250 Local Narratives: Mapping Our Revolution

250 Local Narratives: Mapping Our Revolution

What:   in preparation for a broader and more inclusive celebration of the nation’s 250^th anniversary, Region 3 of APHNYS is encouraging municipal historians, historical societies, and stakeholders to help “map” the Revolution as it relates to our counties, towns, and villages.

Why:  To provide easily accessed mappin of local places, people, and events so we can help our citizens, students, and visitors appreciate the daily lives, contributions, impact, and connection of our communities to the broader narrative of the Revolutionary War. 

How:  Using the historic sites platform TheClio.com, historians identify, research, and create entries for your community’s primary and under-documented sites and stories.

Brief details: 

• TheClio.com (named for the Greek goddess/muse of history) is free, backed by a nonprofit organization.  It is different from sites like Google Maps in that there is an academically connected process of providing fact checking and editorial review to encourage accuracy.
• Each historian or organization creates an account, does the data entry for each site, and then can then, if they wish create “tours” for visitors.
• There are ample training materials, or those experienced in the platform within our region can provide one on one “walk throughs” using Zoom.

Timeframe & Goal:  By the end of 2023, to have listings for at least one site per municipality in our region. By the end of 2024, to have at least three sites per municipality in our region.

Demo/Discussion  To schedule a Zoom “walk-through” and discussion, contact Region coordinator Sue Gardner, warwickhistory@gmail.com. 

Incentives/Outcomes:  Not one of the people working hard every day on local history needs more projects.  In order to encourage participation, for every new site listing that you do, email us the link, and you will be entered into a drawing (funds provided by a donor) for a $100 American Express gift card!  [RULES NOTE: Drawing open only to appointed municipal historians; if you have a colleague doing the listings, submission of the entry to us should be from your email and that is where delivery of the prize would go.]

Entry deadline for 2023:  December 15.  Drawing: Dec. 16.  Just in time to ‘go out on the town’ for the holidays!