The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 25, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and The Historic New Orleans Collection Session: July 26, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 27, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET
• Historic New Orleans Collection Session and Final Open Discussion: July 28, 1:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m. ET

Scholar:

Peniel Joseph, Professor of History, Professor of Public Affairs, Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, University of Texas at Austin

Description:

This seminar examines African American history from emancipation to the present, focusing on the struggle of African Americans to achieve full citizenship in the aftermath of legal slavery. In particular, it considers the promise and demise of citizenship represented by Reconstruction, the era of breathtaking anti-Black violence and terror known as “Redemption,” and the Great Migrations of African Americans from the South to the North.

The seminar studies the rise of Jim Crow, the roots of Black political organizing in the early twentieth century, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It concludes by exploring the transformative effect on American politics of the Black Power Movement and considers how an understanding of its importance compels us to rethink the civil rights era. The seminar also looks ahead to the decades since, when African Americans have continued to wage intense campaigns against racism and other forms of social injustice.

Sponsor:

This seminar is sponsored by The Historic New Orleans Collection. The Historic New Orleans Collection is a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to preserving the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South. Thanks to the Collection’s support, teachers participating in this seminar will have the opportunity to participate in two additional live sessions focused on finding and using engaging primary sources and will get exclusive access to related resources provided by THNOC.

NEW for 2022

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 27, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and AJHS Session: June 28, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 29, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET
• AJHS Session and Final Open Discussion: June 30, 6:00–7:30 p.m. ET

Scholar:

Madeline Y. Hsu, Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin

Description:

Widely considered a wellspring for US greatness, immigration has also been an abiding site of our deepest conflicts. The republican foundation of the United States, with its promises of democracy and equality for all, seems to strain against the high numbers of immigrants from parts of the world barely imagined by the Founding Fathers, much less as sources of new citizens. What is the breaking point for the assimilating powers of US democracy, and how much does national vitality rely upon a continued influx of diverse immigrants with their strenuous ambitions and resourcefulness? Today we remain divided by competing beliefs about how immigration shapes our nation’s well-being and to what ends we should admit, exclude, or grant citizenship to immigrants, and in what numbers. Professor Madeline Y. Hsu’s seminar enables students to better understand the terms by which immigration functions as a core aspect of US national identity.

Sponsor:

This seminar 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’ “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.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 8, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: August 9, 3:00–4:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 10, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: August 11, 3:00–3:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

Colin Calloway, John Kimball, Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Professor of Native American Studies, Dartmouth College

Description:

This seminar guides participants through a broad and deep exploration of American Indian history through a series of case studies, including early encounters; the Lewis and Clark expedition; and persistence in the face of government expansion, removal, and assimilation policies.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 1, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session and Center for Presidential History Session: August 2, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 3, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET 
• Center for Presidential History Session and Final Open Discussion: August 4, 1:00–2:30 p.m. ET 

Scholars:

Live Sessions: Jeffrey A. Engel, Director, Center for Presidential History, Southern Methodist University 

Pre-recorded Lectures: Meg Jacobs, Senior Research Scholar, Princeton School of Public & International Affairs, Princeton University, and Julian E. Zelizer, Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs, Princeton School of Public & International Affairs, Princeton University

Description:

This seminar takes an in-depth look at the history and powers of the executive office through case studies of six twentieth- and twenty-first-century presidents:

• Franklin Roosevelt 
• Lyndon Johnson 
• Richard Nixon
• Jimmy Carter
• Ronald Reagan
• Barack Obama 

Through the examination of these modern presidents, participants will develop an understanding of the evolution of presidential power in relation to other branches of government, and in the country more generally. Seminar materials include optional selected readings from a number of texts as well as archival audio and video. Lectures are organized in interview format, with two lectures devoted to each president.

