The National Road Bicentennial Conference will be held on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA. The conference will commemorate the bicentennial of the construction of the National Road, the nation's first federally-funded highway, and acknowledge the importance of antebellum transportation networks.

CFP: Academic historians, graduate and undergraduate students, professionals from historic sites and museums, and independent scholars are invited to submit proposals for presentations or papers focused on the National Road and antebellum transportation. Proposals for all types of presentations, including those on public history topics, will be considered. The proposals should include a 250 to 500-word abstract for the paper/presentation and a CV.

The updated deadline for submission of proposals is March 15, 2011. Please send submissions to nrbc2011@gmail.com.

The keynote speaker for the National Road Bicentennial Conference will be Dr. Robert J. Kapsch. Dr. Kapsch is currently an engineering and architectural historian for the Center for Historic Engineering and Architecture. His publications include The Potomac Canal: George Washington and the Waterway to the West and Seneca, Maryland: Its History and Preservation.

The National Road Bicentennial Conference is sponsored by Washington and Jefferson College, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Department of History, the National Road Heritage Corridor, and the National Park Service.

For more information, please visit https://sites.google.com/site/nrbc2011/.