You are invited to share your experiences creating inclusive interpretation, programs, and spaces at your museums and living history sites. What does inclusion look like at your site? What are you striving for in the future? How are you addressing and embracing the stories and storytellers who have historically been overlooked in your organization's interpretation? We want to hear how you are engaging and reflecting diverse audiences in staffing, governance, research, programming, collecting, education, and interpretation. Case studies, research, reviews, and opinion articles are welcome.

Submissions are due by May 14, 2021. General submission guidelines can be found here.

For further information contact Bulletin Editor Katie Boardman

ALHFAM is pleased to announce the results of the 2021 election.

Vice President

Jim Lauderdale

Board of Directors

Kari Freeman Barley

Kerry-Leigh Burchill

Aaron Loendorf

Nominating Committee

Cody Jolliff

The members of the nominating committee (Ryan Beckman, Kathy Dickson, Jim McCabe, Deb Reid, Julian Whittam) wish to express sincere thanks to all those willing to serve on the board of directors and to those willing to stand for election. As a volunteer organization, ALHFAM cannot continue to thrive without the willingness of individual members to step up and serve. 

ALHFAM’s First Virtual Plowing Match

ALHFAM will hold their first Virtual Plowing Match for the 2021 Conference, hosted by the FARM Professional Interest Group. This event is meant to be fun and is designed for any ALHFAM member, however experienced.  Acknowledging that entrants will come from different sites with different resources, the judges will endeavor to take into account entrants’ ground, ability and equipment; including the type of plow used and the plowing for which it was intended. 

Each entrant should plow an ideally level plot of no less than 50 feet but, if possible, should aim for a minimum of 100 feet or 30 meters in length. There is no maximum length of plot but the same rules will apply.

The judges will award a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place winner in each category: Oxen Beginner; Oxen Experienced; Equine-assisted Beginner; Equine-assisted Experienced; Equine-Unassisted; and Tractor. The winners will be announced and edited clips from the 1st Place winners’ submissions will be presented during the virtual conference.  Ribbons, purchased by the FARM PIG, will be distributed at a later date.

The FARM PIG would like to encourage participation in this match by as many members as possible.  If you are an Institutional Member interested in hosting members who are not attached to a site with draft animals, tractor, plow, land, or the necessary equipment, please email Jim Lauderdale. Likewise, members without said animals and equipment may contact the former, who will attempt to match interested members with host sites. Individual Members must comply with all operating policies of the Institutional Member site.

All entries should be submitted by May 10, 2021 and should be sent HERE.

For more guidance information, visit https://alhfam.org/FARM-pig.  

Questions about plowing entries may be directed to Bob Powell.

Not a Keyhole, but a Doorway: A Dialogue on Inclusivity and Interpreting to Every Person

Virtual Southeast Region ALHFAM Conference

    - February 26-28 2021 -

Learn More & Register 

We invite you and your colleagues to share about volunteer program adaptations to COVID protocols, building and maintaining inclusive volunteer teams, training public-facing staff and volunteers on engaging visitors about race and class, volunteer placement throughout an organization, and other relevant insights, case studies, resources, approaches, joys and pitfalls.

Resource reviews are also welcome for Volunteer Engagement 2.0: Ideas and Insights Changing the World by Robert J. Rosenthal (2015) or Recruiting and Managing Volunteers in Museums: A Handbook for Volunteer Management by Kristy Van Hoven and Loni Wellman (2016).

Submissions are due by December 22. General submission guidelines can be located here. 

We look forward to hearing from you!  Contact Anna Stratton, Guest Editor.

Proposals for the 2021 MOMCC 2021 Spring Virtual Conference are being accepted through December 30, 2020. 

Submit your proposal today.

Registration is now open for the 2020 Western Regional Virtual Conference and Meeting: Thriving in Changing Times.

Hosted by Sharlot Hall Museum in Arizona, this meeting will take place online on November 21. 

Registration is free for ALHFAM members.

Learn more and Register today!

Hello from your friendly ALHFAM Bulletin guest editors, Barb and Alyssa! 

We are looking for articles and resource reviews for our issue on changing weather and its impact. 

Frequent floods? Intense weather cycles? Climate change? Wildfires? Drought? What is happening in our regions?  

We want to hear how your sites and museums interpret these stories – historic and recent. Tell us how you prepare for more dramatic weather, or climate change, and the impacts on your sites, structures, animals, crops and museums.

Be a part of the Summer 2019 edition: Changing Weather

Send any questions, articles or ideas to Alyssa Zajan. 

Submission Deadline: September 4, 2020

Recordings of sessions and meetings from the 2020 Virtual Conference are now available on the ALHFAM website for members only. You must be logged in to the website to view them. Need help logging in? Contact the Webmaster.

Session Recordings: alhfam.org/2020-Recorded-Sessions

The Region and Professional Interest Group (PIG) meeting recordings are available on their respective pages on the website. Use your mouse to hover over About Us on the horizontal menu bar on the home page and select Regions or Interest Groups from the drop down. You’ll then be able to select whichever Region or PIG you’re interested in.  

The Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) and Look Around You Ventures (LAYV) are pleased to announce a new strategic partnership to create exciting and entertaining online educational videos about American history.

ALHFAM has been at the forefront of the growth and professionalization of living history techniques in museum programs, with members across the United States and in many other countries around the world.

Look Around You Ventures creates high-quality historic video programs through its current web series “Civil War Digital Digest” and “Revolutionary Gazette” (the latter scheduled for release in Fall 2020).

Combining the knowledge of ALHFAM’s member institutions with the attention to detail and high-quality production capabilities of LAYV, new videos will highlight the technology in use at the time of the American War of Independence and the United States Civil War. Our goal is to help students, teachers, re-enactors and history enthusiasts connect with American history, while they learn about the people who lived, fought and survived these conflicts.

Crafting connections and building interest in these eras will highlight the range of interactive opportunities the public can find at ALHFAM sites across the United States and around the world.

As museums and historic sites begin to safely open, watch for new episodes in both series to begin carrying the ALHFAM logo very soon!

Learn more about ALHFAM and LAYV. You may also contact Jim Lauderdale, STP Committee, or Will Eichler, Producer.