Sponsor:

This seminar is sponsored by the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University (CPH). The CPH exists to research and advance understanding of the history of the American presidency. Thanks to the Center’s support, teachers participating in this seminar will have the opportunity to participate in two additional live sessions with bonus content and will get exclusive access to related resources provided by the CPH.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 8, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: August 9, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 10, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: August 11, 11:00–11:30 a.m. ET 

Scholar:

Kellie Carter Jackson, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Wellesley College

Description:

This seminar focuses on African American women’s history in the United States with certain aspects of Black women’s activism and leadership covered within the African Diaspora. We will examine ways in which these women engaged in local, national, and international freedom struggles while simultaneously defining their identities as wives, mothers, leaders, citizens, and workers.

We will pay special attention to the diversity of Black women’s experiences and to the dominant images of Black women from Mumbet (the first enslaved Black woman to sue for her freedom and win) to contemporary issues of race, sex, and class in the Age of (Michelle) Obama. Participants will explore such questions as: What is Black women’s history? How does Black women’s history add to our understanding of American history? Where should Black women’s history go from here?

NEW for 2022

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 20, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 

• Scholar Session: June 21, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 22, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 

• Final Open Discussion: June 23, 11:00–11:30 a.m. ET 

Scholars:

Live Sessions: Lilia Fernandez, Henry Rutgers Term Chair and Associate Professor of Latino and Caribean Studies and History, Rutgers University; Donald L. Fixico, Regents and Distinguished Foundation Professor of History, Arizona State University

Pre-recorded Lectures: David W. Blight (Yale University), Kellie Carter Jackson (Wellesley College), Jean M. Dennison (University of Washington), N. Bruce Duthu (Dartmouth College), Ada Ferrer (New York University), Lilia Fernandez (Rutgers University), Donald L. Fixico (Arizona State University), Hasan Kwame Jeffries (The Ohio State University), Charles McKinney (Rhodes College), and Yohuru Williams (University of St. Thomas)

Description:

This seminar examines the histories of American Indian, African American, and Latina/o American peoples, their relationship to the broader American historical narrative, and the fight for rights and freedoms historically and into the present day. Lectures (largely from our How Did We Get Here? series), live sessions, and a panel discussion will help answer both historical and contemporary questions of race relations and American experiences. 

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 27, 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and National Civil Rights Museum Session: June 28, 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 29, 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. ET
• National Civil Rights Museum Session and Final Open Discussion: July 30, 3:00 p.m.–4:30 p.m. ET

Scholar:

John Stauffer, Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African American Studies, Harvard University

Description:

This interdisciplinary seminar examines the rich tradition of progressive protest literature in the United States from the American Revolution to the rise of globalization, hip-hop, and modern-day slavery. Using a broad definition of “protest literature,” we focus on the production and consumption of dissent as a site of social critique, using a wide variety of print, visual, and oral forms.

We examine the historical links between forms of protest, social change, and meanings of literature; and we explore how various expressions of dissent function as political, ideological, rhetorical, aesthetic, and performative texts within specific cultural contexts. Documents highlighted in this seminar range from novels and political pamphlets to photographs, music, sociology, and history.

Sponsor:

This seminar 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.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 8, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: August 9, 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 10, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: August 11, 1:00–1:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

Daina Ramey Berry, Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History and Chairperson of the History Department, University of Texas at Austin

Description:

This seminar is a study of enslaved people and the ways in which human beings coped with captivity. It also listens to their voices through audio files, diaries, letters, actions, and silences. Centering on the people of slavery rather than viewing them as objects shifts the focus to their commentary on slavery. In addition to listening to enslaved people, students will have the opportunity to engage some of the most cutting-edge scholarship on the subject. Although the early literature objectified enslaved people and hardly paid attention to their experiences, work published since the Civil Rights Movement and into the twenty-first century offers rich accounts of enslaved life. By approaching the institution of slavery in the United States from the enslaved perspective through firsthand accounts of their experiences, students will have the opportunity to engage a variety of sources, including narratives, plantation records, podcasts, short films, and other media. Some of the specific themes addressed include gender, sexuality, region, labor, resistance, pleasure, love, family, and community among the enslaved. 

