2025 Annual Meeting
The Program Committee for the 2025 annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Historical Association is excited to announce the theme of “Rights, Reform, and Protest in the Mid-Atlantic” for our Annual Meeting this autumn! As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we’ll gather on October 9-11, 2025 in York, Pennsylvania—a city that hosted the Continental Congress during the British occupation of Philadelphia. Our theme encourages a broad examination of how the struggles for rights, reform, and protest have shaped revolutionary change across the history of the region.
Registration is now available online, with banquet meal options and discounted prices for members! You’re also welcome to register by mail. If you do, be sure to print, complete, and mail the registration form to our business office.
From the American Revolution to the present day, the Mid-Atlantic has been a crucible for movements that challenge authority, expand civil liberties, and inspire transformative social change. We invite proposals that consider these movements across all historical eras, focusing on the roles of individuals and communities in advocating for political, economic, and social reforms. This includes, but is not limited to, studies of revolutionary activity during the 18th century, civil rights movements, industrialization and labor protests, suffrage campaigns, environmental advocacy, and other efforts where calls for rights and reform fueled protests and shaped the course of history.
Exciting conference highlights:
Thursday Evening Opening Plenary: Peter Levy, author of The Great Uprising: Race Riots in Urban America during the 1960s and The New Left and Labor in the 1960s, will offer a compelling discussion on the long-lasting impact of racial uprisings and labor movements in shaping the nation’s history.
Friday Luncheon Speaker: Samantha Dorm, co-founder of the Friends of Lebanon Cemetery. Her recent project, Paved Over Prominence, utilizes Augmented Reality to recreate York’s lost Black built environment, ensuring the past remains accessible to future generations.
Friday Banquet Speaker: Robert Parkinson, author of The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution, Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence, and Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier, will offer fresh insights into the intersections of race and revolution in early America.
Our sessions will be held at the the recently restored Yorktowne Hotel. Considered the “Cornerstone of York” since 1925, the grand hotel in York, PA borrows from its rich history and blends it with the contemporary. World leaders including Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Thatcher have stayed at the Yorktowne, as have world-famous artists like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
The hotel, a part of Hilton’s Tapestry Collection, pays homage to this storied history by featuring unique artwork courtesy of locally commissioned artists.