May 15, 2008 Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: May 15, 2008
Contact: Garry Adelman
E-mail: gadelman@historyassociates.com
Telephone: (301) 279-9697

History Associates Receives Honorable Mention for 2008 NCPH Consultants Award

History Associates Incorporated received honorable mention for the 2008 National Council on Public History (NCPH) Consultants Award. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of public history through consulting or contract work over the last five years. History Associates was honored for its work on behalf of JP Morgan Chase to examine any connections its predecessors may have had to slavery or the slave trade.

The bank launched the project in response to a Chicago city ordinance requiring all companies doing business with the city to investigate whether they or any of their predecessors ever profited from slavery. History Associates historians began by identifying close to 1,000 JP Morgan Chase predecessors, the oldest of which dated back to the late 1700s. The research team, which comprised more than a dozen historians and archivists, then reviewed all relevant records pertaining to predecessors founded before the Civil War, an effort that included work at over seventy-five repositories around the world. In particular, History Associates historians completed a detailed investigation of records from two nineteenth-century Louisiana banks. This research identified thousands of mortgages issued to local plantation owners between 1830 and 1865 that were secured by slaves on these plantations.

JP Morgan Chase publicly released the findings of this groundbreaking study in early 2005.

About History Associates Incorporated: For more than twenty-five years the historians and archivists at History Associates Incorporated have demonstrated that history is valuable in the market as well as the marketplace of ideas. HAI's nearly fifty employees provide professional historical research, writing, exhibit content, archives, and records management services to clients throughout the United States and around the world. HAI serves these corporate, government, and nonprofit clients from its headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, with an office in Brea, California. History Associates strives to be The Best Company in History®. For more information, call (301) 279-9697 or visit www.historyassociates.com.