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 1, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session and Sixth Floor Museum Session: August 2, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 3, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• Sixth Floor Museum Session and Final Open Discussion: August 4, 3:00–4:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

Lucas E. Morel, John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics, Washington & Lee University

Description:

This seminar explores the diverse political philosophies of influential Black Americans as they sought to secure their dignity as human beings and rights as citizens. What makes this story intriguing is that Black Americans struggled to secure justice for themselves on the basis of principles White Americans professed to hold near and dear. Quite simply, Black Americans asked that America be true to herself. As Frederick Douglass put it: “Not a Negro problem, not a race problem, but a national problem; whether the American people will ultimately administer equal justice to all the varieties of the human race in this Republic.” America answered by being true, to one extent or another, to the principle of consent. American Blacks asked her to be true to that other American principle, equality. This seminar examines the fundamental tension between human equality and government by consent, a tension present at the birth of the American Union in 1776.

The tension between freedom and equality forms the context for the struggle of Black Americans—nay, all Americans—to exercise their rights as citizens. A critical evaluation of leading Black thinkers in American political thought helps one understand what it means to be both an American citizen and a civilized human being.

Sponsor:

This seminar 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 the 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.

NEW for 2022

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 20, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session and Hingham Historical Society session: June 21, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 22, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• Hingham Historical Society and Final Open Discussion: June 23, 3:00–4:30 p.m. ET

Scholar:

Alan Taylor, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Chair, University of Virginia

Description:

This seminar examines Spanish, French, Dutch, and British encounters with Native peoples of North America during the initial centuries of colonization: 1492–1800. It combines the “Atlantic” approach to early America with a “continental” approach that accords dynamism and agency to Native peoples and enslaved African peoples in their relations with colonizers. This seminar defines colonial America broadly, extending beyond the British colonies of the North American coast to include New France, New Spain, and the West Indies.

Sponsor:

This seminar 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.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 1, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session: August 2, 6:00–7:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: August 3, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET
• Final Open Discussion: August 4, 6:00–6:30 p.m. ET

Scholar:

Denver Brunsman, Associate Professor of History, The George Washington University

Description:

The American Revolution is arguably the most significant event in US history. Put simply, without the Revolution, the United States as we know it would not exist. And yet, the Revolution is also one of the events in American history most misunderstood by the general public. It is a much more complex, surprising event than most Americans realize. Participants will gain insight into new scholarly approaches to traditional subjects, including American resistance to British rule, the decision for independence, and America’s victory in the Revolutionary War.

In addition, participants will consider marginalized figures and groups, including loyalists, women, African Americans, and American Indians, who challenge conventional interpretations of the Revolution. Finally, the seminar examines how the Revolution gave birth to a new—and fractious—style of politics under the Articles of Confederation and US Constitution. In this seminar, participants will engage in a project as timeless as the Revolution itself: interpreting what exactly American independence meant for the inhabitants of North America and the world.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 27, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: June 28, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 29, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: June 30, 11:00–11:30 a.m. ET 

Scholar:

Carol Berkin, Professor Emerita, Baruch College, CUNY

Description:

This seminar examines the many roles women played in the War for Independence, from the earliest protests and boycotts to the American victory at Yorktown. It also looks at the changing gender roles and ideal—from “notable housewife” to “Republican woman”—spurred by women’s participation in the creation of the new republic. The seminar does not focus solely on White women who favored independence. It also looks at the impact on the course of the war of Native American, African American, and loyalist women as well as the impact of the colonial victory on their communities and their lives. Over the course of these lectures you will encounter—probably for the first time—women propagandists, poets, and fund-raisers; thousands of women who traveled with the army; and the many spies, messengers, soldiers, and saboteurs who risked their lives to aid the political cause they embraced.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 25, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: July 26, 6:00–7:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 27, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: July 28, 6:00–6:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

Andrew W. Robertson, Associate Professor of History, Lehman College and CUNY Graduate Center

Description:

Explore the evolving concept of democracy in the early American republic from the 1790s to the eve of the Civil War, when the possibilities of the Revolution were first explored and tested. Through primary source documents and virtual field trips, participants will examine how changes in presidential elections, the popular press, and the emerging political issues of the period influenced the structure and values of American democracy.

