Don't have an account?
That’s right, we are always on the lookout for delicious recipes made with AMERICAN HERITAGE Chocolate products. Simply create a member account and submit your recipe today!
Our finely grated baking chocolate is specially crafted to melt with ease. Replace with powdered chocolate 1:1 in any of your favorite recipes.
Peruse through our curated list of free educational resources from our Historic Site Partners. There’s something for everyone young and old.
Applications for the 2027 Forrest E. Mars, Jr. Chocolate History Grant will be accepted through October 23, 2026.
Meet the speakers for our 2023 HCS meeting!
Forecasts are a dime-a-dozen these days, each one presented as more vital and transformative, yet also more seductive and distracting. Altogether, they surround you in a fog of progress. This talk is on how to look into and through the fog, using a set of tools to help put the forecasts (and Futurists) into a more practical perspective – and it all begins by learning to be more curious again…
David Zach is a Futurist. No, really. He has a master’s in Futures Research from the University of Houston. Then again, he got that degree way back in 1981, so it’s pretty much history at this point. He’s given over 1500 talks throughout North America and Europe on the interconnections between curiosity, art and design, screens and books, automation and craft, change and continuity. And pirates. He likes to talk about pirates and their curious role in figuring out how the future really works. For more: www.davidzach.com
Ted Widmer is a historian and former presidential adviser who writes widely on history, politics, and their intersection. He is a Distinguished Lecturer at the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York.
From 1997 to 2001, he was a foreign policy speechwriter and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and he collaborated with the former president on his memoir, "My Life." He also served as a senior adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012-2014.
He has been particularly active in the realm of public history. From 2010 to 2015, he helped to create an ambitious series about the Civil War (“Disunion”) in the New York Times, and became one of its lead contributors, in addition to editing the book that resulted. In 2019, he conceived and edited a year-long series in the New York Times about the global transformations of the year 1919 ("The Year of the Crack-Up"). Also in 2019, he curated the exhibit, “Walt Whitman: Bard of Democracy,” at the Morgan Library in New York. In addition, his writings have often appeared in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, The Guardian, and the New Yorker.
In 2020, his book, Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington was published by Simon and Schuster and received the prize for the best book of the year from the Lincoln Forum, and the inaugural prize for best book from the Society of Presidential Descendants, among other awards. He has also written or edited six other books, including a two-volume series in the Library of America, American Speeches. In 2022, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his next project, a study of Boston in 1968.
Earlier in his career, Widmer directed research centers and libraries, notably at the Library of Congress, Brown University, and Washington College. He received his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. from Harvard.
John Dictl became AASLH President & CEO in 2015. Prior to that he was the Executive Director of the National Council on Public History (NCPH) for nine years and worked for the Organization of American Historians for fourteen years as deputy director and in several other roles.
John received his MA and Ph.D. in early American history from Indiana University, and from 2006 to 2015 was an adjunct faculty member of the history department at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Before graduate school, he worked for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a 2004 graduate of the Seminar for Historical Administration, a program that stems from an AASLH partnership with the Indiana Historical Society and other organizations. John helped found the History Relevance Campaign and the International Federation for Public History and is active in the National Coalition for History.
Elon Cook Lee is a public historian, trainer, curator, and interpreter. She became the Director of Interpretation and Education at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2019 where she leads a variety of domestic and international initiatives that focus on interpreting historic spaces through frameworks of repair, and equitable collaboration with descendants of slavery, exclusion, and colonization. As a leader of Diversity Equity Inclusion Accessibility and Justice work, she regularly trains and advises historic site leaders on recruiting and retaining people of color and developing inclusive workplace policies and practices. Elon is also a Certified Interpretive Guide Trainer through the National Association for Interpretation. She has trained hundreds of historic site and museum professionals across the country and taught undergraduate courses that covered race, coalition building, restituting stolen art and repair-work at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She enjoys engaging the public in loving discussions on challenging topics, and opening hearts, and changing minds one conversation at a time.
