Program:

Monday, March 4, 2019

1:00 pm • Walking Tour: Murders, Madams, and Mediums: Bozeman's Dark Side

Join the Extreme History Project for a historic walking tour, "Murders, Madams, and Mediums: Bozeman's Dark Side." From notorious madams to mediums communicating with the spirit world, Bozeman's darker history comes to light in a walking tour designed to send a shiver up your spine. Meet Louisa Couselle, a Bozeman madam whose income rivaled that of Bozeman's wealthiest merchants, learn how Mrs. Mounts proved to Bozeman society that she could communicate with the dead, and walk through Bozeman's China Alley to see the remnants of Bozeman's red light district up close. 

Meet your tour guide in front of the Western Cafe located at 443 E. Main Street. 

Please register for the tour if you plan to attend. The registration password is MSUPublicHistory. 

 

3:00-4:30pm • Public History: How It Works and the Skills You Need to Know

Moderator: Charlene Porsild, President/CEO of the Montana History Foundation

Room 233, Strand Union Building, MSU

Attendees may also pick up their Registration packets prior to this session

 

6:00-7:45pm • Keynote Address by Dr. Marla Miller, Professor of History, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; President, National Council on Public History

Bending the Future: Thinking Forward about Public History, Pedagogy, & Public Life

Hager Auditorium, Museum of the Rockies (MOR)

Reception follows presentation

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

All sessions are in the MSU Strand Union Building 

7:30am • Registration, packet pick-up & coffee

            Hallway outside Ballrooms

 

8:00-8:20am • Welcome Plenary

            Ballroom D

 

8:30-9:45am • Concurrent Sessions 1

 

Ballroom B: Narrative Change: Learning Native American History Together

            Moderators:       Michael Black Wolf, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Fort Belknap

Jill Falcon Mackin (Anishinaabe: Ojibwe), Indigenous Historian, MSU

 

            Possible questions for discussion:

-How are you building healthy relationships with Native storyholders to create Native-led public history, preservation, & interpretation?

-How does your institution create public history that stands for resistance, resilience, economic strength & cultural revitalization?

-What Indigenous Research Methodologies do you rely on? Do you/how do you blend Western and Indigenous Research Methodologies?

-How does your academic institution honor Indigenous peoples’ sovereign right to tell their own stories?

-How are you working with Indigenous peoples to change harmful narratives?

-How are you collaborating to incorporate native values and traditional knowledge in public history preservation and interpretation?

 

Ballroom C: Participatory Public History: Engaging Audiences

Moderators:    Kirby Lambert, Montana Historical Society

                                           Angie Weikert, Museum of the Rockies

           

            Possible questions for discussion:

- Who are your audiences? In what ways have you been engaging with them? (e.g., in-person classes, social media, tours, print materials, digital platforms)

- What are the challenges of working with different audiences?How do you weigh the needs of one group compared to another?

- How has engagement changed for you and your colleagues in the age of the internet and social media?What methods of engagement do you prioritize? Why?

 

 

10:00-11:15am • Concurrent Sessions 2

 

Ballroom B: Places & Spaces: New Directions in Preserving and Interpreting Buildings & Landscapes

Moderators:    Kate Hampton, Montana State Historic Preservation Office

                                                  Janet Ore, MSU

          

    Possible questions for discussion:

-In light of the national trend toward a more holistic inclusion of landscapes in historic preservation, how is the Montana State Historic Preservation Office (and others) incorporating landscapes in their preservation analyses and efforts? What are the issues in including landscapes within existing historic preservation guidelines and procedures?

-What are the limitations of the National Historic Preservation Act in the twenty-first century?

-As we face the global crisis of climate change, what are preservationists doing in response to it? Should preservationists take an activist role in meeting the challenges of climate change?

 

Ballroom C:  Hidden in Plain View: Interpreting Montana’s Racial & Ethnic Cultures

Moderators:    Ellen Crain, Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives

                                         Maggie Greene, MSU

          

            Possible questions for discussion:

- In what ways does your institution engage “the global in the local”?

- How does your interpretive plan include materials, programs, or other means of illustrating the experiences of African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics and other minority groups in Montana or the West? What challenges does this work engender?

- What success and obstacles have you encountered with this kind of work?What has been your audience(s)’ response?

 

11:15am-12:30pm • Lunch (voucher included with registration)

 

12:30-1:45pm • Concurrent Sessions 3

 

Ballroom B: Funding Public History

Moderators:    Crystal Alegria, Extreme History Project

                                           Kevin Kooistra, Western Heritage Center

           

            Possible questions for discussion:

- With the decline of government funding in the humanities, to what extent should public historians seek private donors, grant-giving institutions, or other sources of money? To what extent should public historians advocate for increases in public spending? How do funding sources influence the production of history programming?

- How do you/does your institution balance recruiting a paid workforce with engaging volunteer labor?

- What is your organization’s most creative fundraiser and most effective fundraising tool (private donations, grants, programming, state/federal funding, memberships)?

- What is the future of fundraising? Are there new trends, techniques, and strategies on the horizon?  

 

Ballroom C: Gender & Sexuality in Public Humanities Interpretation

Moderators:    Rachel Gross, University of Montana

                                        Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, MSU

           

            Possible questions for discussion:

- To what extent does your institution address issues of gender and sexuality in its public-facing work?

- What roles should our institutions play in educating the public about the histories of tension and marginalization related to gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, and the like? In promoting cultures of equality for all?

 -How has your institution approached difficult interpretive tasks in the past? What lessons did you learn from the process?

- How do you deal with sex in an age-appropriate way?

 

2:00-3:15pm • Concurrent Sessions 4

 

Ballroom B: Dark Tourism: Interpreting Places of Trauma and Conflict

Moderators:   Matt Lautzenheiser, Ft. Missoula

                                          Molly Todd, MSU

           

            Possible questions for discussion:

- How do you balance the need to attract visitors with a desire to respect the dead or people harmed at the site?

- To what extent do victims/perpetrators of violence engage in the interpretation of the site's historical meanings?What are the related challenges?

- What kinds of activities should visitors do at these sites? Leave memorials? Perform religious ceremonies?

 

Ballroom C: Politics of the Workplace

Moderators:   Sara Scott, Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks

                                          David Henderson, MSU

           

            Possible questions for discussion:

- What are your challenges when having to tow the "company line" in the workplace in regards to public history?

- How should public historians respond to and/or resist politically-driven administrative policies and actions that run counter to their institutions’ missions?

- How have the controversies of sexual harassment occurring in federal agencies like the National Park Service influenced other public history agencies? 

- How are public history institutions and agencies (in Montana and nationally) dealing with the administrative divisions (and potential competition) between natural and cultural resource preservation?

 

3:30-4:45pm • Concluding Plenary

 

Ballroom D: The Politics of Public History

Moderators:    Mary Murphy, MSU

                                           Zane Fulbright, Bureau of Land Management

                                           Alicia Murphy, Yellowstone National Park

           

            Possible questions for discussion:

- How have contemporary political controversies affected your institution or community?

- How far does “shared authority” go in public history?  Should all voices carry equal weight?

- What is the role of social and environmental justice in public history work?

                                               

5:30-7:00pm • Reception

            Gallatin History Museum