TRACES OF 400000

TRACES Center for History and Culture sees history as encounters among various ways of living, which

transcend borders or eras. We invite people to converse about their history and origins, and the history of

their regions or nations as well as their families’ roles in that history.

Volunteers founded TRACES (www.TRACES.org) in 2001. We built a diverse project out of old letters, photos,

dusty journals, yellowed articles, art or other artifacts, and hundreds of recorded interviews. We preserved,

then popularized the last "traces" of encounters between Germans and Midwesterners from 1933 and up

until 1948.

Granted IRS 501(c)(3) status in 2001, TRACES built upon academic research, documentation,

and interpretation undertaken by Iowa-born, Ph.D.-historian, Dr. Michael Luick-Thrams.

TRACES has proven singularly successful in reaching its goals. We made a rich and precious legacy accessible

to people in all corners of the Midwest-over 4,000 communities in 12 states: all combined, more than a

third of a million people. We published 15 books, read by tens of thousands. The overall project reflects TRACES’

enduring mission as embodied in its logo "We bring history to life," in that we make history relevant to all audiences-

from students to educators, from youth to seniors,

hobby historians to academics, professionals to laborers, and from farmers to corporate executives.