DHPSNY Dialogues

Upcoming Programs

Inspired by the AASLH Making History at 250 Field Guide and the New York State 250th Field Guide, our focus for 2024 programming revolves around building an inclusive 250th and the guiding question: "How do we make our collecting organizations interdisciplinary and representative of the realities of our many New York histories?"

2024 Dialogues follow a hybrid format, with each session kicking off with a 15–30 minute recorded teach-in, followed by an engaging 60–75 minute live conversation, hosted on Zoom. 

Telling Complete and Inclusive Stories
Date: Thursday, November 14, 2024
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Click here to register.

New York State is the home to much of the nation’s historical memory about issues and topics we still discuss and debate today, including immigration, LGBTQ+ rights and safety, segregation, incarceration, human rights, and Indigenous genocide, among other things. This program invites participants to identify revolutionary moments in our own local histories and experiences that build on topics and issues relevant to our collective past and our contemporary experiences. 

View or Download the New York State Office of Cultural Education's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Toolkit.

Dialogue Recordings and Resources

Changing Interpretations (September 12, 2024)
In September, DHPSNY examined how historical documents—such as New York’s treaties with Indigenous communities—can reshape our understanding of identity and history. Facilitators Aria Camaione-Lind and Dr. Michael Leroy Oberg guided participants through an exploration of collections from non-Eurocentric perspectives, shedding light on how historical records have been interpreted differently over time and offering strategies for uncovering deeper insights into our communities' pasts.
Read a summary and view additional resources | Watch the recording

Pursuing Untold Stories of Everyday Experiences (July 11, 2024)
In our July Dialogue, "Pursuing Untold Stories of Everyday Experiences," we explored how to uncover and address under-told, ignored, and poorly documented histories. Exploring structures for holding conversations involving different perspectives, we discussed how cultural institutions can either perpetuate or challenge harmful narratives.
Read a summary and view additional resources | Watch the recording

Placemaking and Place-Based Commemorations (May 11, 2024)
In May, co-facilitators invited us to consider some of the foundational knowledge we need in order to grapple with placemaking and placed-based commemorations, including the complexity of Indigenous history in what is now New York State and North America, the dearth of information taught to schoolchildren and older students about Indigenous histories, differences in how European colonizers and Indigenous communities understood land ownerships, and other important cultural norms and mores, and how we can understand placemaking as a matter of perspective.
Read a summary and view additional resources | Watch the recording   

Intersectionality and the 250th (March 14, 2024)
In March, we delved into the intricacy of New York's past, focusing on the intersectional stories of "We the People" and the ongoing American Experiment within the context of the 250th commemoration and beyond in "Intersectionality and the 250th."
Read a summary and view additional resources | Watch the recording   

Indigenous History is New York’s History (February 1, 2024)
In February, we inaugurated our "Building an Inclusive 250th" Dialogue series with a compelling session, "An Introduction to the NYS Field Guide and Indigenous History in New York’s History."
Read a summary and view additional resources | Watch the recording   

Northern Slavery Collective: A Framework for Inclusive History (November 9, 2023)
During our November Dialogue, “Northern Slavery Collective: A Framework for Inclusive History,” we had the chance to learn more about the Northern Slavery Collective from two member organizations: Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance in Manhattan and Westport Museum of History and Culture in Westport, CT.
Read a summary and view additional resources. 

Antiracist Approaches to Collections Accessibility (September 14, 2023)
This July Dialogue discussed effective strategies for describing our organization's collections and ways to center the perspectives, knowledge, and understanding of directly impacted groups of people.
Read a summary and view additional resources | Watch the recording 

Describing Our Collections: Indigenous Art and Artifacts (July 13, 2023)
In this program, we engaged collecting organizations in conversations about their current and future approaches to describing their collections. While some are already working on metadata remediation and reparative description, many are just beginning to explore how to describe their collections for the public.

Native Experiences and Perspectives in non-Native-led Organizations (May 11, 2023)
This month we explored the relationships between non-Native-led museums, archives and libraries, and contemporary Native makers, artists, academics, and researchers.
Read a summary and view additional resources

Antiracism from the Indigenous Perspective: Practical Applications (March 9, 2023)
In this program, we took a look at practical opportunities to center indigenous voices, experiences, and perspectives in collections, programming, and community engagement.
Watch the recording

Centering Indigenous Experience and Perspectives, and Understanding Slavery in New York State (January 12, 2023)
The guiding question for this Dialogue asked: How do collecting organizations build from the indigenous perspective?
Read a summary and view additional resources

An Introduction to Antiracist Policies (September 8, 2022)
In this presentation, co-facilitators Aria Camaione-Lind and Meredith Horsford used the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum Alliance as a case study to explore organizational policy that yields antiracist results.
Watch the recording

Understanding Antiracism as Collecting Organizations (March 10, 2022)
This presentation covered the basics of what anti-racism is, how we talk about it, its history, and how we can use the principles of anti-racism to create more robust and engaging organizations.
Watch the recording

Our Role as Collecting Organizations (January 13, 2022)
Our very first Dialogue focused on creating a baseline for discussion about antiracism, inclusion, and making sense of diversity, equity, accessibility, and justice in our field of archives, libraries, and all kinds of historical collecting organizations.
Read a summary and view additional resources

View the Antiracism Resources Blog series - Previous to the Dialogues program series, these blog posts were created to share information and promote resources in hopes of fostering discussion among collecting institutions in New York.

Image: Cover, the New York State 250th Field Guide.