I’m really excited about attending this conference, beginning tomorrow at Gettysburg College. It’s a great opportunity to renew acquaintances, catch up with friends, and learn a great deal.
The basic thrust of the conference is to get together academic historians and public historians to try to envision the best ways to bring Civil War History to the public in the coming years. I’m excited to be able to watch that and to hear perspectives of the people who will be doing that. They will be talking about interpreting battlefields, teaching Civil War History, and using museums to interpret the history of the time, among many other topics. They really are going to explore just about every aspect of bringing the Civil War to the general public. The conference program is here.
Pete Carmichael, Jill Titus, and the entire staff of the Civil War Institute should be congratulated for getting all these folks together and for putting this program together, not only for the eminent historians who will be doing the heavy lifting of the conference but also for us students of the war lucky enough to attend.
Look for some live tweets from various participants in the conference. We’ll be using the hashtag #cwfuture. Of course, there will also be blog posts from the conference as well.
I’m especially excited because my daughter, Karen, will be attending with me. Karen is a trained historian herself and I’m really happy that I’ll be sharing this experience with her.
I hope I get a chance to meet your daughter during the conference. And you should introduce yourself to Paul Quigley who will be at the event. He accepted the Robertson chair at Virginia Tech
Thanks for commenting, Pete. I will be sure to seek you out with her in tow, and I’ll look for Paul Quigley also.
I look forward to reading your posts and tweets from Gettysburg, Mr. Mackey. Best of luck! (wish I could be there …) – Clint Schemmer, Fredericksburg, VA
Thanks for the comment. I’m sure lots of folks will have some very insightful comments at that hashtag. I only hope my own contributions will be worth your time to read.
Enjoy. I really wanted to go.
Thanks, Pat. Too bad you can’t make it. Any plans to attend the summer conference?
I’m guessing I’ll be very tied up with legislation at that point., so very unlikely.