From History Camp to The Pursuit of History
In late 2013, Lee Wright approached three authors and bloggers in the Boston area and proposed that they adapt the format that he’d seen work for Boston BarCamp, an unconference for the tech industry, to the topic of History. John Bell, Sam Forman, and Liz Covart got things started by posting sessions they would present. Word spread, things came together fairly quickly, and the first History Camp took place on March 8, 2014 in Cambridge. The next year it grew and moved to Boston and it has been growing in scope and size every year since.
In 2016, after seeing a tweet about History Camp Boston, Carrie Lund flew out to Boston to check it out. Her plan was to see how it worked and bring the idea back to Colorado. The first History Camp Colorado took place on November 12, 2016 and every fall since.
Requests consistently come in from all over the country from people who want a History Camp in their town. History Camp, as it was set up at the time, was not sustainable or created for extensive growth. Over the years people had recommended to and encouraged Lee that he should start a non-profit that would be help History Camp expand into more cities and regions and reach as many people as possible.
In 2018, Lee and Carrie decide the time was right to create a non-profit, called The Pursuit of History, that would be the engine to keep History Camp going and growing.
A strong Board, who understand the vision of History Camp, was recruited. Erin Klein and her colleagues at Foley & Hoag, LLP offered their services to help us get set up properly and The Pursuit of History became a 501c3 nonprofit in 2019.
The Pursuit of History engages adults in conversations about history and connects them with historic sites in their communities and across the country.
Our projects include:
History Camp – in-person casual conferences for adults who love history
History Camp Online – online weekly interviews with historians and authors
America’s Summer Roadtrip – Travel across the country and through our nation’s history – 12 historic sites over 12 hours
Because only one-third of American’s can pass the citizenship test, and the importance of history education is increasingly dismissed, we believe that The Pursuit of History is more important now than ever. Thank you for joining us.