must be allowed for audience discussion.
- Workshops (full- or half-day sessions on Wednesday or Saturday) – These long-form, in-depth sessions are designed to teach special skills in a small group setting and may occur on or off-site. Proposals should detail the specific skills the workshop will teach as well as the methods and techniques instructors will use. Workshops should include takeaway resource materials (handouts, samples, reading lists, tools/props, etc.). Workshops may have up to four instructors. Participants in workshop sessions pay fees which contribute to the conference budget and presenters and panelists all contribute their presentations in-kind.
Session Chair and Presenter Contact Information, including “Describe what this speaker brings to the session (125 words or less):”
What is the AASLH Annual Conference?
The AASLH Annual Conference 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 Conference 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.
AASLH envisions its Annual Conference as an opportunity to invigorate and promote our field’s honest approach to history. AASLH and its members, wherever they live and work, believe that whole history belongs to all of us.
Honest, inclusive approaches to history and other liberties are under fire in states and localities around the country. Periodically holding the AASLH Conference in these areas allows us, as a professional community, to show support for our colleagues who are working in challenging environments and to learn from their experiences. AASLH’s purpose, especially as we approach the nation’s 250th anniversary, is to share with people of all backgrounds and beliefs the entire sweep of our common history and its centrality to our continued progress toward “a more perfect Union.”
AASLH is committed to ensuring that our conference is a welcoming, respectful, intellectually stimulating, and safe event for all who attend. We have a robust policy on conference safety and responsibility, and we will strive to make it possible for all attendees to navigate their way through a fulfilling conference experience.
We hope you will join us in Cincinnati in September and add your voice to the chorus of those working to make history more meaningful to all people.
Annual Conference Fellowships and Scholarships
The Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko Memorial Scholarship, Douglas Evelyn Diversity Fellowships, and Small Museums Scholarships are the three programs that AASLH offers to assist those who would like to attend the AASLH Annual Conference. Applications for all scholarships and fellowships will open in spring of 2025.
Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko Memorial Scholarship
Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko will be best remembered because she used her power to change lives, inspire movements, and challenge the status quo for the better. In memory of Cinnamon and her generational impact on museums, historic sites, and public history, AASLH has created a special scholarship in her name to advance her legacy of transformational change across the museum community. The fund will provide one $1,000 scholarship for the AASLH Annual Conference which includes a full conference registration. The remainder of funds can be used for ticketed events or travel costs. Eligible applicants include those working in small museums, as either full-time or part-time paid or volunteer employees and who are institutional or individual members of AASLH; and Indigenous persons and those employed as staff members with a tribal organization, program, or collection. Click here for guidance on what constitutes a small museum.
Douglas Evelyn Diversity Fellowship
The Douglas Evelyn Diversity Fellowship is named in honor of Douglas Evelyn, AASLH president from 1992-1994, and recognizes Evelyn’s strong support of AASLH’s professional development mission. A primary objective of the Douglas Evelyn Diversity Fellowship is to increase culturally diverse participation at the AASLH Annual Conference and in all the association’s programs. The scholarship covers full registration and a $750 travel stipend. Ticketed events with an extra fee are not included in the scholarship but can be covered with a portion of the travel stipend. AASLH will offer up to five full conference scholarships for culturally diverse attendees.
Small Museums Scholarship
AASLH’s Small Museums Committee is offering scholarships to any AASLH members who are full-time, part-time, paid, or volunteer employees of small museums. The $850 scholarship will cover the cost of registration and the Small Museums Luncheon. Any remaining funds can be used to offset travel and/or lodging expenses. To qualify, the applicant must work or volunteer for a museum with a budget of $250,000 or less and either be an individual member of AASLH or work for an institutional member.
Upcoming Annual Conferences
September 16-19, 2026: Joint Annual Conference with National Council on Public History in Providence, Rhode Island
September 20-23, 2027: Annual Conference in Madison, Wisconsin