Still Crazy After All These Years

On March 6, ASHP/CML celebrated the 25th anniversary of its founding in a gala event held in the City University Graduate Center’s Dining Commons. Under the looming shadow of the Empire State Building, 150 staff (past and present), friends, and colleagues gathered for an evening of eating, greeting, reunions, and reflections about our longevity, what we’ve achieved over the last quarter-century- and what we still need to accomplish!

The program for the event included retrospection from the likes of current ASHP/CML executive director Josh Brown, co-founder Steve Brier, and ASHP board chair Carol Groneman, and new assessments by GC president William Kelly and Harvard historian Jill Lepore. Lepore’s keynote address placed ASHP/CML’s books, documentaries, CD-ROMs, websites, and education programs in the context of the ups and downs of a generation of social history scholarship. In an effort to relieve some of the solemnity, the program ended with a 15-minute documentary chronicling, with a jaundiced eye and mockingly portentous narration, our triumphs and occasional tragedies. It was, in all, a wonderful evening and we plan an even more resplendent event when our 50th anniversary rolls around.