A Photographic History of the United States | Teacher Seminars Online

This seminar examines the role photography has had in shaping political, cultural, and social change, from the invention of the medium to the present day. Photography as a technology and as a means for propaganda and artistic expression has had a profound impact on over 150 years of American history. We will explore that impact on the US in wartime, reform movements, race relations, and the development and evolution of the national soul.

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John W. Stauffer, Lead Scholar

John W. Stauffer is the Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of twenty books and more than one hundred articles, which mostly focus on antislavery, social protest, or photography. GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln was a national bestseller. The Black Hearts of Men received the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and a Lincoln Prize. Picturing Frederick Douglass was a Lincoln Prize finalist. His essays and reviews have appeared in Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, and in scholarly journals and books. Stauffer has been on national radio and TV, including The Diane Rehm Show, Fresh Air, and Book TV. He has served as a consultant for several films and exhibitions, including Django Unchained, The Free State of Jones, The Abolitionists, and WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY, and he has been a speaker and scholar for the US State Department’s International Information Program.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

This seminar is held in partnership with The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Located inside the former Texas School Book Depository Building in downtown Dallas, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza attracts visitors from all over the United States and across the world. In 1989, the main exhibit, John F. Kennedy and the Memory of a Nation, opened to the public on the sixth floor where critical evidence was found linked to President Kennedy’s Assassination on November 22, 1963. The exhibit is divided into key historical sections with contextual overlays following the path of John F. Kennedy’s life, death, and legacy. The Museum encourages visitors to examine the evolution of today’s global society through Kennedy’s presidential legacy.