In today’s increasingly digital world, it is crucial for heritage museums to know how to use social media to bring real-world audiences into the past. In this conversation, we will discuss the current state of social media, where audiences are spending their time, and how museums can effectively use cutting-edge digital tools and techniques to engage target audiences and drive them to visit museums. We will explore the use of digital avatars to educate, entertain, and market to today’s audiences on social media, and provide concrete ways heritage museums can leverage these tools to connect with a new population online..
As the Vice President and Director of the DiMenna Children's History Museum (DCHM) at the New-York Historical Society, Alice Stevenson is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the DCHM, including mission, family programming, marketing, and funding. Her department serves family visitors and family program attendees through intergenerational programming and exhibitions. Alice is responsible for supporting a team of educators who develop and lead all aspects of family experiences, including developing a menu of programming ranging from weekly story times to special history series; from historical interpretation through material culture to annual special events. Prior to her work at N-YHS, she was the Senior Manager of Family Programs and Preschool Learning at the New York Hall of Science and the Senior Museum Educator/Family Programs at the Brooklyn Museum. She holds an M.A. in Comparative Studies from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a B.A. from New York University.
Mariruth Leftwich serves as the Senior Director, Museum Operations & Education at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, overseeing all facets of the visitor experience and audience engagement and mission-driven programs. She has worked in museum education for 25 years, creating learning experiences and acting as a change-maker for history institutions. Her service to the field includes tenure with the Museum Education Roundtable Board of Directors and the steering committee for AAM’s EdCom, alongside numerous publications focused on learning and visitor experience in museums and heritage sites.
Since launching Dialogic in March of 2020, Sarah Pharaon has led internal focus groups in planning for the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, gallery imagining workshops for the Asian Pacific American Center, and trainings for the team at the Philbrook Museum of Art. She worked with Florida State Parks on a short-term interpretive plan for Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park and developed a community-driven plan for the Richard Overton House (Austin, TX) as well as strategic plans for both Historic Germantown (PA) and John Brown Lives!(NY). With experience in program design and writing, Dialogic designed 36 Questions for Civic Love for the National Public Housing Museum and interactive scripts for the Smithsonian SITES exhibition, The Bias Inside Us.
Prior to Dialogic, Sarah directed consultation services for the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, working with over 300 member sites to build a global community of practice and deliver innovative programs, including national dialogue initiatives on immigration and the school-to-prison pipeline. With them, she led over 40 trainings for the National Park Service, consulted on the design of Eastern State Penitentiary’s award-winning Prisons Today: Questions in the Age of Mass Incarceration, created programming for the Americans exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, and managed the reinterpretation of the home of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner, Pearl S. Buck.
Sarah worked as the Director of Education at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and was the founding curator of the Arab American National Museum. She serves on the American Jewish Museums Advisory Council and is a member of the Emeritus Council of the American Association of State and Local History.
Brad Harris, the regional executive chef for NMS – a Regional Native Corporation based in Alaska, moved to Oklahoma City in 2021 to design and manage the new Thirty Nine Restaurant inside the First Americans Museum (FAM). From the bottom up, he established the kitchen, hired staff and crafted the menu alongside Chef Consultant Loretta Barrett Oden. This duo combined her vast knowledge of indigenous ingredients and regional favorites with his technical training and modern technique to create modern indigenous cuisine. The menu at Thirty Nine celebrates ingredients used for millennia in approachable, delicious and unique dishes.
Thirty Nine Restaurant is no ordinary museum eatery. Brad and Loretta had carefully explored the ingredients brought with the people relocated to Oklahoma. The 39 recognized First Americans represented at FAM came from all over the country, as far north as Canada, west from Oregon and south as Florida when the tribes were relocated to Oklahoma. The state also served as a hub for many ancient trade routes from South America, bringing ingredients along the way.
Brad's love for cooking started in childhood when a friend from Lebanon invited him to a family dinner where he explored all new flavors. In high school, he found his first job in a restaurant and the desire to pursue cooking as a career. He trained formally in traditional French cuisine at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. In the 20 years since graduating from C.I.A, he's worked worldwide, preparing five-course meals on luxury cruise liners and fine dining restaurants all over the U.S.
