Montana Historical Society

The Montana County History Initiative (CHI) is the Montana Historical Society's latest statewide outreach effort.  The goals of this broad-based initiative are to build relationships among people working with Montana’s local history and heritage resources, and to provide support in the form of training and expertise.  With more than two dozen county centennials approaching over the next dozen years, the Montana Historical Society hopes to assist counties and local governments alike to celebrate the riches of their own local heritage.  The Society's staff offers numerous workshop-type programs on topics as diverse as historic preservation, archaeology, community history, archives and museum methods, oral history, and utilizing heritage education in the classroom.

Steering Committee

Each of the CHI steering committee members received training on the full range of services the Montana Historical Society has to offer to local and county institutions and individuals.  They also received extensive training resources such as publications on oral history or conservation of photographic materials.  Each member also received a Marantz digital recorder for their institution to be used for oral history projects.

MHS has worked with members of the MCHI steering committee to plan six regional conferences throughout the state.  These meetings are designed to provide training opportunities throughout Montana for county and local institutions and individuals to support the production of excellent cultural heritage projects at the local level.  The members of the steering committee who are planning these conferences have been given funding and a menu of MHS workshops available for their conference programs.  The first conference took place in Forsyth in Nov.  The remaining five conferences are in the active planning stage.

Workshops

The Montana Historical Society welcomes requests for staff to give workshops throughout the state for the purposes of training volunteers, informing the public, or a variety of other occasions. Our diverse, professional staff can present on topics related to museums, historic preservation, heritage education, oral history, and archives. To view detailed descriptions of the more than 30 workshops offered by MHS staff click on our Workshop Menu.

 Questions or comments:

Jeff Malcomson, jmalcomson@mt.gov, 406-444-7427

Rich Aarstad, raarstad@mt.gov, 406-444-6779