This seminar explores how an economically and politically powerless racial minority wrested dramatic change from a determined and entrenched white majority in the American South. It will examine the changing nature of protest from the 1940s to the 1950s; the roles of Martin Luther King, Jr., local movements, and women; and the relative importance of violence and nonviolence. Participants will discuss how they can use the experiences of schoolchildren, teachers, and students in the crises of the 1950s and 1960s to bring home the realities of the Civil Rights Movement in the classroom. Topics include the Little Rock Nine and their teachers in 1957, students and sit-ins, and the use of schoolchildren in the 1963 Birmingham demonstrations.

The Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars are designed to strengthen participants' commitment to high quality history teaching. Public, parochial, independent school teachers, and National Park Service rangers are eligible. These week-long seminars provide intellectual stimulation and a collaborative context for developing practical resources and strategies to take back to the classroom.

Professor David Kennedy examines the experience of the American people in the Great Depression and World War II. Lecture topics include the origins and impact of the Great Depression; the nature and legacy of the New Deal; the military and diplomatic dimensions of American participation in World War II; and the war's impact on American society. Special attention will be given to the historical debate about the Depression's causes; America and the Holocaust; the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans; and the use of atomic bombs against Japan.

From the Newberry Library website:

"[This conference] will support teachers in the development of lessons using images from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Picturing America program.

Conferences will feature presentations by distinguished scholars and sharing of resources in workshop formats. We will use the Newberry Library’s collections as well as a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago and a walking tour of Chicago’s Loop to model ways for teachers to use local resources in their own communities."

Professors Kenneth Jackson and Karen Markoe explore one of the most exciting and important periods in American history: the quarter century between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. Lectures focus on the rise of machine politics, the transportation revolution, the development of new social elites, the changing role of women, the literary figures who helped define the age, housing for the rich and poor, and an examination of the city at the center of the Gilded Age, New York.

From the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum workshop:

"This three-day workshop will bring up to twenty teachers from western states schools to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on March 4-6, 2010. Social Studies and Language Arts teachers of grades 6-12 with five or less years of experience in teaching about the Holocaust are encouraged to apply. In addition, teachers of other disciplines such as journalism and library and media specialists should consider applying.

Educators from suburban and rural schools from these states are eligible:

AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, NM, OR, UT, WA, WY

Teachers will use the Museum's Permanent Exhibition, the exhibit 'State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda,' and the interactive installation 'From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide,' as their primary classroom as they learn the history of this tragic event. Museum staff and scholars will then assist participants in exploring questions of rationale, content, and methodology in teaching the Holocaust."

The Progressive Era marked the modernization of the American state, the expansion of citizenship, the ascendancy of "big business," the transformation of American liberalism, and the development of a social politics. It was also the moment when the United States assumed the role of a world power, culminating in its participation in World War I and its role in negotiating the ambitious but flawed treaty that ended it. Taking exception to interpretations of the era that see "American exceptionalism," this seminar will explore the era and its reforms (and their limits) in the context of the larger global response to industrialization and urbanization under conditions of unregulated capitalism.

The ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in December 1865 abolished slavery in the United States, formally, officially, and legally. A century and a half after Emancipation, however, the question of slavery still roils the waters of American life. This seminar, led by Ira Berlin, will view the development of chattel bondage in mainland North America from the perspective of the larger Atlantic world. Topics include the nature of the slave trade, the distinction between societies with slaves and slave societies, the evolution of plantation slavery, the transforming face of the Age of Revolutions, the remaking of slavery in the 19th century, and the contemporary debate about the meaning of slavery for American life.

Led by Patty Limerick, this seminar uses focused case studies to explore the larger picture of environmental history, a subject that has grown increasingly complex as historians deepen their understanding of the vast role of "anthropogenic change" (also known as "history") in reconfiguring the places and processes thought of as "natural." Much of the seminar explores the transformation of attitudes, from the assessment of North American landscapes and resources by early settlers to the recognition of the changing "baseline" of global warming, along with a reconsideration—and revision—of the usual polarity-pitting utilitarian approaches in opposition to preservationist approaches to the management of nature. With guest speakers drawn from the University of Colorado's widely respected environmental studies program, the roles of naturalists and scientists in shaping American thinking about nature will receive particular attention, as will changes in the production and consumption of energy, a fundamental matter in environmental history. The concluding field trip to Rocky Mountain National Park gives the themes of the lectures and discussions a down-to-earth grounding in a visit to one of the most popular units in the nation's public lands, while close attention to John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid provides a framework for drawing lessons from the past to enhance the quality of contemporary environmental decision-making.