Published:
By Sarah Kaufman
Her hair pulled back and tucked under a mustard-colored snood, Rebecca Donohue welcomes visitors who stop by her table at the Connecticut League of History Organizations (CLHO) 2023 annual conference. Dressed in period costume, Donohue invites individuals and groups to experience life in Connecticut in the 1870s.
She and her husband, Richard Donohue, attended the conference on the campus of Central Connecticut State University on June 5 to promote their business, Famous Historians. This was their first visit to the conference, and Richard brought replicas from his collection of mechanical banks from the J. & E. Stevens Company to attract visitors to their table. Richard also gives presentations about the state’s World War I memorials.
“I bring the replica banks so that people can play with them. They’re fun and people really enjoy them,” he said.
This year’s CLHO conference is its first at Central since 2019. The event, titled “Community Matters - Linking Past and Present in Meaningful Ways,” took place in Willard-DiLoreto Hall.
The league, which organized the event, makes its home on the Central campus and collaborates with the Public History program. CLHO Executive Director Amrys Williams said the event serves multiple purposes.
“It’s an opportunity to help organizations around the state. Many of them are small with no professional staff or are manned by volunteers,” Williams said. “This helps them to understand the resources available to them and the value they can bring. It’s an opportunity to get someone with professional museum training into contact with them. And for our students, it’s an opportunity to provide them exposure to get a job.”
The event also offered breakout sessions where museum and history workers could learn about collections protection, audience-centered programming, 3D scanning, and more.
The Donohues said they enjoyed the event and relished the chance to meet other people in the museum and history fields.
“We’re here to promote our program and to connect and interact with people interested in historic programs. It’s an opportunity to network with people in the field,” he said.
Rain Ifill and James Williams from the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Museum in Windsor said they found the breakout sessions especially useful.
“The archiving collections session gave us a nice point of reference and knowledge about best practices for the industry. It’s definitely knowledge I can bring back and implement at our own museum,” Ifill said.
Rebecca said she enjoyed talking to people attracted by her period costume. She was able to tell them about the living history programs she does for groups and individuals.
“It’s just great to be around the historical people with different perspectives and to be able to share those,” she said of the event.
The pair also appreciated the opportunity to network with others in the Connecticut museum industry.
“It’s been great to meet people from all these museums and learn what they do and how that relates to the work we do,” Ifill said. “It’s also nice to learn about some of the things they are doing that is different from what we do and possible ways that we can connect that back to the work we do.”
Williams said it’s been great to have the conference back on Central’s campus because Willard-DiLoreto’s facilities serve the participants better than last year’s location in Old Wethersfield. One of the features of this event was a resource room where members could receive free expert consultation for their programs from members of various historical societies, museum professionals, Occupational Health and Safety trainers, and others.
“We really want them to have access to and be aware of all the resources that are available to them,” she said. “We want to create relationships and work closely with them. We can be an advocate at the state level for more funding. Our goal is to advance the interests of the community and help everyone along the way.”