(NOTE: This seminar was previously titled Democracy in the Early Republic.)

NEW for 2022

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 27, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: June 28, 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 29, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: June 30, 1:00–1:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Humanities Chair, CUNY Graduate Center

Description:

What was the Civil War all about? The answer lies largely in its origins. This seminar examines various aspects of what historians call “The Crisis of the 1850s,” the crucial decade that ended in the secession of eleven slave states from the Union. Why did they secede? And why didn’t Lincoln let them? In the lectures, Professor Oakes examines first the conflicting interpretations of the origins of the Civil War and then looks at specific aspects of the crisis of 1850, in particular the cascading series of events that led to war: the War with Mexico, the “Compromise” of 1850, the fugitive slave crisis, the struggle over Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, the collapse of the Whig Party, the rise of the Republican Party, the catastrophic fissure of the Democratic Party, and finally the election of Lincoln and the secession crisis. No one methodology can adequately account for the origins of the Civil War—it requires economic, social, political, and cultural history.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 11, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: July 12, 6:00–7:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 13, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: July 14, 6:00–6:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

Allen C. Guelzo, Director, Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship, Princeton University

Description:

A four-year cataclysm that left in its wake more than six hundred thousand dead and two million refugees—and destroyed legal slavery in the United States—the Civil War sparked some of the most heroic and achingly dark moments in American history. Join Gilder Lehrman and Allen C. Guelzo of Princeton University (and before Princeton, Gettysburg College) in a study of the war’s strategy, tactics, and memory, and consider the legacy of the Civil War more than 150 years after its end.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 25, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: July 26, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 27, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: July 28, 11:00–11:30 a.m. ET 

Scholar:

David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies, Yale University

Description:

These twelve lectures and the discussions probe the nature of the life, work, and thought of the nineteenth-century abolitionist, orator, and author Frederick Douglass. We will examine in depth the public and private sides of Douglass’s life and his importance as a thinker and a political activist in the great dramas of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.  

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 18, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: July 19, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 20, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: July 21, 11:00–11:30 a.m. ET 

Scholar:

Bruce J. Schulman, William E. Huntington Professor of History, Boston University

Description:

This seminar examines how the era of Theodore Roosevelt, the final years of the nineteenth century and opening decades of the twentieth, gave birth to the modern United States.

As Americans knit together national markets for goods and national audiences for cultural products like film and recorded music, they created new instruments of governmental power, undertook a constitutional revolution (four amendments in a single decade), and fashioned a new role for the United States in the world.

At the same time, city growth and mass immigration changed the face—and the faces—of the nation, initiating conflicts over and efforts to deal with diversity that continue to shape American life.

(NOTE: This seminar was previously titled The Era of Theodore Roosevelt.)

NEW for 2022

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 18, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session: July 19, 6:00–7:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 20, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• Final Open Discussion: July 21, 6:00–6:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

Eric Rauchway, Distinguished Professor of History, University of California, Davis

Description:

Professor Eric Rauchway considers the causes and consequences of the economic slump of 1929–1933 with the economic recovery of 1933–1941 under the New Deal. The seminar examines the scope and effects of the Great Depression, considering particularly how it placed democratic institutions in peril and contributed to the rise of fascist movements. It then considers the New Deal not only as a program for restoring economic prosperity but more importantly as an effort to reinvigorate democratic institutions, concluding with an investigation of the transition from the New Deal into mobilization for the Second World War. Lectures and readings focus on the political, social, and economic history of the United States in this period and especially on the policies of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first two terms in office.

