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Program Seminars
Slavery and the Civil War is one of four core content areas of the “Roots of a Nation” Teaching American History Initiative. The “Roots of a Nation” program offers four unique seminars in this content area, including:
2011-12 Dates: Friday &
Saturday, September 30 - October 1, 2011
“Hometown History” will show educators how to make use of
historical resources in their own communities; how to engage
students in researching and studying the places where they live;
and how to connect local history to larger historical events. As
our “laboratory,” we will use Chestertown, Md., a town whose
rich history stretches back more than 300 years. This seminar
will focus particularly on using original historical documents,
whether in the classroom or during field trips. We will discover
how records of one local community – including 19th-century
newspaper articles, firsthand slave narratives, and census
records – vividly reveal how the Underground Railroad and the
Civil War were experienced by ordinary citizens of this small
American town. Teachers will also learn how primary sources can
“bring to life” a local historic site (such as Chestertown’s
Civil War veterans’ hall) by revealing individual stories of
people who took part in its history. Participants will discuss
research strategies and Maryland-specific resources with State
Archivist Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse, Jr. and Chris Haley, Research
Director for the Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland
Program at the Maryland State Archives, and nephew of author
Alex Haley.
Program 2: “Picturing the
Past”
2011-12 Dates: Friday &
Saturday, May 11-12, 2012 Too
often, history teachers rely almost wholly on the written word.
“Picturing the Past” will explore how history can also unfold
itself through the visual arts. We will spend two days in
Washington, D.C., home to some of the nation’s most important
museums and monuments. Day 1 will include visits to the
Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait
Gallery to look closely at visual representations of the Civil
War, slavery, and emancipation, and discuss how to explore
history using works of art. On Day 2, we will examine different
monuments to the war around the city, including the Lincoln
Memorial, the Shaw Memorial at the National Gallery, and the
African American Civil War Memorial. To close the program, our
master teacher will lead a workshop on specific strategies for
incorporating art into history education. The
two lead instructors of “Picturing the Past,” Goodheart and
McColl, co-founded the annual American Pictures Distinguished
Lecture Series at the Smithsonian, which invites leading
cultural figures to explore American history and identity
through works of art.
Program 3:
“Heartland of the Civil War”
2011-12 Dates:
Monday-Friday, July 9-13, 2012 This
five-day program will take participants on a journey around the
Chesapeake Bay and into the heart of Civil War, focusing
specifically on the concept of the war era as a “new birth of
freedom,” especially for African Americans. Participants will
learn about men, women, and even children who fought heroically,
in large and small ways, to help their country realize fully its
promise of liberty for all. The group will explore such sites as
Antietam National Battlefield, site of the bloodiest single-day
battle in American history, Cedar Hill (home of the abolitionist
leader Frederick Douglass), and Lincoln’s Cottage at the
Soldiers’ Home (where the Emancipation Proclamation was
drafted). Such sites have successful and well-developed
educational programming that will provide teachers with
professionally designed resources. However, we will also visit
lesser-known places where the struggle for freedom comes vividly
to life, so that teachers will discover how they and their
students can explore such places on their own. These sites
include Hampton National Historic Site (a Maryland plantation
from which large numbers of enslaved workers escaped in the
years leading up the war), and Sandy Spring, Md., a small Quaker
community in which manumitted slaves lived and worked on their
own land, creating a stable free black community that helped
fugitives along the Underground Railroad. We
will also visit the National Museum of Civil War Medicine (with
exhibits on triage, sick call, and Civil War hospitals) and
Harpers’ Ferry, West Virginia, site of John Brown’s famous 1859
raid. At Harpers’ Ferry, participants will have the option of
spending an afternoon tubing on the Potomac River. We will spend
one night experiencing the life of 19th-century
sailor onboard the USS Constellation, which served as flagship
of the African Squadron from 1859 to 1860, pursuing slave ships
departing from Africa.
Throughout the trip, teachers will meet with education
specialists at the larger sites, as well as nationally known
experts in the fields of African-American and Civil War history,
including T. Stephen Whitman (scholar of Maryland’s role in the
Civil War era). Each day, the group will address how its
activities and readings can translate into classroom activities.
Near the end of the trip, the master teacher will lead an
intensive lesson plan workshop.
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