Brad's years of experience and natural talent have made his ability to craft beauty and flavor in meals for two to 500. He values quality ingredients - searching out farmers, ranchers, and purveyors to create the most authentic and delicious plates. He is passionate about creating meals that are as beautiful as they are flavorful.
Loretta Barrett Oden is an authority on indigenous foods of North America. She's an expert in the field, a widely respected resource, and a fantastic chef. Her life's mission has been to share knowledge of her culinary heritage and support First Americans' food sovereignty efforts.
Born and raised in Oklahoma, Loretta (a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation) learned to cook and garden as a child by watching the women of her family. In the 1990s, she and her son, Clay Oden, opened the Corn Dance Café in Santa Fe, New Mexico – providing the community with a popular indigenous food dining experience. The success of the Corn Dance Café firmly established Native American cuisine into the fabric of American dining. Loretta and the restaurant were featured in the media locally and nationally for their unique place and success in the Native food movement.
After the success of Corn Dance, Loretta's knowledge of indigenous foods became increasingly valuable, and she established her subsequent career as a Native food historian and writer. Her notoriety and talent brought her celebrity chef and speaking engagements worldwide.
Since Corn Dance Café, she has appeared in many culinary TV shows, including the Food Network, podcasts, chef consulted for other Native American restaurants and contributed to cookbooks. Her most notable TV experience was as the host of Seasoned with Spirit, – a five-part PBS series that won her a New England Emmy.
Her career, off-screen and out of the kitchen, includes her role as a founding board member of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA). At NAFSA, the mission is to support Native communities through advocacy, resource development, education, peer-to-peer mentoring and re-establishing Indigenous trade routes. They have also established the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network – preserving seeds and plants for generations. Her most recent endeavor is as a menu curator for Thirty Nine Restaurant in the new First Americans Museum (FAM) in Oklahoma. The mission at Thirty Nine is to use the indigenous ingredients of the First Americans represented at FAM who relocated to Oklahoma from all over the contiguous U.S.
Michael Norris is an experienced nonprofit leader who now serves as the Executive Director of the Carpenters’ Company of the City and County of Philadelphia, which was founded in 1724 as a trade guild for master builders and is now one of the country’s oldest nonprofit organizations and the owners and stewards of Carpenters’ Hall, the site of the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the original home to Benjamin Franklin's Library Company, the American Philosophical Society, and the First and Second Banks of the United States.
Michael has three decades of experience in Philadelphia’s nonprofit cultural sector and is known for building bridges between arts and culture and other sectors including human services, education, workforce development, and the corporate community. Most recently Michael served as the Chief Strategy Officer at the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance where he directed policy initiatives, community engagement, and development efforts. Previously, Michael served as Executive Director of Art-Reach, where he worked to expand cultural access for people of all ages and circumstances. Prior to leading Art-Reach, Michael spent nine years at the Arden Theatre Company, serving first as Development Director, and then as Director of External Relations, overseeing the company’s fundraising, marketing, public relations, and community activities.
A native of Chester County, PA, Michael graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with a B.A. in journalism. He holds a certificate in fundraising from the University of Pennsylvania and participated in the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at Stanford University Business School.
Executive Director of the Westport Museum for History & Culture, Ramin Ganeshram, is an award-winning journalist and historian. She focuses on the history of enslaved African Americans and mixed-race people of the colonial and Federal eras. Ganeshram spent ten years researching and writing The General’s Cook, a process that continued even after the novel was published. In 2019, Ganeshram discovered the fate of her hero, Hercules, the enslaved cook of George Washington, solving the 218-year-old mystery of his life post self-emancipation.
An activist-historian, Ganeshram has been recognized for evolving the 131-year-old Westport Museum toward an inclusive interpretation of American history story by focusing on race, ethnicity, and gender. She has been a Paul Cuffe Memorial Fellow for the For the Study of Minorities in American Maritime History and is currently a fellow at the Fred W. Smith Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon for a research project entitled Cooking Up Freedom, which examines culinary professions as opportunities for emancipation and entrepreneurship among enslaved people. Ganeshram is also a chef professionally trained at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York City and the author of many cookbooks.
