Logos of Special Topics in History sponsors

Special Topics in History

Special Topics in History Sponsors

Participants across all twenty-one Teacher Seminars, the Gilder Lehrman Teacher Symposium, and the in-person and online programming as part of the Reframing Lincoln Symposium have exclusive complimentary access to our Special Topics in History series held this summer. These two-hour-long sessions feature deep dives into topics, eras, and special themes, led by staff and faculty at seven outstanding historical institutions. You can watch the recordings of each session below.  

    Special Topics in History Schedule

    Session Date and Time Session Topic and Speakers

    June 21, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET

    Kennedy’s New Frontier Sixty Years On

    with Genevieve Kaplan, Director of Education, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

    This session is sponsored by 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 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. 

    Watch the recording of this session below, and download slides from the session here.

    July 6, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET

    Confronting the Master Narrative

    with Dory Lerner, Museum Educator, National Civil Rights Museum; Charles McKinney, Neville Frierson Bryan Chair of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of History, Rhodes College; Noelle Trent, Director of Interpretation, Collections, and Education, National Civil Rights Museum

    This session is sponsored by the National Civil Rights Museum. Noted as one of the nation’s premier heritage and cultural museums, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, is steadfast in its mission to share the culture and lessons from the American Civil Rights Movement and explore how this significant era continues to shape equality and freedom globally.

    Established in 1991, the National Civil Rights Museum is located at the former Lorraine Motel, where civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Through interactive exhibits, historic collections, dynamic speakers, and special events, the museum offers visitors a chance to walk through history and learn more about a tumultuous and inspiring period of change.

    Watch the recording of this session below.

    July 13, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET

    Actions Rather than Words: Emma Lazarus and Union Square

    with Gemma Birnbaum, Executive Director, American Jewish Historical Society; Melanie Meyers, Director of Collections, American Jewish Historical Society; Rebeca Miller, Manager of Programs and Operations, American Jewish Historical Society

    This session is sponsored by the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), the oldest ethnic, cultural archive in the United States. AJHS provides access to more than 30 million documents and 50,000 books, photographs, art, and artifacts that reflect the history of the Jewish presence in the United States from 1654 to the present.

    Established in 1892, the mission of AJHS is to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish heritage and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation, and dissemination of materials relating to American Jewish history. At our home on West 16th Street in downtown Manhattan, AJHS illuminates American Jewish history through our many archival treasures, scholarship, exhibitions, and public programs. Among the treasures of this heritage are the handwritten original of Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus,” which graces the Statue of Liberty; records of the nation’s leading Jewish communal organizations; and important collections in the fields of education, philanthropy, science, sports, business, and the arts.

    Watch the recording of this session below.

    July 14, 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. ET

    Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime

    with James B. Conroy, Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize–winning historian and Hingham Historical Society trustee

    This session is sponsored by the Hingham Historical Society. The Hingham Historical Society offers year-round educational programs, exhibits, and activities out of three historic buildings in downtown Hingham, Massachusetts—a coastal town equidistant between Boston and Plymouth. The Hingham Heritage Museum is located in the 1818 Derby Academy, one of the nation’s oldest co-educational schools, while its house museums—the Old Ordinary, a seventeenth-century tavern, and the National Historic Landmark, the seventeenth-century Major General Benjamin Lincoln house—are just two blocks away. The Society’s Collections of close to 20,000 items span all three locations and categories include fine and decorative arts, costumes and textiles, diaries, documents, and photographs chronicling Hingham’s deep and remarkable history.

    Watch the recording of this session below.

    July 20, 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. ET

    Afghanistan for Teachers: From the Cold War to the Present

    with Gregory A. Daddis, Director of the Center for War and Society and the USS Midway Chair in Modern U.S. Military History, San Diego State University

    This session is sponsored by the USS Midway Museum. The USS Midway’s Institute for Teachers emphasizes professional development through seminars about the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and related conflicts.

    Watch the recording of this session below.

    August 1, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET

    What Is Settler Colonialism and Why Should I Teach It?

    with Mimi Stephens, Director of Professional Development, The Choices Program

    This session is sponsored by the Choices Program at Brown University. Affiliated with the Department of History at Brown University, the Choices Program works to increase access to high-quality curriculum content and strengthen education about history and current events in secondary schools in the US and beyond. In order to accomplish this, Choices collaborates with leading scholars to develop curriculum materials and provide teacher professional development.

    Watch the recording of this session below.

    August 3, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET

    Virtual Field Trip: Material Culture and Social Life in New England, 1725–1850

    with James Golden, Director of Interpretation, Historic Deerfield, and Claire Carlson, Education Program Coordinator/Director of Archaeology, Historic Deerfield

    This session is sponsored by Historic Deerfield. Historic Deerfield opens doors to new perspectives that inspire people to seek a deeper understanding of themselves, their communities, and the world, through their museum of history, art, and architecture along a mile-long street laid out in 1671 and still lined with 18th- and 19th-century houses on their original sites. This quintessential New England village is surrounded by working farms and rolling cornfields along the Deerfield River. Based in western Massachusetts, Historic Deerfield’s museum houses range in date from the 1730s to the 1840s. Inside visitors will find one of the best public collections of art and antiques in America while exploring the lifestyle of early New England in a working village of endless beauty.

    Watch the recording of this session below.