USA 250th Anniversary Resources
The United States will commemorate its 250th (or “Semiquincentennial”) anniversary in 2026. AASLH is providing key leadership for the history community as we all prepare for this once-in-a-generation event. We are monitoring national, regional, and state commemoration plans as they develop, serving as a clearinghouse of information for history organizations and practitioners at the local, state, and national levels, particularly through the publication of an annual report on the status of commemoration efforts. We are in communication with other national initiatives, including the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, to help ensure that the values and goals of the history community are represented well in national commemoration efforts. We have organized a national coordinating committee, facilitating communication and collaboration among major organizations, institutions, and agencies. Finally, we are outlining major goals for the anniversary that can help align the work of a diverse and dynamic field over the next several years.
February 1, 2022 Recording: Making History at 250: A Special Address about the Semiquincentennial from AASLH President & CEO John Dichtl
Field Guide and Themes
To encourage 250th anniversary programming that addresses our nation's whole history and is relevant to present concerns, AASLH has developed Making History at 250: The Field Guide for the Semiquincentennial, a resource with guiding themes to help the history community prepare for 2026. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and created with the help of dozens of leading scholars, museum professionals, and public historians, these themes can provide cohesiveness to a multi-faceted, grassroots commemoration and entry-points for organizations all over the United States.
By exploring common questions in different contexts, this anniversary can help us advance a more widely shared story about our nation’s history, one that acknowledges its many tensions and ambiguities and that informs our present and future. Watch the 2021 launch event for the Making History at 250.
The guide’s five themes are:
- Unfinished Revolutions
- Power of Place
- We the People
- American Experiment
- Doing History
Read the guide in full to learn more about these themes.
The field guide has been sent to 20,000 practitioners nationwide. Thirteen thousand of these copies were made possible by a second printing funded by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation.
