What do an English historian, an Italian wine merchant, an anti-slavery advocate, and the Father of the Constitution have in common? Each of these individuals—Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham, Philip Mazzei, Francis Asbury, and James Madison—paid one or more visits during the years 1783–1789 to the retired leader of the American Revolutionary forces, George Washington, at his Virginia waterfront plantation, Mount Vernon. Perhaps these guests marveled at the brilliant colors of the mansion's main dining room. They might have strolled around the grounds and seen the slaves performing the multitude of tasks necessary to make the plantation flourish. It's likely that the visitors sat on the east-facing piazza and watched the ships sail up and down the Potomac River. Finally, and most significantly, these visitors—and others like them—participated in dialogues and discussions at Mount Vernon which resulted in the creation of the American constitutional system. The Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop, "Shaping the Constitution: A View from Mount Vernon 1783–89," funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities We the People initiative, is an opportunity for educators (and ultimately their students) to gain a better understanding of Mount Vernon as a crossroads for the discussion of ideas that led to the Constitution. In brief, the workshop offers academic content about Mount Vernon, George Washington, and the Constitution; the opportunity to engage in scholarly discourse with leading academics; a stipend to help cover housing and meal costs; a transportation allowance; networking with other social studies teachers from around the nation; and ongoing professional development opportunities and the opportunity to earn graduate credit.

From the Library of Congress website:

"The four-day institute will provide educators with the tools and resources to effectively integrate primary sources into classroom teaching.

Though many teachers are familiar with the importance of primary sources, they are not sure how to use them in the classroom, how to develop inquiry-based lessons, or how to help students use them in projects. In this institute, Library of Congress education specialists will introduce participants to the unique characteristics of primary sources, while helping them explore some of the millions of digitized primary sources available on the Library's Web site. Participants will be able to work with like-minded teachers from around the country to explore methods for effectively integrating primary sources into classroom activities.

After participating in the Summer Teacher Institutes, participants will:

• Understand and analyze primary sources
• Employ primary sources in classroom activities
• Access primary sources from the Library of Congress
• Understand the legal and ethical use of digital resources
• Understand the inquiry process
• Create inquiry-based activities using primary sources"

From the National Humanities Center website:

"This seminar will approach American history after World War II as a history of social movements. The first session will explore the black freedom movement with an eye to new scholarly interpretations of a 'long civil rights movement' reaching back to the New Deal and beyond the 1970s and including the North and West as well as the South. The second session will examine the women's movement and the conservative movement for insight into the relationships among various movements. It will conclude with a discussion of how viewing the era from 1945 to 1990 as an era of social movements can bring new coherence to the recent past."

From the National Humanities Center website:

"One of the most familiar truisms about the United States is that we are a 'nation of immigrants.' Indeed, immigration and immigrants inform nearly every narrative of progress and possibility that Americans have told about themselves for more than a century, from individual stories of rags to riches to generational accounts of upward mobility and becoming American. And yet, immigration today remains one of the most controversial political topics, generating intense conflicts over who or what is an American and who should have the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. In this seminar, we examine and compare two waves of immigration to the United States: the 'new' immigration between 1890 and 1920, composed mainly of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and Japan; and contemporary immigration, post 1964, involving undocumented and legal migration from Southeast Asia, Mexico, Central America, and Africa. By exploring changes and continuities in immigration to the United States, we seek to historicize contemporary controversies and fears."

Through the Institute, teachers begin an investigation of the history of the Holocaust, the systematic, planned annihilation of European Jews and other groups by Nazi Germany from 1933–1945. Participants will also broaden their depth of knowledge about current genocides and continued episodes of man's inhumanity to man during the 20th and 21st centuries. The institute includes a wide range of age-appropriate resources and strategies being modeled through exploration of the best practices in an integrated teaching model. Educators will be equipped to return to their classrooms with the knowledge and pedagogical resources to teach in a manner that leads to an investigation of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping. Educators will examine what it means to be a responsible and respectful person for the purpose of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions.

From the Lyndon B. Johnson Museum and Library newsletter:

"The LBJ Library and Museum and Education Service Center, Region XIII will co-sponsor a symposium for high school teachers at the LBJ Library on July 13 and 14, 2009.

Twentieth Century Conflicts in U.S. History will feature

* Dr. Mark Lawrence, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Lawrence is author of Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam which won two awards from the American Historical Association: the Paul Birdsall Prize for European military and strategic history and the George Louis Beer Prize for European international history. He has also written several chapters and articles on the Vietnam War and other topics in U.S. diplomatic history. He is currently at work on a study of U.S. policymaking regarding Third World nationalism in the 1960s and a short history of the Vietnam War. He is also co-editor (with Fredrik Logevall of Cornell University) of The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis, a volume of essays about the French war in Indochina.
* Additional speakers from the Fort Worth Regional Archives (World War I), Roosevelt Library (World War II), the Truman Library (World War II), the Eisenhower Library (Korea), the Kennedy Library (Cold War), the LBJ Library (Vietnam), the Ford Library (fall of Saigon), and the George H.W. Bush Library (the Gulf War).

Primary source materials will be featured in related topics.
Cost of the symposium is $50 and includes all materials, a CD/DVD of all primary sources, and breakfast and lunch for both days. Space is limited so register early.
Use the Workshop ID SU0915826 to register online."

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."

Participants in this workshop will spend two days in the historic village of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, boyhood community of President Calvin Coolidge, exploring civic life and responsibilities through primary sources.

This seminar examines legal segregation in the American South from its origin in the 1890s until its demise by the end of the 1960s through the autobiographical writings of the most prominent interpreters of the era, black and white, male and female. Participants will explore the reasons for segregation's rise and fall and its legal, social, and moral aspects.