Episode 59: America 250, Commemoration in Context

This episode features a conversation with UConn Archives’ Education and Outreach Coordinator Kara Flynn about her exhibition “Commemoration in Context” which runs from June 1st – December 18, 2026 in the Archives & Special Collections’ Schimmelpfeng Gallery located at the Dodd Center for Human Rights. Kara’s exhibition draws from collections relating to the People’s Bicentennial Commission (1970-1976) which organized an alternative commemoration in the early 1970s to the official national program appointed during the Nixon administration. This conversation draws on the tactics, promotion, social justice framework, and the overall effectiveness of activists employing public history to challenge the uses of memory employed during a previous national anniversary. The backdrop to this exhibition was the contemporary semiquincentennial America 250 commemoration planning which unfolded between 2020 and 2026.




Featured Collections




Haymarket People’s Fund Records




Preston L. Pope Papers




Stephen Thornton Papers









Logo by Melica Stinnett