Category: Bmore Historic

Registration now open for Bmore Historic unconference and a game jam with THATCamp Games

Do you work at a museum or library? Volunteer for your neighborhood design review committee or preservation commission? Teach history at a local public school or college? Then we invite you to join us for Bmore Historic unconference at the Maryland Historical Society on Friday, October 10!

Bmore Historic is a unique opportunity to connect with students, scholars and professionals in public history and historic preservation for discussions, workshops and creative presentations on the issues that you care about.

How do we know you will like Bmore Historic? Because you set the agenda! Bmore Historic is an unconference where participants work together to propose the topics, set the schedule and facilitate the sessions throughout the day. An unconference is an alternative to a typical professional or academic conference where the schedule is set months in advance. Participants share session ideas online before the event and the schedule isn’t set until morning of October 10. Session leaders are encouraged to facilitate a conversation, not deliver a PowerPoint presentation! Registration is only $10 for students and $15 for professionals including breakfast and lunch.

Bmore Historic is also a great opportunity to build skills thanks to volunteer-led workshops running throughout the day. We are currently planning  workshops on topics including managing digital archives and new approaches to engaged scholarship. Please let us know if there is a topic, skill or tool you want to see included.

This year, we’re especially excited to share a fun program for anyone interested in exploring the intersections of history, education, and games: the Bmore Historic Game Jam. The game jam will be a lively and experimental dive into the potential of games to bring history to life in new ways organized in partnership with THATCamp Games – an unconference on humanities, technology, games, and learning taking place at the Baltimore Harbor Hotel on October 11-12.

View of the Battle Monument, John Rubens Smith (1775-1849), 1828. Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ds-01545.

Learn more about Bmore Historic 2014 or get in touch with questions or suggestions. Registration for Bmore Historic and THATCamp Games is now open so sign up soon!

Friday! Bmore Historic Happy Hour at St. Mary’s Historic Site in Seton Hill

We’ve been busy this fall getting ready for Bmore Historic – our third annual “unconference” for historic preservation, public history and cultural heritage. If you work at a local archive, volunteer regularly for a historic site or house museum, or work in historic preservation, Bmore Historic is always a great opportunity to network with colleagues from all over the Baltimore region – and we still have a few spots left! Whether you’re coming to Bmore Historic or not, you are all welcome to join us this Friday evening at the St. Mary’s Historic Site for a tour and happy hour following the unconference.

Bmore Historic 2013 Happy Hour at St. Mary’s Historic Site

Friday, October 11, 2013, 4:30pm to 6:30pm
St. Mary’s Spiritual Center & Historic Site
600 North Paca Street, Baltimore, MD 21201​

No registration required! Beer and wine available – suggested $5 donation. Limited off-street parking is available in the St. Mary’s Spiritual Center lot and additional on-street parking is available in the area. 

Courtesy Jack Breihan

Special thanks to Fr. John C. Kemper, S.S. and Heidi Glatfelter for hosting the Bmore Historic Happy Hour. Fr. Kemper will also be leading tours of the St. Mary’s Seminary Chapel: a Seton Hill landmark built from 1806 through 1808 by French architect Maximilian Godefroy for the French Sulpician priests of St. Mary’s Seminary. St. Mary’s Seminary Chapel won a 2013 Preservation Award from Baltimore Heritage this summer for a tremendous restoration by the Associated Sulpicians of the United States, together with Kann Partners, Lewis Contractors, Thomas Moore Studios, and Giorgini Construction. Their nine-month, $1 million project restored to Chapel to its centennial year appearance and surely guarantees its preservation for decades to come.

Save the date for Bmore Historic 2012!

Bmore Historic — Baltimore’s preservation, public history and cultural heritage unconference — is back for 2012! Save the date on your calendar today:

Bmore Historic 2012

Friday, October 12, 8:30 am to 3:30 pm
Maryland Historical Society
201 West Monument Street

More than 100 local historians, humanities scholars, preservation advocates, museum professionals and archivists joined us at the inaugural Bmore Historic unconference in December 2011. Thanks to the continued generosity of the Maryland Historical Society and the hard work of our small organizing committee, we’re coming back on October 12, 2012 for more discussions on public history, historic preservation and community development in the Baltimore region and across the state of Maryland. We’re also pleased to announce our partnership with the Baltimore Cultural Education Roundtable to engage educators from local museums and cultural organizations.

Stay tuned for an update on registration in the next few months or take a look at our about page for more information. Don’t forget to join the Bmore Historic Facebook Group or connect with Bmore Historic on Twitter @bmorehistoric. We look forward to seeing you in the fall!

Join an open conversation connecting people, places and the past at Bmore Historic

We’re excited to announce a new event for local historians, museum professionals, preservationists, archivists, activists, scholars, students and anyone who cares about engaging communities around our shared heritage. Join us on December 2, 2011 at the Maryland Historical Society for Bmore Historic— an unconference on public history, historic preservation and community development in Baltimore and across the state of Maryland.

What is an “unconference”?

Anyone who goes to conferences knows that the most productive conversations often take place in the hallway or over drinks at the end of the day. An unconference takes this idea and runs with it. Unlike most traditional academic or professional meetings, an unconference is created and managed by the participants, with the topics of discussion sessions or workshops determined by everyone who attends on the day of the meeting, rather than in advance by the organizers. New unconferences are being organized around the country with examples including PubCamp for professionals in public media, Book Camp on books & publishing, THATCamp for scholars working with digital humanities, and (locally) CreateBaltimore unconference for art & technology. You don’t need to worry about preparing a PowerPoint or a formal paper, we’re just looking for people who are excited about historic places and ready share their knowledge and collaborate with

Why should I participate?

Bmore Historic is an opportunity to share your work, learn from others, get new ideas and develop new partnerships. This meeting is not limited just to scholars or professionals. Students, volunteer preservation activists, Main Street board members, museum docents, educators and others are all encouraged to register and attend. We hope that Bmore Historic can help strengthen connections between people who work with public history, preservation and community development across the region while expanding the diversity of the broader heritage community.

How do I register?

Online registration for the meeting is now open on our website. We’re accepting registrations on a first come, first served basis with confirmations starting in early November. After we confirm your registration, you’ll have a chance to share your session ideas in a blog post on the Bmore Historic website and check out ideas from other participants.

What does it cost?

We’re committed to charging $20 or less. With the space generously donated by the Maryland Historical Society, our costs are limited and we’re currently seeking funds to reduce the charge for all participants. This charge will be finalized by early November. If you are interested in sponsoring Bmore Historic, please get in touch with Eli Pousson at pousson@baltimoreheritage.org.

We’ll kick off the meeting on the evening of December 1 with “Giving the Past Presence: Public History Experiments in New York City” — a UMBC Humanities Forum with Marci Reaven, former director of City Lore and co-founder of Place Matters. We hope this talk can provide an inspiration for the conversations the next day. On December 2, we’ll be at the Maryland Historical Society with sessions in the morning and afternoon. Breakfast and lunch are both provided.

Bmore Historic is being organized in partnership with the Greater Baltimore History Alliance, the Maryland Association of History Museums, the Maryland Historical Society, the Maryland Historical Trust, Preservation Maryland, and the UMBC Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture. If you have any questions, please get in touch with Eli Pousson at pousson@baltimoreheritage.org or 301-204-3337. We hope to see you in December!