National Council on Public History 2024 Annual Conference

The National Council on Public History (NCPH) 2024 Annual Conference was in Salt Lake City, Utah. Three of our members Jessie, Avery, and Alana were able to attend and have shared their experiences below!

Jessie

NCPH’s Annual Conference was amazing!! There were several graduate students and young professionals whom I connected with, and that was the highlight of the whole conference. I also went on several walking tours about Utah history, with the best being the Utah Suffrage Tour. While Utah was still a territory, its women were the second to receive the vote. A Utahan woman was the first to cast a vote under an equal opportunity suffrage law. However, when the territory became a state Utah women were disenfranchised. This piece of women’s history is so fascinating and paved the way for all American women.

Avery 

NCPH was the best conference ever! Throughout the students and professionals attended sessions and tours and connected. My favorite session was the Pictures of Belonging tour at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, which featured paintings from Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo. All three of these artists were incarcerated at Topaz concentration camp during World War II. The exhibit featured their work from before incarceration until their deaths and illustrated the changes in their art styles over time. With the theme of this conference being historical urgency, our tour also highlighted the need to highlight difficult histories such as the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Alana

My experience at the NCPH conference was amazing! I gained confidence in talking with others in the field that I was lacking before our trip. Throughout the conference, I was able to attend several sessions that expanded my knowledge of public history. One of my favorite seminars was Changing Meanings of Common Spaces, Heritage, and Monuments. This seminar highlighted the contested monuments in other countries and tied them to America’s trouble with contested monuments. The conference also allowed me to make connections with other graduate students and professionals in the field. However, the most important takeaway I got from the conference was that I now feel ready to tackle more conferences.