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 25, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session and National WWII Museum Session: July 26, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 27, 3:00–5:00 p.m. ET 
• National WWII Museum Session and Final Open Discussion: July 28, 3:00–4:30 p.m. ET 

Scholar:

Michael S. Neiberg, Chair of War Studies, US Army War College

Description:

This seminar aims to put context and nuance into the traditional American views of the Second World War. Although keeping the American experience at the center, it will always view that experience through a global lens. We will challenge some of the myths and half-truths that Hollywood has bequeathed to Americans about the war, while introducing participants to some arguments that have emerged from the latest scholarship on themes like the home front, the actual fighting of the war, and the processes of peacemaking. This is not the seminar to learn more about George Patton and his tanks; it is intended to be a serious, scholarly, and objective analysis of the interplay between American, world, and military history during the most destructive war ever.

Sponsor:

This seminar is sponsored by the National WWII Museum. The National WWII Museum tells the story of the American experience in the war that changed the world—why it was fought, how it was won, and what it means today—so that all generations will understand the price of freedom and be inspired by what they learn. Thanks to the Museum’s support, teachers participating in this seminar will have the opportunity to participate in two additional live sessions and will get exclusive access to related resources provided by the National WWII Museum.

NEW for 2022

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Live Lecture and Pedagogy Session: July 18, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session and USS Midway Museum Session: July 19, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 20, 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET 
• USS Midway Museum Session and Final Open Discussion: July 21, 1:00–2:30 p.m. ET 

Scholars:

Live Sessions: Daniel Sargent, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

Pre-recorded Lectures: Jeremi Suri, Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs, University of Texas at Austin

Description:

For a half-century, the Cold War shaped the world. From its obvious consequences in Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam, to its more subtle impact on American culture and daily life, the Cold War was the dominant reality of everyday life.

This seminar examines the origins, strategy, and consequences of the Cold War from a global perspective. We will look closely at the conflict’s impact not only in the United States and Russia, but also in sometimes unexpected nations across Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. Participants will read eye-opening primary source documents that illustrate the Cold War’s many complexities, twists, and turns, and consider the latest scholarship interpreting what we now know—a generation after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Sponsor:

This seminar 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. Thanks to the USS Midway’s support, teachers in this seminar will have the opportunity to participate in two additional live sessions. 

Live Sessions:

• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 20, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• Scholar Session and First Division Museum Session: June 21, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 22, 6:00–8:00 p.m. ET 
• First Division Museum Session and Final Open Discussion: June 23, 6:00–7:30 p.m. ET

Scholar:

Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs and Professor of History, Harvard University

Description:

This seminar covers the long struggle for Vietnam, waged between 1940 and 1975, with particular attention to the period of direct American involvement. The events will be considered in their relationship to Vietnam’s history, to US politics and society, and to the concurrent Cold War.

Sponsor:

This seminar is sponsored by the First Division Museum at Cantigny Park. The First Division Museum's mission is to interpret and promote U.S. Military History Through the Lens of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division — also known as the Big Red One (BRO). The Museum presents and promote U.S. Military History with an added perspective of preserving BRO artifacts, archival materials and history.

Presenter:

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

Description: 

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and the world was sent into a mindset based on the question “What if...?” Kennedy had challenged United States citizens to be active citizens, participating in government, demanding change and striving to create a new frontier for future generations. In this program, educators will explore Kennedy’s New Frontier and look at how it changed the country before and after President Kennedy’s death by focusing on three major issues from his time in office.

Explore the roles of the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War and the Space Race during the 1960s and connect these issues to current events your students are witnessing in their lives. This session will help address the questions “Why is studying history important?” and “How did we get here?” by showing that modern day issues are not isolated to the present. Using Museum collections and curriculum, educators will explore the challenges and choices President Kennedy faced during his time in office and the impact of his legacy through discussion and hands-on activities for the classroom. 
 

Sponsor:

This seminar 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.

