Robert Weible, State Historian of New York and Chief Curator of the New York State Museum will provide the keynote address at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) annual dinner at 4:45 p.m. Saturday, October 20 in the Hall of Presidents at Colgate University in Hamilton NY.

Weible’s presentation &#8220The Irrepressible Conflict: The Civil War in New York&#8221 will describe the large exhibit by the same name that opens September 22 at the state museum. The history of New York’s involvement in the Civil War – the state’s role leading up to war, during the war and Reconstruction – and the lasting impact the war had on New Yorkers &#8211 is told through four major themes: The Coming of War, The Battlefield, The Home Front, and Reconstruction and Legacy. The importance of the abolition activities in Central New York – including the acquisition of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and Gerrit Smith – will be included.

Weible previously served in Pennsylvania as Director of Public History for the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Acting Director of the Pennsylvania State Archives, and Chief of the Division of History for the Pennsylvania Historical &amp- Museum Commission. Prior to that, he was the first Park Historian at Lowell National Park in Massachusetts. Weible has edited five books, published numerous articles in scholarly journals and popular magazines, directed Teaching American History and National Endowment for the Humanities grants, supervised content production for the award-winning web site ExplorePAhistory.com, and managed a wide variety of public programs in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. He is an active member of several professional organizations, including the National Council on Public History, for which he served as President in 2005-06.

The annual NAHOF dinner will follow the Colgate University Upstate Institute afternoon symposia on Abby Kelly Foster, Jermain Wesley Loguen, and George Gavin Ritchie. The commemoration ceremonies of these three 2011 inductees to the Hall of Fame will follow dinner. The keynote address for the Saturday luncheon is Honoring Tubman in 2013. The Hutchinson Family Singers will provide a 19th C. anti-slavery concert at the First Baptist Church in Hamilton Friday night at 7 p.m. Panel presentations, exhibits, and tours are available during the three day event. These programs are supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities and with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program, a state agency, and the Cultural Resources Council, a regional arts council.

The public is encouraged to attend the programs. Reservations are required for lunch and dinner by October 10 and can be purchased as single events or in a NAHOF package for the October 19 – 21 conference at mercantile.gerritsmith.org or with a registration form from National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13035, or at National AbolitionHallofFameandMusuem.org..

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