Photograph of picnic dinner by Joseph John Kirkbride [1889]. Library of Congress.

Over the past three years, I’ve kept you up to date on the Taylor-Fillmore project via this blog and Twitter. I will continue to do so. But next month, for the first time in our project’s history, we will host an in-person (and virtual) event! On June 22–25 you can come visit us, and our colleagues on other documentary editing projects, either at American University in Washington, DC, or on the screen of your favorite electronic gadget.

Our project, and more generally AU’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies (CCPS), will host the annual conference of the Association for Documentary Editing (ADE). I’ve mentioned this organization before. It connects professionals who locate and publish historical and literary documents—from Adams to Einstein, from Mary Baker Eddy to Martin Luther King Jr. At their annual conference, last held in-person in 2019, they share what they’ve found in the documents, what techniques they use to edit them, and what it’s like to do that work. This year’s hybrid event, with the theme “Modalities of Text and Editing,” will highlight both the variety of documents that editors are making accessible and the variety of technologies and strategies that they’re employing.

Please register here to attend either in person or virtually. Because the ADE wants this conference to be welcoming and equitable for all attendees, it is not charging registration fees and is using ADE funds to keep the banquet and breakfast fees as low as possible.

Sessions will include a roundtable with Shelly Lowe, chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other federal and international leaders in the humanities; a panel on first ladies’ papers by the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE); and a breakfast talk by Mia Owens on her experience as AU’s inaugural graduate fellow on the History of Slavery and Its Legacies in Washington, DC. You may even get to hear me talk a little about this very blog. The evening of June 22, CCPS will co-sponsor an opening reception, along with digital publishing cooperatives at the University of Virginia and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Please preregister by June 5. This is not required but will greatly aid our planning. Preregistration is required for the banquet, the breakfast, and housing; to guarantee spots on tours; and to receive the virtual sign-in links. Sessions will be held at AU’s Katzen Arts Center, AU’s Washington College of Law, and the Embassy Suites Chevy Chase Pavilion.

A limited number of assistantships, with free meals at the banquet and the breakfast, are available for students who assist at the registration desk.

You can read more about the conference, including housing options for those traveling and an outline of the program, here. (Note that the conference hotel rate is available until May 22. Residence hall reservations are open until June 5.) If you have any questions or are interested in an assistantship, please contact me at mdcohen@american.edu.