Conferences are an integral part of networking.
While I received my Masters in Archaeology, I all but fell into a career in history. The past four years have been devoted mostly to public history and federally-funded mitigations. Feeling disconnected from my fellow historians, it was about time to attend my first history conference. But while transitioning into a new field can be difficult, breaking into predominantly academic circles as a cultural resource management professional may prove harder.
For my first conference, I chose the annual meeting of the state-wide organization, the Georgia Association of Historians. Less intimidating than a national conference, GAH welcomes scholars working in or studying the state. A relatively local organization has a smaller membership (a couple hundred members), the dues are cheaper ($10/year or $100/lifetime), and the meetings are never far away (a drive of three hours or less for most people)—all great benefits particularly for students and young professionals. I had the added bonus of my company paying for the $100 registration and providing $35 per diem. The hotel was $125/night for conference-goers, but there were cheaper options nearby. Breakfast food and hors d’oeuvre were provided morning and night with plenty of cheap, local options for food as we were on a college campus.
This year’s meeting took place in Augusta, one of Georgia’s early capital cities with underrated historical preservation. The selected hotel was a beautifully restored inn originally built in 1910. The conference featured a historic university campus with several antebellum buildings, including the Augusta Arsenal, a significant ammunitions manufacturing site for the Confederacy.
The beautiful wrap-around porch at the c.1910 Partridge Inn, Augusta, Georgia– a National Trust’s Historic Hotels of America location and contributing property to a National Register-listed historic district. The inn’s history reaches back to 1860 but has been rebuilt and renovated over the decades.
The hotel hallways included displays of historic photographs and artifacts from its more than a century of occupation, including this old room key.
The conference took place in seven rooms throughout three buildings with sessions on Friday and Saturday. The distance forced attendees to choose full sessions, rather than individual talks. Overall, there were 22 sessions with 57 talks—roundtable discussions, undergraduate posters, and traditional 20-minute paper presentations. About 30 colleges and universities were represented among the presenters and another 8 or so organizations including independent scholars, archives, and museums.
Augusta University’s Summerville Campus, the location of the conference. No idea what this building is but look at those brick crenelations!
Of the approximately 100 attendees, I was the only member of a private firm. The sessions were overwhelmingly full of academics, many presenting on America’s wars or topics on history pedagogy. Most were older, white males wearing blazers or bowties. Although I was forewarned, the lack of diversity was obvious from the start with few young students and fewer people of color.
A typical set up with a PowerPoint presentation. This one, from Emory University, was one of the non-traditional sessions about what resources had recently been added to some of Georgia’s most prominent collections.
The reception’s keynote speaker, a curator at the National Portrait Gallery, presented on a centennial exhibition about women’s suffrage. Ironically, she directly addressed the lack of women and those of color represented in history. Afterwards, she approached our small group of undergrads and recent graduates to talk more candidly about feminism and diversity.
The old Augusta Arsenal was built in 1827 and functioned as a barracks and storehouse until 1955, after which it was turned over to the University System of Georgia.
Arsenal Cemetery contains the graves of service members, as well as some spouses and children, buried between 1841 and 1941.
While the presentations I attended were informative and I made some useful professional connections, I mostly walked away with an overwhelming sense to come back and overhaul the system. History is an ever-changing discipline with significance that cannot be overstated. Historical insight and analysis can only be made stronger with a diverse body of scholars, reaching beyond the academic into the communities we study.