Presenters:

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

Description:

This interactive presentation will illustrate that the Civil Rights Movement was much more than a thirteen-year series of protest events beginning with Rosa Parks’s arrest in Montgomery in 1955 and concluding with Dr. King being assassinated in Memphis in 1968. The Black Freedom Struggle has continued over 400 years, starting in West Africa, and has affected the entire United States, far beyond the Deep South. Through broadening the narrative, we see evidence that the Movement’s efforts and successes were bolstered by countless brave activists including young people, women, and unsung heroes, who used a variety of strategies and took extraordinary actions, in the fight for freedom.

Presenters will offer resources, practical applications, and pedagogical approaches for teaching Civil Rights inclusively and authentically. Through exploring primary sources, such as objects from the Museum’s teaching collections and by sharing activities to connect historical oppression with inequities which still exist today, we make the Civil Rights movement more relevant and accessible to students. After this workshop, teachers will have methods to help students engage with history, find their potential to join today’s social justice movements, and become changemakers now and in the future.

Sponsor:

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.

Presenters:

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

Description:

While Emma Lazarus is best known for “The New Colossus,” a stanza of which was emblazoned onto the Statue of Liberty after her death, the poet was also a political activist who fought for the rights of immigrants and stood up to anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence and economic inequality with contemporaries like Frederick Douglass, Henry George, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Julia Ward Howe. This session will explore the ways in which late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debates about gender, religion, immigration, race, and labor engaged New Yorkers and other Americans—and how they, in turn, responded from atop soapboxes and on picket lines.

Focusing on NYC’s Union Square, educators will be given the tools to help students identify their own town’s center of politics. Whether through a focus on an individual like Lazarus, or a focus on social causes, presenters will address broader trends of a changing city and nation and shed light on the contours of the ever-evolving identity of the United States.

Sponsor: 

This seminar 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.

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

Description:

Join the Hingham Historical Society for a discussion with historian James B. Conroy focused on the research behind his 2016 book, Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime, co-winner of the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. Lincoln’s White House is the first book devoted to the look, feel, and scent of the Civil War White House. Going behind the scenes through the keen eyes and ears of its residents, servants, guards, and aides and the constant stream of generals, celebrities, and ordinary citizens who passed through its open doors, the book brings the house to life, unveils its military, political, and domestic operations, and explores Lincoln’s use of the Executive Mansion as a rallying point for the war and an engine for social change.

Sponsor: This seminar 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.

Presenter:

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

Check back later this spring for a description of this session.

Sponsor:

This seminar 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.

Presenter:

Mimi Stephens, Director of Professional Development, The Choices Program

Description:

Join Brown University’s Choices Program in a webinar on the importance of teaching the conquest and settlement of North America as a process of “settler colonialism.” Drawing from Choices' curriculum units Westward Expansion: A New History and Imperial America: U.S. Global Expansion, 1890-1915, Choices Director of Professional Development will discuss the shift in historiography away from “westward expansion” and toward “settler colonialism,” as well as examine the links between US settler colonialism and other forms of US imperialism. Ms. Stephens will also discuss lesson plans and classroom tips on how to teach about settler colonialism. Participants in the webinar will receive a one-year Digital Editions license to their choice of either Choices’ Westward Expansion: A New History curriculum unit or Choices’ Imperial America curriculum unit.

Sponsor:

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 U.S. and beyond. In order to accomplish this, Choices collaborates with leading scholars to develop curriculum materials and provide teacher professional development.

Presenters:

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

Description:

This session showcases an immersive virtual field trip through an historic house in Deerfield, Massachusetts, documenting life from 1725 to 1850. Using close-up investigations of the objects of everyday life, students learn about English settlement in the Connecticut River Valley, the displacement of the Pocumtuck people from their homeland, the introduction and perpetuation of enslavement of African peoples, early colonial wars, the American Revolution, the New Republic, the abolition movement, and the Industrial Revolution. Pre- and post-visit primary source documents expand the experience. The session will begin with an overview of the history and location of Deerfield, Massachusetts, within New England and American history. Accessible to anybody in the world, this field trip is a vital tool for any teacher studying American history before the Civil War. National standards for American history will be addressed for both elementary and secondary levels.

Sponsor:

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.